Good morning, brethren.  Today is the last day of the Feast of Tabernacles 2006.  This day in effect pictures the last 143 years of the great Millennium.  By that time, the world will indeed be a shining and gleaming jewel!  God’s truth will cover the earth as the sea does now.  People will have long since beat their swords into plow shares.  Deserts around the earth will be blooming.  People will be going to and fro throughout the solar system and beyond in the way we currently travel on airplanes.  Indeed the world will be a very, very beautiful and productive place with peace and harmony between all nations and all peoples. What a wonderful place it will be!  This day pictures the remaining 143 years.  I wonder if at that time things will have gone by so fast because it will be so wonderful and life will be so good!  People will say the first six days went by so quickly.  We only have 143 years left, but we know God has more big things in store!  What can they be?

ELIJAH: A TURNING POINT IN HISTORY
What is interesting is, history classes will still be taught just like we have today.  Students will go to school.  There is a saying that hindsight is 20/20. What event or events will they study in history class that will make them say those were the turning points in the previous six thousand years?  What was the turning point in which we saw Satan going down?

If you would please, turn to Malachi 4.  One of the key turning points is mentioned here.  Malachi 4, verse 4:  “‘Remember the Law of Moses, My servant, which I commanded him in Horeb for all Israel, with the statutes and judgments.  Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord.  And he will turn the hearts of the father [that should be singular, ab or abba] to the children, and the hearts of the children to their father, lest I come and strike the earth with a curse.’”

I know that is singular.  I have researched it.  I have specifically asked several rabbis the question, what is the correct explanation here?  They said it is turning the hearts of the children to the Father.  They said what we do not understand about you Christians is why you feel the earth is going to get destroyed.  We are very upset that you take our scriptures and twist them around to show God to be so cruel and harsh.  You do not believe in Elijah.  Of course, I did not get into the issue with this one rabbi in particular who was so adamant.  I just listened to what he was saying, but I understood from a different point of view how important this coming of Elijah is.  I understood why the Orthodox Jews who keep the Passover to this very day set a place for him at the table every year!  They are hoping for the return of Elijah.

Here in Malachi we are told someone would come to remind us about the Law of Moses.  We know our hearts have been turned back to God by remembering the Sabbath and the holy days, God’s system.  We know that we did not come to this knowledge by ourselves. Someone had to come and explain it to us.  Of course, God drew us to the message and to the truth, but a human being was used to explain the importance of the Sabbath and the holy days and to explain so many things that we now take for granted.

The term there “curse” is the Hebrew word cherem which means as shutting in a net, for the purpose of extermination, to exterminate a dedicated thing which should have been utterly destroyed, utter destruction of a doomed object.  That is what this word “cursed” means.  You get the picture of the earth caught in a net and the people trapped in a net in order to get destroyed.  Unless an Elijah comes, that is the fate of the earth and all who dwell upon it.  We know who holds the earth captive.  We were taught that by Mr. Herbert Armstrong years ago.  The world is held captive by Satan. 

Turn back to Isaiah chapter 14.  We are going to begin in verse 12 and read to verse 17. Satan is indeed the being who holds the earth captive in a net.  We have been snared and taken away from God.

You do not have to turn to Revelation 12:9 because we know it so well.  It says that Satan deceives the whole world, which is in part how he is getting away with this whole scheme.  He deceives people and keeps them in ignorance.

Looking at history we might ask, what were the turning points?  But we might also ask, can one person alter the course of history?  Any historian will tell you absolutely.  It has happened over and over again.  I will mention a couple, but we could probably mention thousands of names.  We know Abraham Lincoln changed the course of the United States’ history.  Christopher Columbus changed the course of history.  Winston Churchill changed the course of history.  Some have changed the course of history in a wrong direction, and others have done it in the right direction.  Many, many people have changed the course of history.

In the Millennium, these people will still be spoken of.  People will still mention Winston Churchill, Abraham Lincoln and Columbus.  They will talk about how, in the struggle that humanity had, certain people of fine qualities and character cared about mankind and changed the course of history while underneath this suppressive being called Satan.  They were not perfect people, but they were decent people who cared about mankind.  But in the Millennium the main heroes (the main characters) they are going to talk about will be Biblical people.  You do not have that in the schools today.  They will say, yes, teacher, Abraham changed the course of history.  The teacher will say that is correct.  Another student will put up their hand and say Moses changed the course of history.  That is also correct, and so did David, and so did Elijah and those who wore his mantel after him.  They changed the course of history.  There are many Biblical examples of one person halting destruction.  We are going to look at a couple.

Turn to Exodus chapter 32.  We will not read the whole story about the golden calf.  We are all quite familiar with it, but we will start in verse 7 and cut into what happened after the event.  Read Exodus 32:7-14.  God was not going to break His promise.  His promise to Abraham still could have been fulfilled through Moses, but He relented because one man had the courage to stand between God and His wrath and the people of Israel.  He was a very humble man.  We know he was the humblest and the meekest man who walked the face of the earth, but he was willing to do it.  He was willing to lay down his life to stand between the Great God and the people that he loved.

DANIEL’S INTERCESSION
Turn to Daniel chapter 9.  This is another example of a faithful and very humble individual standing for the people and interceding for the people between them and God.  We are going to read Daniel’s prayer while Judah was in captivity.  Daniel 9, verse 1:  “In the first year of Darius the son of Ahasuerus, of the lineage of the Medes, who was made king over the realm of the Chaldeans, in the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, understood by the books the number of the years specified by the word of the Lord through Jeremiah the prophet, that He would accomplish seventy years in the desolations of Jerusalem.”

Let’s pause there for a moment because we also study the Bible to try to understand what God has in mind for His people and for the earth.  God does not necessarily come down as a bolt of lightning and then talk to us.  He has His words recorded.  He leads us by the Holy Spirit.  Daniel was studying what they had of the Bible at that point.  He said, you know we can get released here!  We are at the point where we could get released from this captivity!

Continue reading Daniel 9:3-11.  He was remembering what Moses wrote as well.  He said, we have let You down, God.

Verse 12:  “‘And He has confirmed His words, which He spoke against us and against our judges who judged us, by bringing upon us a great disaster; for under the whole heaven such has never been done as what has been done to Jerusalem.  As it is written in the Law of Moses, all this disaster has come upon us; yet we have not made our prayer before the Lord our God, that we might turn from our iniquities and understand Your truth.’”

He says we deserve all of this disaster.  You brought it upon us because we would not listen.  We would not listen to You!

Continue reading Daniel 9:14-19.  Daniel was undoubtedly one of the righteous men in Israel, but you notice he did not say the others have done this, God.  I am praying for them.  No, he said, we have all done this.  We all have shame on our face.  We have let you down.  Because of that one man’s humility and because of that prayer we just read, God remembered His promise and said okay.  We will fix this up and get you released.  It did not take the whole nation to realize what had happened.  It took one, just as with Moses.

Of course, the one biggest of all, the one greatest hero is Jesus Christ.  He was one Man who changed the course of history for everyone.  Let’s just read a little bit.  We do not have to examine the life of Christ to understand that very much.  It is absolutely true and beyond the shadow of a doubt.

Turn to Hebrews chapter 9.  Verse 11:  “But Christ came as High Priest of the good things to come, with the greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands, that is, not of this creation.  Not with the blood of goats and calves, but with His own blood He entered the Most Holy Place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption.”

He only needed to do it once.  One Man (one sacrifice) was sufficient to alter the course of history forever!

Skip down to Hebrews 9:27.  “And as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment, so Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many.  To those who eagerly wait for Him He will appear a second time, apart from sin, for salvation.”

For those of us who believe and for those of us who have received the Holy Spirit, He is coming back to complete the second portion of His work.  He is currently using the body of Christ to get ready for that return.

There is a big principle involved here, brethren.  Are we waiting for some huge army to deliver us?  Wasn’t that Israel’s problem?  Brethren, we must not despise the day of small things.  Sometimes God works through one person.  I want to show you an example that we can draw from to understand this principle at work.  Go to Genesis chapter 18.

We are all very familiar with the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, and that they did get destroyed by God.  But I want to go over once again how this happened, and how one man was very concerned about the situation that Sodom and Gomorrah found themselves in.  There is a principle involved here.  In Genesis 18 it talks about the angels that God had sent down.  Read Genesis 18:16-33.

We know the city was destroyed.  What did God do first?  We know II Peter refers to Lot as “righteous Lot,” and he was vexed by the sins of the people in the city, so the angels went to Lot.  They said we want you to leave the city.  So there was one righteous person there, and that was staying back the anger of God.  One!  God said we will remove you so that we can deal with this situation, which is actually merciful in the case of Sodom and Gomorrah.

The point is, brethren, one person can make a huge difference, especially when they have God on their side and He is working with them.  We must not minimize what God has wrought.  Let’s go back and review some of the work of Jesus Christ, our High Priest. We will go back to Hebrews chapter 9.  This time we are going to read more of the chapter, because it compares Solomon’s temple and the ancient workings of the Levitical priesthood, and Christ’s work.  Read Hebrews 9:1-5.  They had been destroyed a long time before this.

LESSONS FROM SOLOMON’S TEMPLE
Continue reading Hebrews 9:6-8.  They did not fully understand what they were enacting. They did not fully appreciate what Solomon’s temple, the tabernacle and the sanctuary were all about, but they knew it was important.  They knew it was exceedingly important. Without the full knowledge and understanding of what they were doing, they knew they had to do it.

Continuing in Hebrews 9:9.  “It was symbolic for the present time in which both gifts and sacrifices are offered which cannot make him who performed the service perfect in regard to the conscience…”  These were all symbolic for us.  For those who lived from Jesus Christ’s first coming until now, without the physical workings, the physical building, the table, the showbread and the mercy seat as an example, we would have nothing with which to look back upon to draw information.   We can draw from the examples, and learn how important the spiritual temple of God is and what our High Priest is doing.

Can you or I see what Jesus Christ is doing as High Priest?  No we cannot.  But we can picture what the high priest did because of the Day of Atonement.  He would go into the Holy of Holies with blood for himself first and then blood for the people.  We can understand that you go into the Holy Holies through your high priest to have your sins dealt with.  If we had none of these Biblical examples in the Old Testament, you and I would not have a clue what these scriptures meant.  We would not have a clue what a high priest does and what he was doing with blood.  We would have no clue as to what was going on.  So what ancient Israel did is incredibly important, because it leads to what we were reading before in verse 11.  “But Christ came as High Priest of good things to come, with the greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands, that is, not of this creation.”

The temple that God is building is not made with hands.  We cannot go touch the sandstone. We cannot go see the golden lamp stands.  We cannot go see the showbread, but we know it exists.  We know there is a temple.  We know there is a sanctuary.  We know it is composed of living stones.  We know that we have been called to hopefully be a part of that building.  Yet we cannot see what is being built, but we can understand because of what ancient Israel did.

Continue reading in Hebrews 9:12-15.  There are sins that plague our consciences.  There are spots that we cannot see that make us filthy.  I can shower and put on a new suit and look okay.  God can look at me and say, John, there are still 88 spots on you.  You need more of Christ’s blood to cleanse your conscience and cleanse you of the things you have done wrong.  You have a high priest.  I can go back and study in Leviticus.  I can see what the high priest did, and I know Jesus Christ is taking care of my sins.  It is an amazing thing!  We rely on them more than we realize to understand what God is doing today.  It was symbolic back then, but it is incredibly important today.

I want to take you back to II Chronicles and read what Solomon said at his prayer of dedication.  It is a long prayer, but let’s go back.  It is worth reading. Turn to II Chronicles chapter 6.  This was the dedication of the sandstone temple which became known as Solomon’s temple.  It should have been more properly called God’s temple.

II Chronicles 6, verse 1:  “Then Solomon spoke:  ‘The Lord said He would dwell in the dark cloud.  I have surely built You an exalted house, and a place for You to dwell in forever.’”  Solomon intended this to be the house forever, not understanding, of course, there was more to come.  But that was their every intent.  They had given much gold, many beautiful materials and many fine jewels.  It was probably the most beautiful building the earth has ever seen, and it was God’s physical temple.

Dropping down to verse 12:  “Then Solomon stood before the altar of the Lord in the presence of all the assembly of Israel, and spread out his hands (for Solomon had made a bronze platform five cubits long, five cubits wide, and three cubits high, and had set it in the midst of the court; and he stood on it, knelt down on his knees before all the assembly of Israel, and spread out his hands toward heaven)…”  When this building was done, you could see Solomon on a small stage made of bronze, kneeling down and bowing his head with his hands held up to God and praying to dedicate this building.

Continue reading II Chronicles 6:14-18.  Solomon admitted, how can this little building hold the Great God!

Read verses 19-32.  He is saying to God to hear their prayer no matter where they are from.

Continue reading II Chronicles 6:33-37.  This is like what Daniel said, “We have sinned! Shame on our face!”

Continue reading verses 38-42 and II Chronicles 7:1-2.  That was quite a prayer.  That little building that we would consider the most beautiful building ever built on earth became a dwelling place for the Great God.  When people who were near and far had sinned, they could turn to that place and pray.  If they were trying to do what was right and repenting, God would hear and forgive.  That is how important that building was to the people of Israel, the people of Judah, the people of the surrounding countries, and really the whole world.  You can read the whole account of Solomon, and you would see that people traveled to see Solomon and that temple from all over the known world.  They saw how God had so richly blessed Israel, and it was just a physical sandstone building.

God says I have built another building that is far greater, as stated in Haggai chapter 2.  It is far greater than this one!  It is composed of living stones (human beings).  I will dwell there, and we will work together to build holy righteous character.  It will be character of gold, silver and previous jewels.  I will dwell there, and they will be My people.  They will be My temple.  In Hebrews 3 it says the house of God.

THE SPIRITUAL TEMPLE
Tell me, is what we are a part of greater than that?  Undoubtedly, there is no comparison!  But yet look how Solomon prayed.  We can read the entire history of ancient Israel and how many times they were delivered when they prayed to their God and repented.  We can also read what happened to them when they did not repent.

Brethren, the symbolic use of that temple and that priesthood is huge to us who care to learn and understand.  The temple was for Israel and the whole world.  We are being built into a temple for the whole world’s benefit!  This is not for our own self-aggrandizement. It is not for our own glory.  This is for the Great God and for His name’s sake.  We are not special, but we are being used in a very special way.

The spiritual temple is far, far more important.  What is it trying to do?  What is God using it for?  Brethren, we cannot take away people’s sins.  They could pray to that building, but it was not the building that forgave their sins.  It was God in there honoring their sacrifices that the priests would bring in.  Their thinking was if you feel bad enough, you slaughtered a bull, you brought the blood in here, you understand something has to die for sin, your sins are forgiven.  You come to the priesthood to get this done.

We understand the same thing.  We go to our High Priest, Jesus Christ to get sins forgiven.  But you and I can only forgive sins between each other (faults).  We have to forgive one another, but we do not have the power of redemption.  Only Jesus Christ can do that, but He has saints working with Him in the temple of God who teach people how to forgive.  They teach people how to get along.  They are the light of the world.

PRESERVING LIFE
Turn, if you would, to Matthew chapter 5.  Read verses 1-16.  We are a light to the world, but we are also salt.  Salt preserves, and light enlightens.  Our example should be seen by the people of the world and those who are in the house.  We are a small portion of God’s house right here.  Our example to one another and our love for one another is the light that makes this part of a city that should be able to be seen.  They will know you by your love for one another.  That love forms salt.  Salt is for preserving.

Turn to Luke chapter 9.  Verse 51:  “Now it came to pass, when the time had come for Him to be received up, that He steadfastly set His face to go to Jerusalem [this is Jesus Christ being spoken of], and sent messengers before His face.  And as they went, they entered a village of the Samaritans, to prepare for Him.  But they did not receive Him, because His face was set for the journey to Jerusalem.”  This town in Samaria did not receive Him.  They were rude to Jesus Christ.

Continue reading in Luke 9:54.  “And when His disciples James and John saw this, they said, ‘Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them, just as Elijah did?’  But He turned and rebuked them, and said, ‘You do not know what manner of spirit you are of.  For the Son of Man did not come to destroy men’s lives  but to save them.’  And they went to another village.”

These people were not acting like the prophets of Baal to lead God’s people astray.  They were insulting because they did not understand the Savior of the earth was there.  There is a big difference.  Jesus Christ said you cannot be of My Spirit if you want to destroy these people.  These apostles here had the Jonah complex.  Let’s see somebody get killed!  Let’s see this place get destroyed, God.  They are not being nice.  But God said, they do not know their right hand from their left, Jonah.

Christ is the head of the body, and Christ’s job was to redeem us from sin.  God so loved the world that He gave His Son for all mankind and not just the Church.  The Church (that is the body of Jesus Christ) is supposed to have a preservative effect.  It is supposed to have an enlightening effect upon the world.

We believe the Church is the temple of God.  It was indeed working toward cleaning up for righteousness sake, and Mr. Herbert Armstrong had people called from almost every country on the earth. There is the principle we learned when Abraham was talking to God.  He said I will not destroy the place for one person.  But if you take the Church (the temple of God) and spread it like salt all around the earth, how can God allow that earth to get destroyed?  It does not take the whole world to repent!  It takes but a few!  But what happens if that salt loses its flavor?   If you were to look that up in the Greek it means to become foolish.  It is worthless.  It is good to be trampled underfoot.  It is useless to Me.  That is what Christ was trying to tell James and John when they wanted to destroy this city.  He said wait a minute, I came to preserve men’s lives!  What are you talking about!

James and John should have understood that principle because how many times do the scriptures say Christ was moved to tears when He saw the people suffering?  He healed all who came to Him.  He was greatly saddened by their ignorance.  There is not one case where He acted violently toward a sinner, except when He was arguing with the Pharisees in the temple of God and took out a whip to drive them out of the temple.  To the adulterous woman He said, just go and don’t do it anymore.  To the woman at the well, He said, you have lived with seven guys.  It is about time you stop that!  He healed all the sick who were brought to Him.  He was not cruel, and He has not changed His personality one bit.  Neither has the mission of the Church changed to be the salt of the earth.  It is still to be the salt of the earth, but that is why Satan has tried so hard in the last days to destroy the temple of God.

SATAN’S AGENDA
Satan has to stop this!  He wants to destroy the earth.  His name is Apollyon, which means destroyer.  Satan means arch enemy of God. He does not want God’s plan to succeed.  He has an agenda of his own. He does not want to be cast into outer darkness eventually, so he is pulling out all the stops in the last days.  We see and feel the effects.  It does not have to stay that way.

Satan does not want an innumerable multitude.  He does not want a Millennium.  Satan has a scorched earth policy.  It is like when the Russians defeated the Germans in WWII. They let them come into their country so far, and they destroyed their own country ahead of the Germans.  They said if we cannot have it, you cannot have it either!  They destroyed the food and the barns and shot the animals.  When the Germans came far into Russia, there was no food to sustain an army.  That is what Satan wants to do to God. You want this earth, I am going to give you a pile of nuclear wasteland rocks!  There will be nothing left.  What do you think of Your promise of an innumerable multitude!

Turn, if you would, to Revelation chapter 7.  Read verses 9-17.  Satan does not want anybody’s tears wiped away.  If you were to go back and start in Revelation 1, John the Apostle said, I am your brother in the tribulation.  The Church has been going through its tribulation for a long time.  We have all been suffering and have been persecuted.  Of course, Satan is behind it to destroy the Church of God.  There will be a tribulation on the world that converts the world.  They will survive, because they will cry out, salvation is to God.  They will get salvation.  We will see that as we continue.

THE INNUMERABLE MULTITUDE
Turn to Isaiah chapter 60.  Every knee will bow to Jesus Christ.  It is interesting how this gets done.  Actually it is very simple.  Isaiah 60, verse 1:  “Arise, shine; for your light has come!  And the glory of the Lord is risen upon you.  For behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, and deep darkness the people; but the Lord will arise over you, and His glory will be seen upon you.  Then Gentiles shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your rising.”  That is the resurrection, brethren.  Jesus is going to return to the resurrection.

Those who are faithful and true to the end will be resurrected with the rest of the saints. When that happens, they become the light to the world that cannot be hidden.  There will be no way!  All arguing is going to cease.  There will be no false religion that can stand in the face of resurrected saints!  There will be no well-meaning Christians who do not understand the Bible to argue any longer about the rapture, who is saved, who is not saved, and who needs to go to confession.  Once there is a resurrection, it will be very clear with whom God was working and what God was doing.

We understand the resurrection occurs somewhere around the Feast of Trumpets, well before the Millennium.  Therefore, the resurrection of the saints is going to help convert the earth.  We can see that as we keep reading.

Continue reading in Isaiah 60, verse 4:  “‘Lift up your eyes all around, and see: they all gather together, they come to you; your sons shall come from afar, and your daughters shall be nursed at your side.  Then you shall see and become radiant [this has to be the resurrected saints], and your heart shall swell with joy; because the abundance of the sea shall be turned to you, the wealth of the Gentiles shall come to you.’”  The King James Version has it more correctly rendered “converted to you.”

The world gets converted because of the resurrection.  We are never going to convert by preaching, threatening or scaring people who take their religion as seriously as we take ours.  They are ignorant, and Satan has deceived the whole world, as stated in Revelation 12:9.  They do not have a prayer.  They do not have any hope right now of finding their way out of their morass and their confusion.  They can’t, and most of them mean as well as we do.

Once the resurrection has occurred, all arguments are going to cease. Every knee that is not truly wicked is going to bow to Jesus Christ.  That means there will be an innumerable multitude from every nation, tongue, tribe and people.  Our job, along with Jesus Christ, will be to wipe away their tears.  They have had enough suffering. They do not need any more nuclear bombs to go off.  They do not need any more famines. They do not need any more shootings and murders to know this world is a mess!  They need to understand the truth, and the truth shall cover the earth as the sea does now. The resurrection will reveal the sons of God.

Turn to Romans chapter 8.  Verse 18:  “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.”  It is revealed in the Church.

Verse 19:  “For the earnest expectation of the creation eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God.”  The Islamic people are waiting for their Mahdi.  They are waiting for what they think is the Messiah.  The Jews are waiting for the Messiah.  They missed the first coming.  The Protestants are waiting for the return of Jesus Christ.  The whole world is waiting for this to happen.  They just have a skewed vision of what is supposed to take place.  The confusion will be erased with the resurrection!

Rereading verse 19:  “For the earnest expectation of the creation eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God.  For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it in hope; because the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.  For we know that the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now.”  They are still groaning and laboring, waiting for the revealing of the sons of God.

Jesus Christ is coming as a Great Liberator with His saints (His hosts), and the angels of heaven that are with Him.  He is going to deliver this earth from the bondage and the corruption of Satan the devil.  Do not let the bad news rob us of this joy and of this hope, brethren.  There is a lot of bad news.  Unfortunately, the world focuses on the bad news. Bad news sells.  Let’s not minimize our thinking.  Think big!  God’s arm is not shortened that it cannot save.  He is going to succeed.

There is a promise in Malachi chapter 3.  Verse 1:  “‘Behold, I send My messenger, and he will prepare the way before Me.  And the Lord, whom you seek, will suddenly come to His temple, even the Messenger of the covenant, in whom you delight.  Behold, He is coming,’ says the Lord of hosts.”

Suddenly Christ will be here!  Over and over again He says I will take you at an hour that you least expect it.  I am going to take you by surprise!  I am going to shock you if you are not paying attention.  Please, get ready for My return.  He promises over and over that He is going to take us by surprise, brethren.

Turn to Romans chapter 9.  Verse 27:  “Isaiah also cries out concerning Israel:  ‘Though the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea, the remnant will be saved.  For He will finish the work and cut it short in righteousness, because the Lord will make a short work upon the earth.’  And as Isaiah said before:  ‘Unless the Lord of Sabaoth had left us a seed [the remnant Church], we would have become like Sodom, and we would have been made like Gomorrah.’”

What is that telling us?  If there is no remnant of the temple in the last days, the world is going up in smoke like Sodom and Gomorrah.  But there will be a remnant of the Church in the last days, absolutely, positively, without a shadow of a doubt because God does not lie!  He does not fail either.  The momentum is just now building, brethren!

GOOD NEWS SINCE 1986
There is so much good news that we can focus on, even here at the Feast of Tabernacles.  Our joy should not be diminished because shootings took place on the Day of Atonement.  People were shot near the Feast site just before we arrived.  Brethren, they need hope.  They need to see the joy that is within us.  This community is hurting right now.  Our nation is hurting.  They need the joy and the light that we can share with them and the example that we can set.

Brethren, since 1986 there has been so much joyful good news.  We need to give people hope.  Tell them to focus on the good things that are happening.  Since 1986 more people have come out of poverty than in the history of the world!  That is a statistic.  It is provable.  I am giving you several bits of good news here that have happened since Mr. Armstrong’s death.

Brethren, it is poverty that breeds discontent.  Trade is letting another man’s labor be shared with you, and your labor shared with another person.  It does not matter if they are halfway around the world.  Trade lifts all boats.  Adam Smith discovered that a long time ago.  A free market will lift all boats.  Do not let the voices of protectionism drown out the good news.  There are so many people out there saying, don’t buy anything from China!  Don’t buy anything from Japan!  Don’t let those Mexicans in here!  Brethren, do we want the world to stay in poverty?  Was it God’s intent that only the United States be rich?  Brethren, it is poverty that breeds discontent.  It is poverty that makes enemies dangerous.  It is the wealthy nations that really don’t want to go to war. They have too much to lose.  Buying and selling is good.  Isolationism is bad, so do not let the isolationists sway us.  It is good when the world buys and sells and trades.  It puts poor people to work.  It puts a dollar in their wallet.

If you recall in 1986 and prior to that, Mr. Armstrong showed us that the nuclear scientists around the world kept moving the doomsday clock forward until it actually got up to three minutes to midnight.  A couple of years ago I read that they backed it up.  The scientific community backed it up.  They said we have to reflect reality here!  It was in the newspapers, but they did not talk about it very much.  That is good news.

If we look, compared to 1986 and prior to that, Russia now works with us.  They are our allies.  We buy, sell and trade with Russia.  I bought some shirts from Russia not that long ago.

China has become one of our biggest trading partners.  Remember when Nixon was the first president to ever go over, and Mr. Armstrong, I believe, was the first religious leader to go over there.  That was a locked up country back then.  If you had been one of the first people to go there, you would have seen a billion people that looked exactly alike.  They had little green uniforms with a little hat.  There was no individuality whatsoever.  There was no freedom to think on your own.  It was a lot like you see when you see the news of North Korea.  Everybody is walking and marching in lock step and looking exactly the same.  They are mindless people worshipping a man.  Their mind and their freedom has been robbed from them.  But, brethren, a lot of the world was like that twenty years ago.  Now there are just a couple of rogue states left.

No one anymore says it is better to be red than dead.  That was a saying when I was growing up.  There was a big contingent of people in the United States saying it is better to be red than dead.  Let’s just let the Communist take us over peacefully so we do not have to die in a nuclear war.  You do not hear that anymore.  The people who were red, want Levi blue jeans!  They want to eat at McDonald’s.  They want to get on a plane and fly somewhere!  Ladies want to buy a dress and look stylish for a change.  Women want to take off burkas.  It is a different world, but it is good.

Why do we focus on a few terrorists?  We do not have air raid drills anymore to teach our kids to get in the basement of a school or get under their desks.  No, we have security to go through at the airport.  Worrying about someone stealing and high-jacking a plane or obliterating your country in ten minutes, which is worse?  There is no comparison!  Things are so much better.  We need to focus on how much better.  This is all since Mr. Armstrong died.

My family and I were fortunate in 1990 to be in Germany on Reunification Day.  The wall had come down in 1989, three years after Mr. Armstrong’s death.  No one can to this day explain why the Soviet Empire collapsed.  I have heard big name people talk about it.  There has been speculation about the Pope and Reagan, but they know that was not it.  It was the first time in my life I have heard a president refer to evil versus good.  Our current president does that a lot, too.  But no one can explain how an empire as powerful as the Soviet Union could simply evaporate (peacefully) in a couple of year’s time.  They cannot explain how people got bit by the freedom bug as if they were spreading the flu.  In places where you would get shot if you were bringing a Bible into that country, you can now go to bookstores and buy the Bible!  Is something happening to get ready for the Millennium?  I think so!  Did it turn on the life of one man?  Somehow, yes, because God promised before the times would get terrible, He would send us Elijah.  It has been done.  The evidence is here!  Of all people on the earth, we are the ones that should believe it.

DON’T BE A MINIMALIST
We are part of the temple to preserve this earth.  It is why the doomsday clock was backed up.  The United States was headed to hell in a hand basket there in the late 60’s and early 70’s.  There were a lot of people writing us off.  Now we are the only super power left on the planet.  Even Mr. Armstrong said if there is not a repentance, this nation is done for.  I do not think he realized how few it would take and how important the temple was.  He was starting to grasp it before he died.  He said, wait a minute, we have been looking at this physical temple, but it is not that important.  It is what God is doing with us.  He was grasping that, but he was in his mid nineties.  We have to remember these things that are good.

I brought a few clippings of the Wall Street Journal from yesterday that I picked up at the  airport while I was waiting for my wife.  It talks about a Chinese tycoon who is a billionaire.  He produces solar panels.   He received his education in Australia.  They are saying many of the Chinese who left China to come to the West are now going back home and forming a middle class and a wealthy class.  It is helping lift all the boats.  So they can sell us solar panels, and it is a big deal!

Mr. Bush was on the news yesterday for an hour-long conference.  I watched a few minutes of it.  This newspaper article coincided with it.  What will the world do about Korea?  Mr. Bush was trying to tell the journalist who were questioning him, you don’t get it!  You are saying the United States blew it, and that is why Korea has a nuclear bomb.  He said I am telling you, it is not the United States that blew it.  Can’t you see it is different this time.  The whole world is working together.  He said yesterday I talked with my friend who is the premier of China.  He and I were having a civil conversation about how to handle Korea.  We could not have done that a few years ago.  Vladimir Putin is my friend.  We confer back and forth often on the telephone about how to handle world crises.  The whole world is lining up against Iran and North Korea.  He said all you guys do is look at the negative.  What is wrong with you!  But they still do not get it.  The world is a changed place, brethren.  They are learning quietly and slowly to prepare to beat their swords into plowshares.  I could go on and on about good articles that I have seen.

There is no shortage of energy in the world.  They had the deficit in the same Wall Street Journal.  The deficit is almost down this year by half from what they predicted because the economy is doing so well.  All they talk about is the housing bubble burst, so that the rest of us can buy a house for a change.  There is no shortage of food.  No matter how many times they say the weather is bad, there is no shortage of food.

The year 2006 has been called the greatest year in the history of philanthropy.  The world has never seen an outpouring of giving like it has this year.  What is moving this?  What is driving all of this?  They are saying that our generation is going to see the greatest transfer of wealth in the history of the world.  They are saying the baby boomers are going to inherit from their parents and grandparents twenty-five trillion dollars.  Yet all you hear is students are coming out of college with twenty thousand dollars in debt on average.  That is bad, but when mom and dad die, most of their parents are worth a lot of money.  They will inherit their houses, their land, their stocks, their bonds and their possessions.  Our generation is the first to feel this.  When my father took over from his father and on down the line, they were always passing on poverty.  People hoped to go to school and hoped to get out of their mess.  Now people are actually going to lawyers to update their wills and wondering what should we do with all of this!  If we were to die as we travel, we have to make sure this wealth gets passed on.  This is a common problem. Is that a problem really?  It is a good thing.  Twenty-five trillion dollars dwarfs the bills that we have.

THE MILLENNIUM UNDER GOD’S GOVERNMENT
I had more scriptures, but I think I am going to have to conclude with only one more because I am out of time.  I could go on to show you the gates of hell will not prevail against God.  Isaiah 45:15-19 says that God created the earth to be inhabited.

Leviticus 23:39-44 pictures the Feast of Tabernacles where you get the goodly branches, and you make yourself a Succoth.  God says that is to remind you that I brought Israel out of ancient Egypt.  But what was He doing when He was bringing them out of ancient Egypt?  He was protecting them.  They were traveling under the protection of God.

In Micah chapter 4, we are told that in the Millennium everyone will dwell under their own fig tree.  We know that is part of the government of God.  What do you think those branches are portraying when you build your Succoth (a temporary dwelling)?  It says take beautiful and goodly branches, and make yourself a temporary dwelling to remind you of what happened when they came out of Egypt.  That is to remind the world that in the Millennium, which we are picturing here today at the Feast of Tabernacles, they are going to be dwelling under beautiful branches. Jesus Christ is the tree of life.  His government and the 144,000 form the fig tree.  He says put yourself under these branches, and remember the beautiful things that they are. These are people that I have worked with to develop character of gold, silver and precious jewels.  They will be your rulers.  Picture that for seven days.  That is why we will conclude with Matthew 24.

Matthew 24:32-35 is the parable of the fig tree.  The fig tree has a terrible time for a while.  When it starts to bud once again and starts to bear fruit, know that I am at the door.  You are not going to find a physical fig tree to look at.  It is the Church, brethren!  It is one of the last signs that Jesus Christ is imminently coming.