Pastor’s
Comments
Pastor’s
CommentsDecember 28, 2007
“. . . thus says the Lord GOD to the land of Israel, ‘An end! The end has come upon the four corners of the land, Now the end has come upon you, and I will send My anger against you; I will judge you according to your ways; and I will repay you for all of your abominations. My eye will not spare you, nor will I have pity; . . . The end has come; it has dawned for you; behold, it has come. . . . A day of trouble is near and not of rejoicing in the mountains. Now upon you I will soon pour out My fury; and spend My anger on you’” (Ezekiel 7:2-4, 6, 8).
Dear Brethren,
Toward the close of his life, Mr. Armstrong would sometimes express his sorrow while looking out at the very large gatherings of the membership before him and would say that at least 50 percent, and sometimes a much higher percentage of them, were just not getting it!
Often I feel the same with some of you. And I could wish, and do pray, that everyone of you would capture the vision of where we are in time and the terrible horrors that are just before us and are almost in sight that will affect each one of individually in one way or another.
This is proven by the fact that some of you do not take the time to even read the writings that I send out each week.
The signs of where we are in time can be seen almost everywhere yet there are those who ignore them and live their lives like the proverbial ostrich hiding his head in the sand thinking everything will remain the same for years to come.
One has cause to seriously wonder if very many members ever read the Scriptures as quoted above, and even more, how many grasp the reality that very soon we will be experiencing the prophesied famine and disease epidemics that will lead this great nation along with the other nations of Israel to their demise and into the Great Tribulation!
All one has to do is take a hard and close look at what the media is reporting in print and on radio and television to see the end is indeed very close.
The United States is the great super power nation in this world today. Yet it is so entangled with its many unsolvable problems it is powerless to have any real impact on the world scene toward peace and stability.
The New Year
In just a few days we will have entered into a new year by the world’s calendar and with it we will undoubtedly witness a further increase in morality, assassinations, crime, violence and upheaval in this nation and in the world.
It is a world ruled by Satan the devil and is in continued rebellion against God (John12:31; Ephesians 2:2; II Corinthians 4:4). And as we moved closer to the end we will witness many things that God will permit him to do because of our many sins.
We have a very serious task before us in the very short time that is left to try hard to do all that Jesus Christ enables us to do in reaching the members of God’s Church, Israel, and the nations of this world.
This year there will be a new leadership voted into the very high offices of this nation; and possibly see our first woman president or the first black man in that office. The following is an interesting comment from the internet:
“To get a flavor of the base political radicalism of Osama and Hillary, Google “Saul Alinsky” who was mentor and teacher to both. His was the famous School of Revolutionaries and Social Agitators, father of the 1968 Chicago Democratic Convention riots.
Osama and Hillary are well closeted Socialists with radical tendencies, implemented with passion and anger. Caveat Emptor!!
[20] Posted by: Herbert Rubin, M.D. Pacific Palisades, CA — 15 November 2007 12:11 pm
A Dying Age
All of us should well realize we are living in a nation, nations, and a world, that is coming apart at the seams and will very soon be no more! The curtain is almost fully down on this dying age.
Mr. Armstrong continually warned us of what we are now seeing on the world scene – 22 years after his voice was silenced by death! For over 50 years he shouted out the warning that we have little time left before the Famine and Disease Epidemics fully take place in the nations of Israel. Then the Great Tribulation will also take place, followed by Armageddon.
The Church of God, Faithful Flock
(Some of the following I have taken from my Pastor’s Comments of a year ago).
Due to the imminence of the Great Tribulation, Jesus Christ began performing miracles with this little flock just before and after the Passover and Days of Unleavened Bread this past year, 2006, by freely making available to us all of the needs for the ACTIVATION OF ALL OF HIS RECORDED WORKS, radio broadcasts, telecasts, literature, and sermons, etc.
It is by this means his voice and writings have come back to life with the urgent warning of the sound of the trumpet! It is being sounded again and possibly for the final time before the famine of the Word!
It is sad that it is only the few who still have their ears open to hear and are willing to take the needed steps to prepare as much as possible for these terrible coming times.
Mr. Armstrong shouted the warning of the dire need for repentance, watchfulness, preparation and endurance, just as Christ made known in His prophetic warnings of the bad times coming that will be worse than any previous time in man’s history or ever will be again (Luke 21:36; Matthew 24:21).
It is very sad to realize that from the prophetic Scriptures possibly only a tenth of Israel will survive all that is soon to befall us (Isaiah 6:13; Amos 5:1-3).
Glenn Beck
From what I read in the news and hear from conservative speakers and writers, they view this country, without actually going so far as to say so, as being almost finished. Recently (March 8, 2007), Glenn Beck was shouting out the alarm that this nation is so divided on the immigration issues that people are close to taking the law into their own hands, because there is no enforcement of the law pertaining to keeping immigrants from entering this country.
He said there were small cities just a few miles apart that are deeply divided on this issue. One city offers a safe haven to immigrants and another city just a few miles away is totally against what they are doing. It is becoming a very emotional issue!
Without actually quoting Scripture and verse, he made mention that a house divided cannot stand. And this is where we now are on many emotional issues – a nation with great divisions among the now 300 million people living here.
Cal Thomas/ Newt Gingrich
Please note the following quotes from other well known writers and speakers who also express their alarm in seeing the very divisive emotional issues in this country:
One recent article by Cal Thomas (Thursday, March 8, 2007, Stockton, California – The Record, page B7) quoted parts of a speech by former Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich, as saying:
“This
country
today faces more parallel challenges simultaneously than of any time
since the 1850s [referring to his comments about
the Lincoln
presidency and the great divisions in the country at that time that
brought about the Civil War].
“And I believe there is a great danger that our political system will not be capable of solving these problems before they take our society apart in ways that are very destructive.
“Gingrich lamented the disappearance of the ‘principle of seriousness,’ noting, ‘The (political) process is decaying at a level that is bizarre and it’s a mutual synergistic decay between candidates, consultants and the news media. It’s fundamentally wrong for the survival of this country.
“We are in two different worlds [as this country was during the Civil War]; a world of stunningly rapid evolution in the private sector and a world of stunning decay in bureaucracy.”
Bill O’Reilly
In Bill O’Reilly’s article of September 12, 2006, page B7, The Record, Stockton, California, he likened the world of today with that of the 1930s when Adolph Hitler began seizing the assets of the German Jews and established concentration camps for the undesirables.
He wrote that the parallels between the rise of fascism in pre-World War II Germany and the rise of Islamic fascism today are startling! Just as in the 1930s, the world is refusing to confront the growing danger.
“If Iran manages to obtain nuclear weapons, it, too, will become a menace to the entire world. A recent Harris poll taken in Europe shows 30 percent of 10,000 people surveyed believes that the U. S. is the greatest threat to stability. Just 26 percent think Iran is the greatest danger to world peace.
The next most unsettling situation is in the United States. According to polls taken in the1930s as many as 80 percent of Americans were against confronting Hitler at that time. … Today, five years after 9/11, many Americans still don’t understand the worldwide jihad and buy into the false premise there is no linkage between what is happening in Iraq, the polices of Iran, the murderous actions of al-Quida and the lethal anti-Jewish strategy of Hamas and Hezbollah. …
So why is history repeating itself? Why can’t we Americans wise up and see the Islamic threat? … Defeat it we must. For if we don’t, it’s just a matter of time before more of us lie dead in the streets.”
His writing was entitled: “We’d Better Wake Up! Again, world won’t confront a growing danger.”
The Parallels between America and the Church of God
Over the years I have noticed the striking resemblance between the problems on a national level in this country and within the Church of God.
Suffice it to say that the problem Bill O’Reilly addressed in his title is exactly the same problem within the Church of God. For the most part, everyone is sleeping on the national level and within the Church of God. It seems virtually impossible of waking either one up.
Certainly, all should know within the Church it is only a matter of very little time before the inevitable takes place, just as Christ Himself made known (Matthew 24)! But it seems hardly anyone wants to confront it in their personal lives by stirring up God’s Spirit within them and taking the very much needed action of drawing close to God while departing from the wrong corporate Churches.
Brethren, we seriously need to consider what Jesus said about the need of laborers in this end-time and try as hard as we can to be a conduit, an instrument, in Christ’s hands to ENABLE THE WORKS OF MR. ARMSTRONG TO WAKE MEMBERS UP!
Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me, and to FINISH THE WORK. Do you not say, ‘There are still four months and then comes the harvest’? Behold, I say to you, LIFT UP YOUR EYES and look at the fields, for they are already white for harvest! And he who reaps receives wages, and gathers FRUIT for eternal life, that both he who sows and he who reaps may REJOICE TOGETHER” (John 4:34-36).
We have very little time left before the door will once again close and the real famine of the Word will be in full effect (Revelation 3:7; Matthew 25:10-13; Amos 8:11-12).
Jesus Christ is blessing us, we expect to be blitzing this country and other nations of Israel this coming year by putting before them in every way we can the RESTORED WORKS of Mr. Armstrong on our websites. Christ loves His people and it is desire that all of be spared from that which is LOOMING UP before us even now in Europe.
The Curse on America
God makes very plain in numerous Scriptures that the House of Joseph and the other nations of Israel are experiencing the results of the curse brought on each because of their many sins due to their rejection of God and His holy and righteous laws (Leviticus 26; Deuteronomy 28).
In conclusion, please note a couple of excerpts from the writings of Mr. Armstrong that speak very forcefully of now and the near future regarding the members of God’s true Church who desperately and urgently need to awaken before it is too late:
"Those in the true Body of Christ shall be protected until this tribulation will be over (Rev. 3:10-11)--applying to those faithful in God's Work now going to the world. Revelation 12:14; Isaiah 26:20. But YOU must make your own decision -- and to neglect doing so is to have made the wrong decision! God isn't kidding! This is for real! . . . The decision in now yours!" Mr. Herbert W. Armstrong, The United States and British Commonwealth in Prophecy. 1975; p: 60
". . . the final generation of the Church shall be LUKEWARM -- not less emotional, but more 'liberal,' more secular and less spiritual -- less strictly biblical --" "Speaking of the present 'Philadelphia' era, it says . . . because we have kept God's Word faithfully, not liberalizing nor watering down, God will keep us from the 'hour of temptation, which shall come upon all them that dwell on the earth' to try and test them." Personal from Mr. Herbert W. Armstrong, Plain Truth, August 1980.
Will we heed? Until next time, your servant in Christ Jesus our Lord,
Don Billingsley
P. O Box 8819, Modesto, California 95357 – Phone (209) 772-0737
For more information please visit our website: http://www.cog-ff.com
The quotes in the above articles are from various news sources and therefore intended for educational purposes only.