The World Tomorrow

The Calling of God - Part 1

by Herbert W Armstrong

(PLAY FROM START)

And once again, greetings everybody.

There is a song that many people sing; 'Whosoever Will May Come'. Have you ever seen that in the Bible? Well it's there, but it's over - it's just four verses from the last verse in the whole Bible, in the twenty-second chapter of the book of Revelation. And it is the time after the Millennium, and after the time, or at the time, I am going to be talking to you about this afternoon.

Now if we try to view what is going to happen after that Millennium. If we try to view it from the point in time of the present, it'll be a good deal like turning on a motion picture show on television, or entering a motion picture theatre with the show about two thirds over. Well often that is the way; if you don't know what lead up to it, if you don't know what went before, you don't understand what's going on now. And you can't understand today's life and where the world is today, today's world events, the events that we're going to go through very soon in the next thousand years - that will begin very soon - unless we go back to the beginning and we see what has led up to our time and our day.

Now it was on the last day of the festival while Christ was on earth, and He was keeping these feast days. He was setting us an example, and in the seventh chapter of John you'll find it is said here:

"In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood [up] and cried...If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink. He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his [innermost being] shall flow rivers of living water." (John 7:37-38)

Now He didn't say, "whosoever will may come," that's a different time. Whosoever will cannot come now. If we turn back a page or two in your Bible to John the sixth chapter and verse 44, Jesus also said:

"No man can come to me [now get that, no man can, he simply can't come to Christ], except the Father which hath sent me draw him..." (John 6:44)

Now is there a contradiction? Not at all, because Jesus had said; "...If any man thirst..." (John 7:37). I tell you people are not going to thirst for the Holy Spirit. I didn't finish reading that, but this He spoke, when He said:

"...come unto to me and drink...this he spake of the Spirit [the Holy Spirit of God] which they that believe on him should receive: for the Holy Spirit was not yet [at that time] given [none of them had the Holy Spirit yet at that time, not even the apostles. It was not given]; because...Jesus [had not yet been] glorified." (John 7:37,39)

But now, no one can thirst for God's Holy Spirit unless God has called you, they simply can't. And no one is going to believe. Many people believe there is a God, they say, "Oh, I believe in God alright." If I say anything to the average person who is not a Christian, "Oh, I believe in God." Of course sometimes the same person will often say, "Well, I'm no saint you know," and try to brag about how evil they are. That's the way human beings are. But I say; "You believe in God, but do you believe God?" "Uh, uh, well what's the difference?" Well there's all the difference in the world. Adam and Eve believed in God, they knew that God was their Maker and their Creator, but they didn't believe what He said.

Jesus came and proclaimed the truth, and as you'll find in the eighth chapter of John, one more page over, but I'm not going to take the time to read it. From that time on many of the Jews began to believe on Christ. And to them that believed on Him He said; "Why do you seek to kill me? Why do you want to put me to death? Why do you persecute Me? It's because My word that I speak, the message that I bring, has no place in you. You don't believe what I say." (John 8:40-45)

Do you realize the great difference my brethren, that there's a great difference between believing in God, and believing God, which is to believe WHAT HE SAYS? And to believe, it means that you do it. Now that has something to do with predestination. Predestination has nothing to do with what decision you are going to make, whether you're going to be saved or lost. It has to do with the time when you will be called.

And almost nobody has been called up till now since Adam and Eve. Very, very few have been called. I'm going to say a few things about that as we go along this afternoon. Why could only those who are called come to Christ? Well I want to go back and show you. And those that have been called have been predestined to be called. And predestination has to do with the time when you're called, and most people are not going to be called until the Millennium begins.

Creation In The Process of Duality (PLAY FROM 06:06)

Now to understand, we need to take a sort of panorama of events leading up to this present time. Now God is the Creator. You know, the ancient King David looked up into the heavens at night. Sometimes it is very spectacular on a clear night, when you can see all of the stars up there, if there are no clouds in the sky. And David wondered about it, he said that God - they had been made by the fingers of God, everything that he saw, he was quite concerned about it.

And God is a Creator and He created all of that. He created humanity. He gives us the breath that we breathe. He causes the blood to be present in our bodies, in our bloodstream and our hearts to beat. And God is what keeps your heart ticking, and when mine stopped He started it again, for which I am thankful or I wouldn't be here this afternoon. But God creates in a process of duality. He doesn't create everything just bang, all at once, there are nearly always two stages.

I wonder if you have ever heard of unfinished furniture? Very fine quality, perfect as far as it goes, but it hasn't had the finishing polish, or paint, or varnish, or whatever put on. And you buy it in the raw, and if you are expert enough to finish it yourself, you can save some money. Now I've bought furniture that way. I didn't try to finish it myself because I don't know how, but I had people who do know how do it. But sometimes you can get better material that way than you can in a finished furniture store.

Well God created the earth like that, and He intended the angels to finish it. He created man like that, but man isn't finished the way God created him in Adam, that was his physical creation only. The spiritual creation begins with the second chapter of Genesis when God created the Sabbath by rest. That was the beginning, or the real beginning of course, so far as man is concerned, is in Christ, the second Adam. And that spiritual creation is still going on. That is the second stage of the creation of man.

Now when Adam was created that was only the first stage and he had one spirit that implanted the power of intellect to a physical brain and make the difference between an animal brain and a human physical mind. And he had that one spirit but he was made to need another spirit, the Holy Spirit of God. And your mind isn't complete until you get the Spirit of God. Just the one spirit - you're only half there. You're not all there, in plain language, and the most educated people in this world, they're just not all there.

I have said many times that the most highly educated are the most ignorant, because they don't know anything about what God has prepared for humanity. They don't understand why humanity is here on earth. They don't know where we're going. They don't know what the whole plan of God is. They don't know what it's all about. They don't know what man is. They don't know what God is, they don't know any of these things. And what's more they don't want to know, they don't care, they're willingly ignorant, as you'll read in the Bible, willingly ignorant of those things (II Peter 3:3-5).

The Fall of the Super Archangel Lucifer (PLAY FROM 09:53)

Now when Adam was created Satan was here on earth, and this next question is; where did Satan come from? Did God create a devil to torment us? No He didn't, but I'll tell you what He did do, God created a super archangel, and you will notice in the twenty-eighth chapter of Ezekiel and in verse 15, speaking of this super archangel. He says now, verse 14;

"Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth..." (Ezekiel 28:14)

In other words he was one of the two cherubs whose wings spread out over the very throne of God, and covered the throne of God. He had been at the headquarters of the government of the universe. He had been trained there at Universe Headquarters:

"...and [God says] I have set thee so: thou [hast been] upon the holy mountain of God; thou has walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire [now get this]. Thou was perfect in thy ways [thou was perfect in thy ways] from the day that thou was created..." (Ezekiel 28:14-15)

He was not born of a father and mother like you and I. He is a created being, a super being far more powerful than any of us humans. We will be made more powerful than he is in the long run, because we're the heirs of God. But: "Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee." (Ezekiel 28:15)

Now God gave him a mind capable of thinking and reasoning. God had given him the knowledge of the truth. God had shown him the right and true way. God had set him on a throne here on the earth to administer the Government of God, and God had put angels, apparently a third of the angels, under him. And they inhabited this earth before the first man was ever created. That's before you come to the first chapter of Genesis and the second verse. And what God had created was a perfect archangel but he himself did not believe what God said. He believed in God alright. There is one scripture that says; the demons believe and tremble:

"Thou believest there is one God; yeah, well you do well: the demons believe that but they tremble." (James 2:19 paraphrased).

Just believing that God exists is not enough, we must believe what He says. Most people argue and say, "Well don't bother me with what He says, I don't want to hear that. I'd rather go look at the football game on television." Or, "I'd rather watch a raw sex movie, or something with a lot of violence in it. I'd rather do things like that, or maybe I'd rather go to a nightclub or something." A lot of people feel that way about it.

But iniquity, which is rebellion, which is sin, which is the transgression of the law of God (I John 3:4)). Now the Government of God was set over those angels on this earth. And you can't have a government without a basic constitution or law. Even a city ordinance, a city government, has an ordinance and a basis. Every government has to be founded on some kind of a law, and God's Government is always based on His spiritual law.

Now that spiritual law as it applies to human beings, to man, is codified in the Ten Commandments, and it's love toward God and love toward neighbor. God's way then is the way of outgoing love, but Satan had turned to the way of incoming get. In other words the way of vanity, the way of lust and greed and towards others, the way of envy and jealousy, and the way of competition and strife, the way of rebellion, and of resentment of any authority over one.

I tell you that is the worst thing that you can have, to come to that rebellion which will lead not only to discontent, but to resentment and bitterness. If you ever let that get into you, I tell you, you will not get it out. Once the devil has got you hooked with that, he's got you hooked for a long time, if not for keeps. But iniquity, rebellion, had disqualified this wonderful archangel Lucifer who is a super angel, not an ordinary angel, a cherub, and it disqualified him. And now the Government of God was not being executed on the earth any longer.

Now when God created Adam, and God now decided that the only way that He could find people that would do what He wanted the angels to do – and you've heard about how "...the whole creation is just waiting for the manifestation of the sons of God" (Romans 8:19). And the whole creation is in a state of decay and waiting for us. Do you know what that means? It's waiting for man, when man has been born of God. It's waiting for man to make over the waste places like the moon and like Mars.

And you know the very first pictures that came in from Mars were shown in the Ambassador Auditorium, simultaneously with what the scientists were getting up at the JPL (Jet Propulsion Laboratory), which is just a stone's throw from Ambassador College in Pasadena. But they let us have the pictures, and we had an auditorium full. And they began coming in about 5:08 or 5:10 in the morning from Mars, and we saw nothing but wasteness, desolation. And it is not the way God created it, because it is a result of decay. That's something that has happened since creation.

Now God had intended the angels to finish the creation of this earth and beautify it, to work with the materials in the earth. Think of all the materials that are in matter. And the thing that the angels could have done to improve this earth and to make it more beautiful all the time. But instead of that they polluted everything. And so you find in the second verse of Genesis one, that the earth had become chaotic and in confusion, waste and empty, or deteriorated and in a state of decay. Now another thing, darkness covered the face of the earth. Satan loves darkness!

God Creates Man to Reproduce Himself (PLAY FROM 16:58)

But now, God created man in His own image. God is reproducing Himself. But He had to make man in order to do it of matter, because if man did what the angels had done, if man turned to rebellion and to destruction instead of construction and creation, being a physical being of matter he could change.

Now let me explain another thing, that you probably have not heard before, unless I think I have written it, and you may have read it. Angel creation could not be complete until character - either righteous or evil - had been created within them. Their creation was not completed. But God gave them minds like He has given human beings minds. And He gave them knowledge to see what they would do with it. And the angels, a third of all the angels, probably the third that was on the earth, had turned the wrong way, and they had turned to rebellion. They had turned to the way of GET instead of the way of GIVE.

When God created Adam He created man out of matter. But He made him in His own form and shape, in other words His image and in His likeness. Now Adam had an opportunity to qualify to restore the Government of God on this earth and to replace the disqualified Satan. Because Lucifer's name now was changed to Satan, the former archangel Lucifer. He is now Satan the devil and his angels are now called demons.

And Adam, however, had to overcome him and had to accept the Kingdom of God, and show that he would administer the Government of God. And accept the laws of God and the way of God, and reject the way of Satan. So Adam had to qualify. Now the choice was symbolized by the two trees in the Garden of Eden. The Tree of Life was a symbol of God's Holy Spirit which would, if he could have taken that, would have given him immortal, eternal spirit life.

The other tree was the knowledge of good and evil, which he did take. Which means he took to himself the knowledge of what is right and what is wrong instead of letting God tell him what is right and what is wrong. God's law tells us the way that is right, and the transgression of it is the way that's wrong. But when Adam took to himself that knowledge, he rejected that law. He rejected the Government of God and he rejected God.

Now then, God did not allow any contact between Adam and Satan until after God had first instructed Adam and Eve. And Satan had no way to get to them until then. Satan cannot do anything God does not allow. But Satan did then, when God allowed it, get to Adam through his wife Eve. You know there's one way - the average man loves his wife I think, I know I do mine. A man will do a lot of things for his wife because he loves her.

And love is an outgoing concern for the good of the other person and you're thinking what is good for them instead of just for yourself. It's not selfishness, it's just the opposite. God is supreme love. God loves us all and He is the great giver. God is not one who gets, He's one who gives. But you know old mother Eve was deceived, and Satan is very clever, he got her so deceived she didn't realize what she was doing.

The Result of the First Scientific Experiment (PLAY FROM 20:52)

Now mother Eve made the first scientific experiment. You might call her the mother of modern science, because the tools of modern science in this world are simply first of all, the rejection of inspired knowledge, or revelation, which is the Bible, the revealed knowledge of God. The first thing that scientists do is reject the Bible.

You will find a history, an ancient history, and if it's in the Bible it won't be in the ancient history. Because they say; "If it's in the Bible we won't have anything to do with it." You won't find anything about a flood in ancient history. You won't find anything about Israelites (and by the way only the tribes of Judah were Jews, the rest of them were not), being led by Moses and the waters of the Red Sea opening up so they could walk through, then drowning Pharaoh's armies after them. You won't find that in any man-written book of history, because the first thing they do is reject the Word of God! So Eve, mother Eve, rejected what God had said.

Now the next thing in science, the tools and the method that is used by science, this is scientific, is observation and reason. Observation is what you see, and that would include measurement, and so on, and reason. And then experimentation.

Now then, when Eve saw with her eyes that this forbidden fruit, the tree, was very pleasant to the eyes, and very beautiful, it was good for food. It was desired to make one wise, and that began to give her not only curiosity but a lot of intellectual vanity. And there was observation. Now she used reason, and she said "It's good, and Satan has said that God misrepresented when God said we'll surely die. Satan says we are an immortal soul, and I believe Satan must be right. I don't believe God."

Then she tried an experiment. Now that's the next thing of science is experimentation. So she tried an experiment, and she led her husband to try that experiment with her. They took of that fruit and did eat. Now the result of that experiment, what was it? That was the first scientific experiment and scientists are still making scientific experiments today. Well the result is they both died in due time, but it was more than that. You find in the third chapter of Genesis here, and it's after they had done all of this:

"And the [Eternal] God said, Behold, the man [has] become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever:" (Genesis 3:22)

Lest he gain immortality, and you see the man was not immortal. God said; "You are not an immortal spirit, when you take that fruit you're gonna die." (Genesis 2:17) Lest he take of it and live forever:

"Therefore the [Eternal] God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken. [And] So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life." (Genesis 3:23-24)

So that nobody, Adam or any of his descendants could get back there to the Tree of Life, or to the Holy Spirit. That is the rivers of living waters that Jesus was talking about on that last day of the feast when He was here on earth.

Now God had said in effect to Adam, He said, "You have listened to your wife, you have believed Satan, you did not believe Me. You had to make a choice. You have taken of the tree that is rebellion against Me and you're going to decide for yourself what is the right way to go and you're rejecting My law. You are rejecting my government, you've rejected Me as your God, you've rejected Me as your Savior, you have rejected Me as the revealer of knowledge, of basic knowledge. Therefore I pronounce sentence on you Adam and on your descendants that'll come from you. Which means the whole world, for six thousand years. I pronounce sentence that you shall be cut off from Me. You can't come to Me, you'll be cut off." God said, "You are going to be cut off from Me." And all humanity, except those God has called, have been cut off.

Christ said; "No man can come to [Him], except the Father...draw him..." (John 6:44)

Oh yes, they were all cut off. Now there's much more to it that I haven't time for now, because the creation is not yet complete. Remember I said that God creates by duality. The first man is physical then he'll be spiritual. The first angels were made out of spirit but their character had to be developed. And their creation was not complete until they had developed that. God created the earth, as I have said, like unfinished furniture.

But it has to be finished later, and He meant for angels, when He put them on earth, to finish the beautifying of the surface of the earth. And when they didn't do it He meant for man to. And instead of beautifying it we have ruined, and we have polluted everything that man's hands have been able to touch of God's earth. That's what man has done. And yet God has given us this wonderful great potential! Thank God this is not the day when God is calling everyone, and most people, Jesus Christ said;

"No man can come to me, except the Father which...sent me draw him..." (John 6:44)

And God is only drawing a few, and to those few of us He is drawing, He is drawing us for a purpose, and that purpose always is preparing for the Kingdom of God, that is coming. It's a wonderful thing. But oh, what a Mighty God we have. Well that's it until next time. This is Herbert W Armstrong saying, "Goodbye friends, until next time."