December 10, 2021 Brethren Letter
Dear Brethren,
Do you really grasp it? The purpose of your being alive is that finally you be born into the Kingdom of God, which is the divine FAMILY of God… In the words of I Peter 1:8, you will “rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of GLORY”! (“Why Were You Born?” – Mr. Herbert W. Armstrong)
The booklet “Why Were You Born” was one of our first Church of God booklets my wife and I read back in the middle 1970’s. It was exciting to read then. It is just as exciting to read today! God has such a marvelous plan in store for us, and for mankind.
9 But as it is written: “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, Nor have entered into the heart of man The things which God has prepared for those who love Him.” (1 Corinthians 2:9 – NKJV)
20 For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, 21 who will transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to His glorious body, according to the working by which He is able even to subdue all things to Himself. (Philippians 3:20-21 – NKJV)
10 thou hast made them kings and priests for our God, and they shall reign on earth.” (Revelation 5:10 – MOFF)
Last week, I sent the first part of Mr. Armstrong’s “Personal From the Editor” (June, 1964 Plain Truth). Tonight, I’m sending the rest of his “Personal” for you.
Please have a wonderful Sabbath!
Your Brother in Christ,
Gary Liebold
Mr. Armstrong’s Personal (part 2)…
Jesus said man should live by EVERY WORD of the BIBLE. Sin is the transgression of that great LAW. And all have sinned.
The world has rejected God’s Law — GOD’S WAY. It has gone the WAY that has brought every curse on mankind. The WORLD TOMORROW will change all that. It will be RULED BY GOD’S LAW!
To QUALIFY to become a King — a RULER in the KINGDOM OF GOD — you must come to really KNOW that Law. And the WHOLE BIBLE is a magnification — an elaboration of its principles. It is ONLY those who REPENT of their transgressions of God’s great spiritual Law — the Ten Commandments — and who surrender to and accept as Saviour JESUS CHRIST, who can become begotten children of GOD. No one is a true Christian until he has received THE HOLY SPIRIT of God. That is God’s gift. It imparts the very LIFE of God. It renews and opens the MIND to comprehend spiritual knowledge. It bestows the LOVE of God — divine SPIRITUAL love. It imparts POWER. It instills FAITH.
Then, once really CONVERTED — the entire direction of your life CHANGED — you must continually OVERCOME. There are three very tough things to overcome — your own SELF with the pull of human nature; the WORLD, with its customs, false teachings, wrong ways, wrong fellowships; and the invisible yet very real devil. You must GROW not only in spiritual grace, but in the KNOWLEDGE of Christ — the KNOWLEDGE in God’s INSTRUCTION BOOK — the Holy Bible. You must study — understand it — live henceforth by its directions. It points THE WAY — WALK YE IN IT!
You must LEARN TO RULE! But, since there is a chain of AUTHORITY, from God the Father, through Jesus Christ, and on down, you must always be UNDER authority — so learning to rule begins with SUBMISSION TO RULE. You must first learn to BE RULED — by Christ!
A wife says: “But how can I have any experience learning to rule? You say the Bible teaches that a wife must obey her husband. HE does the ruling. He learns how to rule ME, but how may I learn to rule?”
I say to such a woman, God has given you, first, your own SELF to rule. Why not start on YOUR TONGUE? Many women do not know yet how to rule their own tongues. You may rule in your kitchen — over your children, when your husband is not home doing it.
Even a child can be taught to RULE — over his toys and playthings, being careful not to break them, to put them away neatly after use, etc., etc., etc.
God will never save any person He does not GOVERN. If we are to RULE the nations, we must RULE WITH GOD’S GOVERNMENT, ACCORDING TO HIS LAWS — not according to our ideas. You must learn IN THIS LIFE — and there is NOT MUCH TIME LEFT!
Yes, you were born to BE A KING!
There IS a tremendous PURPOSE for human existence. There IS stupendous MEANING to life!
In the beginning, God devised, created, set in actual invisible MOTION a living spiritual LAW. This LAW is A WAY OF LIFE. It is THE WAY God devised to produce peace, well-being, happiness, prosperity, joy. Then God made MAN. He made man a free moral agent. Man must CHOOSE WHETHER to obey God, follow THE WAY that will bring him every blessing, or turn to THE WAY that may SEEM right, but that brings only curses.
God created man in His very own likeness — same form and shape. But God is A SPIRIT, and He formed man out of MATTER. Thus IF man rejects THE WAY to every blessing for his happiness — IF he makes choice to go THE WAY that brings on him unhappiness, suffering, and curses — he can be destroyed.
But God provided for man’s salvation. Even IF man starts out the WRONG WAY, he can repent, turn around to go the RIGHT WAY of God’s Law. The SIN of having gone contrary to that Law can be forgiven. Christ paid the death penalty FOR us. We can be reconciled to God, through Christ. And THEN God has promised to actually beget us, by His Spirit, to be BORN AGAIN — next time born OF GOD, as HIS CHILDREN, into HIS VERY DIVINE GOD FAMILY! Then we, too, shall BE SPIRIT. IF man will choose THE WAY that produces full, abundant joyful HAPPINESS, he may enjoy it FOREVER! But he may NOT suffer self-inflicted curses forever.
God marked out a 7,000 year duration to work out HIS PURPOSE in having put humans on earth. The first 6,000 years are allotted for man to be allowed to go the way that, in his deception, looks right — contrary to God’s Law.
Under Satan’s sway, man has set up his human society — human forms of government, CONTRARY to GOD’S government. He has set up his own world — with its Satan-influenced, human-produced systems of economic, political, scientific, educational, religious life. Man has REJECTED THE WAY to peace, happiness, prosperity and joy.
But the few who repent, turn to God and HIS WAY through Jesus Christ, study and learn GOD’S WAY, LIVE that way with God’s help, CONVERTED by God’s Spirit, are, in THIS life, actually learning to be KINGS whom Christ will USE, in the seventh thousand years, to RULE the world WITH GOD’S FORM OF GOVERNMENT.
For one thousand years there will be a different system of GOVERNMENT. It will be GOD’S GOVERNMENT. The governments of Russia, China, Japan — yes, also of the United States, Britain and France — will be overthrown (Daniel 2:35-36, 44). Jesus Christ will return, having received the KINGDOM from God Almighty the Father. He will set up WORLD GOVERNMENT. It will be the GOVERNMENT OF GOD. Its Laws are found in your Bible.
Christ will assign some, who have LEARNED and LIVED HIS WAY — the WAY of His government, during this life — to rule over one city, or, perhaps five, ten, or a hundred cities.
But THIS LIFE is the training period. It is ONLY those who are UNDER and OBEDIENT TO the authority of God’s government NOW — who learn its LAWS, who overcome every other (and false) WAY — whose REAL citizenship is now reserved in heaven, who THEN will be assigned A POSITION OF RULE.
Christ is going to rule the whole world — WITH A ROD OF IRON!
The world has had 6000 years of MAN’S governments — MAN’S education — MAN’S industrial, commercial, and economic systems — MAN’S social customs — MAN’S religions (yes, even that falsely CALLED “Christianity”!!!!). Man has written the lesson in human blood — in suffering, frustration, anguish — in wars, failures — in discontent and emptiness.
Soon he will BE FORCED to start a 1,000-year period under GOD’S GOVERNMENT — with GOD’S religion, GOD’S education, GOD’S social customs, GOD’S economic, industrial, and merchandising system.
MAN IS GOING TO BE FORCED, AGAINST HIS WILL — TO BE HAPPY! The real and true CHRISTIAN LIFE is, simply, THE WAY of GOD’S GOVERNMENT. It trains the true Christian to ADMINISTER that Government. It trains him to BECOME A KING!
Yes, you were born to be a KING!