Maurice M Johnson
Los Angeles, California
November 4, 1956

The 24th chapter of Matthew. I suppose all of you know that I announced both over the radio and this morning at the meeting that I was going to take up tonight, "World Conditions in the Light of Prophecy, Especially Israel", Israel, the Jewish nation, the nation Israel.  I think more of the speakers that I heard pronounced ^'Israeli', Israel 'Israeli', than any one other pronunciation. I don't know whether that's right or not, I would as soon accept them as authority as any dictionary because they were choice speakers from the various nations.

(question from audience)

The representative himself. And he's... I imagine an English Jew, Oxford Jew, ... his language; well you'll hear it for yourself and some of you will be a better judge than I.  Neither J.W. nor I went to Oxford; We'll ask Ric Bentley over here to tell us whether he's Canadian Jew or not.

The 24th chapter of Matthew. The Lord Jesus while on earth ... and remember when the Lord was on earth according to Paul's inspired statement found in Romans 15:7, Paul said, "Now I say unto you that Jesus Christ  was a minister of the circumcision to  confirm he promises made unto the fathers". Christ in His earthly ministry confirmed the promises made to the fathers regarding Messiah, Son of David, a prophet like unto Moses. We'll read about that directly in Deuteronomy 18:18. "He came unto His own, and His own received Him not", we're told in John the 1st chapter you remember.

Incidentally, it's quite beside the point, but it's very interesting to me in studying such things as the physical supper that in the book of John we do not have anything in detail of the supper, like taking the bread and the cup and the New covenant supper; that's not mentioned out all in the book of John. I think it's probably because John, for instance, begins by saying, "He came unto His own and His own received Him not", very 1st chapter.  And therefore we should not expect the book of John to present Christ primarily from a Jewish standpoint. And we're told right off out the very beginning, "He came unto His own, and His own received Him not". I think that's why we have in the book of John more surely (I mean that's one of the things), we have more surely Christ presented as the eternal one, the great "I am" and not primarily as minister of the circumcision to confirm the promises made unto the fathers.

In Matthew the 24th ... Matthew the 95th chapter we find the Lord Jesus saying, "I am not sent but to the lost sheep of the house of Israel."  I just quote that; stay with Matthew 24. 

And Jesus went out ...

Let's read twenty... 23:37. In the 23rd chapter we have I believe eight "woes". I've forgotten how many occurrences of the word 'woe', "woe", "woe", ^"woe", and one "oh". I think of that sometime when people say we should just be positive. This afternoon on the street in Hollywood, a Roman Catholic, Armenian I believe he was from things he said, criticizing Mike, brother Mike Macri, for being negative, "You should just be positive". He said, "I believe in Christ, but just be positive. Christ's life is positive, positive." But here in Matthew 23 we find Christ positively saying, "Woe, woe, woe, woe, woe, oh". And in this one scripture that he kept trying to get Mike ... and Mike finally did read, said, "That's enough. Matthew the 6th chapter first six verses. When you pray don't pray like the hypocrites do. When you give your alms don't... " And he didn't realize he was giving Christ’s statement there: negative, negative, negative, negative. "When you pray don't pray like the hypocrites. When you give, don't give like these others."

My friends, you and I don't know anything except by comparison and contrast.  We know by comparison and contrast.  How strong would a baby be and grow up to be if it never overcame things with its little muscle?

Back to Matthew 23:37,

O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!

"I would have", "ye would not". I like to use this with extreme predestinationists. The Lord God recognizes the will of man in the sphere where He's determined that man can have a choice. I cannot choose successfully to be a female of the species. I cannot choose successfully to be a member of Israel. I could choose Jesus Christ as my Savior or reject Him. I chose Him as my Savior, then my choosing days in a very definite sense stopped. When I accepted Him as my Savior, confessing Him as my Lord, from then on He's Lord. And if I don't obey Him, as His child, He'll chasten me. I must obey the Lord. My will must be brought in harmony with His will. And when I'm yielded to the Lord that's exactly what happens of course. That's why a true Christian is a delightful character and a delighted character. Because we will to do what He wants us to do, what He'll help us to do, what He's glorified in, and what we're delighted to do. And that's heaven on earth. Sure. "I can do all things through Christ."

Put that by the way with Paul in Romans 7 and you get the difference between an enlightened Jew under the law trying to do what the law had commanded and not being able to do it and a Christian, new creature in Christ, "I can do all things through Christ". Now,

O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them that are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!' Behold, your house, your house is left unto you desolate. But I say unto you, Ye shall not see me henceforth, till ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord. And Jesus went out.

In all probability that's significant language. We're supposed to get something out of the very expression "He went out". "And He"

went out, and departed from the temple: and his disciples came to him for to show him the buildings of the temple.

My, they were so human, weren't they. They still were proud of that physical temple, weren't they. Even the disciples.

to show him the buildings of the temple. And Jesus said unto them, See ye not all these things? verily I say unto you, There shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down.

Archeologists, historians tell us that never before in all recorded history was there ever destruction of anything... to be compared with the temple that was such utter destruction. Today archeologists unearth remains of various buildings. I understand that in Rome you can see, go to Greece you can see buildings that have been unearthed by archeologists and Egyptologists and so forth, because, though they were destroyed and buried by the accumulation of years and years and so forth of land and so forth, landslides and volcanoes, eruption, whatever it was in a given case, yet the buildings weren't so destroyed that they can't unearth, usually if they were stone, unearth large parts of the building. Not so the temple. The lord promised a destruction that would be unprecedented: not one stone left upon another.

that shall not be thrown down. And as he sat upon the mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately, saying, Tell us, when  shall these things be?  And what shall be the sign of thy coming, and the end of the world?  And Jesus: answered and said unto them, Take heed that no man deceive you. For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many.

Herbert Armstrong is fond of using this to attack those of us who preach that Jesus is the Christ and is the Savior of everybody who trusts Him. He uses this as one of his clever methods to just smear the truth and get your mind on something else. And he says, "Christ said there would be a lot of people come in the last days that say, "I'm the Christ." " And then before he ... when he realizes that maybe he's talked like he doesn't believe that Jesus is the Christ, he says, "Now that's All right of course but it's all wrong when the other fellow does it". Well I'm sure that isn't the primary thought here at all. There will be many who will come and say, "I am the Christ", not who will come and say "Jesus was the Christ". Don't think that’s the thought here at all. But now watch. Many will come and say,

I am Christ; and shall deceive many.

Well now, who's going to deceive anybody by saying,  "Jesus is the Christ"?   You'd have to say something more than that or other than that in order to deceive, because He is, was and is the Christ.

And ye shall hear of wars and rumors of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation shalt rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilence, and earthquakes, in divers places. All these are the beginning of sorrows. Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you: and ye shall be hated of  all nations for my name's sake.

Now, because Christ was staying this to the disciples who were then present, then living, and they've long since died, some people say that that proves that all of this has already been fulfilled. But in Paul's inspired epistles, to Timothy for instance, he speaks to him as though Timothy, and Titus, as though they would be alive when the conditions that are to obtain in the closing of the dispensation would obtain, would come, And Timothy and Titus passed off the scene 1900, 1800 and something years ago. But Timothy and Titus, their position ... in other words, Christ could have come so far as heaven's standpoint; they were to look for Him and be prepared as though He came then.

And the same way here. These apostles were to think of these things because so far as they knew, the kingdom was going to be established just like we read in the 1st chapter of Acts, the risen Christ said before He went away, talked to His disciples about the kingdom and expounded it to them for at least some time if not most of the forty days of His resurrection ministry. And when He prophesied, promised a new thing to happen in a few days, ''You shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days hence", they said, "Lord, wilt Thou at this time restore-the kingdom to Israel?" He said, "It's not for you to know the times and seasons". Peter in his second sermon said, "The heavens must receive Him  until he restitution of all things. You repent that your sins may be blotted out when the refreshing of the Lord comes."

Seems to be unquestionably the thought is there, "So far as I know", Simon Peter, "far as I know, the Lord may come while you and I are alive".  Unquestionably the Lord wanted the uncertainty to be a spiritual value. In other words, why didn't He say, "When the Son of man comes back nobody knows but the Father in heaven." It's for an all-wise purpose, and of course that purpose is spiritual.

But now back to this:  Ninth verse, 24:9,

Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you: and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name's sake. And then shall many be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another. And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many. And because ...

You know, it's very interesting and very obvious to a careful reader of the Bible is the thought held out because you can find out a lot of people in a given time and place believe something it therefore must be true. And yet today how often do we hear, "Oh, the crowds, the biggest tent", A.A. Allen holding forth now, and he has a tent twice the size he had when he was here before, three times? And he's claiming miracles that are simple goggle-eyed. Why the Roman Catholics must be getting jealous, almost. Of course, he hasn't got a miracle yet that'll quite equal the sun zigzagging around and darting toward the earth like it's supposed to have done outside of Portugal in 1917. Roman Catholics said whirled like a pinwheel, started dart... hurtling toward the earth and stopped before it hit, and 70,000 people supposed to have seen it. That was the culmination of Mary's having a little tête-à-tête with three little children. That was the sixth one of them. They said she had... six apparitions, revealed herself to the little children outside there ... seven, eight,  nine, ten,  eleven years of age. Miracles of Fatima. But anyway, back to this.

Many false prophets shall arise, and shall deceive many.

In 2 Peter we're given the same thought. There'll be many false prophets, "speaking perverse things, even denying the Lord that bought them, and they will deceive many.  Many shall follow their pernicious ways by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of, be evil spoken of."

And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold.

Now I do not believe that that condition specifically, this condition, will exist while the church which is Christ's body is here. But the devil whose back of this has been working without stopping since before this. That's why Paul said in 2 Thessalonians, "The mystery of iniquity doth already work". We understand by rightly dividing the Word of truth that... in its final form in Revelation 17 it  hasn't taken that shape yet, in its final form, mystery Babylon, the mother of harlots; that ol' whore who makes the ten kings drunk with the wine of her fornication. That final form, the full ripening ... ripened condition of mystery Babylon hasn't yet taken place. But that doesn't mean that you and I ...

I was listening to Talbot the other day on the radio on Revelation 17, and then reading in his book on Revelation. And in order to make his audience not be too careful to try to check up on who the harlot daughters are of that "ol' whore", "mother of harlots", he brought out that, "After the church is caught away, we know that these harlot daughters will all be here". "Say, well aren't they here now? Are they all going to be born after the church is caught away?" "Oh, no." "Where are they now?" But that's another subject.

Because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold.

Well this condition, iniquitous condition, has been going on, the mystery of iniquity was working at the time of Paul's earliest epistles, "The mystery of iniquity doth already work". So certainly there's enough iniquity now, tonight, in the world, in all of its subtle forms... I used to think of iniquity as something that should be thought of mainly as a drunken sot and a gangster you know and some particular type of vile, sexual debauchery, and so forth, iniquity. Well I'm sure iniquity includes all that, but Satan the prince of the power of the air is far more clever than to major in the kind of sins that will make mankind quickly get ashamed of themselves, and begin to feel the need of a rescuer or savior or redeemer. Satan's too smart for that.

Iniquity shall abound, lawlessness. This afternoon in Hollywood, two different Roman Catholics, one tried to take up where the older one left off as he left the street, Vine and Hollywood. And sophistry, the typical Jesuit philosophy, reasoning, just to talk, get away, get away, get away. Mike and then Wilbur and some of us butted in or came in occasionally giving things from the Word of God. And both of them just showed their instinctive, essential hatred of the Word of God. Both of them more or less alike, tried to argue away ... "Why just quote that Bible? I believe that, but why just quote that. Explain it yourself." Both of them gave the same over and over again. And we've seen that with Roman Catholics so much. It shows the instinctive hatred of the pure Word of God.

Because iniquity shall abound, because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold. But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved.

Now let's see if they are talking about spiritual salvation in this present time.

And this gospel of the kingdom, this gospel of the kingdom, shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come. When ye ... When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, (whoso readeth, let him understand), then let them which be in Judea flee into the mountains: let him which is on the housetop not comedown to take away ... any thing out of his house: neither let him which is in the field return back to take his clothes. And woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days!

Don't you see, He's talking about very specific time and comparatively very short time. And it's those that endure to the end of that particular time that He's referring to here.  Has nothing whatever to do, I mean so far as the immediate interpretation, with us today. It's enduring in the particular area at a particular time and particular people to endure.

Woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days! But pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the Sabbath day: for then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be.

It'll be the worst the world has ever seen.

And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved.

No what be saved? No flesh. No flesh be saved.

But for the elect's sake those days shall be shortened. Then if any man shall say unto you, Lo, here is

"the Messiah". In John the 1st chapter, we're told Christ or the Messiah,

Lo, here is Christ, or there; believe it not. For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets.

Now, while I'm sure that there are false teachers today who say that Jesus was the Christ for a false purpose, yet I believe that we should take the 5th verse with the 24th verse. Many will come in the last days: saying, "I am Christ".

For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall show great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect.

Let me plead with you tonight. Not only heed such things as this, but make them your very own and ask God to help you to be courageous and faithful in trying to help other people. We are living ... it seems to me in the last five years, it seems ... in the last five years there has been the most amazing leap forward in the matter of goggle-eyed signs and wonders and claims. I just think we don't realize how rapidly things are ripening. And to think that millions of people ... why these Pentecostalists say that down in South America their Tommy Hicks and others ... I heard one woman preacher on the radio when I was coming down yesterday, driving down. I heard her say that... "that wonderful miracles in these last days, wonderful" she said. "Great things, God is reviving and ..." she said, "Why one preacher, one of our Pentecostal preachers has had 400,000 people", I think she said in one meeting, I've read' before where they claim that he had 150,000 in Brazil. Well how did he get them? Why plenty Roman Catholics and others, when they hear the publicity, "Come and hear Jesus draw blood with His own finger, of human blood, make a cross on the forehead of the woman".  You know O.L. Jaggers down in Egypt, Cairo, Egypt, had that miracle performed and then had that Egyptian woman transported to the Shrine Auditorium to have the miracle repeated and they said it was repeated there. Jesus would dip His finger with human blood that He got somewhere and drew a cross and then directly the woman had supernatural oil come out of her hand. Well they just blasted all the oil pipes down in Arabia I understand, lots of places, cause they are going to have trouble getting ... but anyway.

And shall show great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect. Behold, I have told you before, I've told you before.

My friend, the one thing that is I might say miraculous, it is supernatural, it isn't miracle... miraculous in the sense of the word 'miracle' as it's used I think in the Bible, but it's supernatural. So... I'm going to use the word 'miraculous’. The one miraculous thing that God wants today is Christians who won't be carried about by every wind of doctrine, frightened or terrified or sidetracked by religious showmanship and worldly fears and so forth, but will walk calmly and serenely with a single eye, looking at the author and finisher of our faith and our whole body full of light as we rightly divide the Word of truth and wait for the coming of our Lord to catch us away. That's supernatural, that life, that kind of life.

Back to the 17th chapter of Isaiah, for a moment, 17th chapter of Isaiah, then we'll hear this Israeli ambassador a little bit. In Isaiah God says... Isaiah 17:10,

Because thou hast forgotten the God of thy salvation,

and of course Isaiah's writing to Israel, one of God's prophets, to Israel,

Because thou hast forgotten the God of thy salvation, and hast not been mindful of the Rock of thy strength, therefore shalt thou plant pleasant plants:, and shalt set it with strange slips: in the day shalt thou make thy plant to grow, and in the morning shalt thou make thy seed to flourish: but the harvest shall be a heap in the day of grief and of desperate sorrow.

There have been I don't know how much, how many articles, pictures, of the marvelous progress in Israel. The irrigation projects, the wonderful citrus fruit, and the various other things, how truly the desert of a few years ago in Israel is blossoming like a rose some of them are saying in fulfillment of prophecy. I think it comes near fulfilling this. It's Israel in unbelief. And they with all of the zeal that the Jews are capable of ... I think there's no question in the world that the Jews are more virile people than anybody on the face of the earth, partly because it's God's program to keep them, to preserve them, and partly because they have been hated and hounded and persecuted as no other race on the face of the earth for so many years and that tends to make a virile, hardy people. We are having too many easy things in this country, even our military men, many of them have ... I've got several clippings as they say our boys are getting soft, soft with all of the chatter and talk of social security and insurance and everything under heaven to keep us from needing to believe there's a God in heaven and that He wants us to be- diligent in business. Well anyway, back to this. We're a soft people; the Jews are a very virile people. Not in every individual case, but as a race. They have survived all of its attacks, just as God said in Isaiah ... Jeremiah 30 and 31, 33, "If you can break My covenant with the sun, the moon, the stars, that there be no day, then you can break My covenant with Israel that they cease to be a nation before Me". They are the indestructible Jew undoubtedly.

But look here. In their unbelief they are going to plant

In the day,

again, Isaiah 17:11,

In the day shalt thou make thy plant to grow, and in the morning shalt thou make thy seed to flourish: but the harvest shall be a heap in the day of grief and of desperate sorrow.

Oh, we should read passages Like this and ask God to let the truth of it sink into our hearts. One of the reasons we don't have more people at a meeting like this, while it wasn't known very publicly, very widely of course, is because the devil has so many things of an entertainment in the commercial realm, entertainment. He has so many people giving their life, training and giving their life to learn how to be the best dancer, the most seductive dancers, singers, actors, performers, and the best staging that actors have ever had so far as I know and the best methods of getting it out, radio, and now television and all, in addition to the movies and so forth, to where people today ... well, let me give you a ... (did I give this the other day      ?      it will still do since I gave it up in ... Arroyo Grande) anyway, my infidel brother, six years older than I... lawyer, and my youngest brother, we were together years ago here in Los Angeles. And my youngest brother said, "Say ... Maurice, I know you don't go to the movies, but I think you ought to see... this picture ...", it wasn't Frankenstein, it was one that followed Frankenstein; and the advertisement was... that it was more horrible, it was more, you know, blood-curdling, terrifying than Frankenstein, the first movie Frankenstein. And my infidel brother Rodney said, "Maurice, don't you do it". He said, "I wish I had never seen that thing". He said, "I don't think that thing ought to be allowed". Now that's my infidel lawyer brother. He said, "It's ... too horrible. If he said, "I just can't get away from it". But you think that after people have witnessed and... seen and heard all of those things, shall I say the movies, the stories about interplanetary... you know and this guy shooting to Mars, and a Martian citizen coming down here and the kids are all entertained by it and all... and we get up and read the story of David and Goliath .. "Let's go to the movies... or tune the television".  Those ... it's really horrible my friend. We know it's bad, we know it's bad, adults do; to let little children have a lot of cotton candy and sody pop and bubble gum before time, for beans and buttermilk. Don't we know it's bad? Certainly we do. Any parent of any wisdom and real love and strength will try to keep the child from having things ... (brother Ross, I mean, but) ... try to keep the child from getting a lot of chewing gum and things like that before meal time. Some people get old and indulgent, but us young folks, younger parents and all know that children should not be allowed to have things that would spoil their appetite so they won't want what they need.

But, oh God help us not to forget the day we're living in, and be guarded and careful. Guard your ... guard your entertainment, guard your mind, guard your affections, guard your hates and your loves; be careful to let nobody but God stir you up to love. During the last war, Second World War, I said over the radio more than one time, Let's be careful Christians. Don't let any of these professional United State hate propagandists tell us what to hate".  I quoted from some of the Russians after Hitler turned his back ... I mean turned on and stabbed Stalin in the back, started the invasion of Russia you'll remember like the Russians are now doing in Hungary I understand. The Russians were quoted as saying that one of the reasons that they had successfully withstood Hitler's terrible onslaught of their home country was that the Russians, "The Russians are fighting for their homeland and that the Russians have not been taught that it's awful to hate. And the people can't fight a bitter enemy if they don't hate them, fight them successfully, and that in some of the other countries the people have been taught not to hate." Anyway that was quoted in this country. "And we'd better be careful. We'd better teach our boys you know not to have too much love, love, love, but to hate the Germans and hate the Japs." I came out over the radio and I said, "Let's not let our United States propagandists or anybody tell us as Christians what to hate, or what to love". And I wasn't barking up a hollow log, I was giving very, I'm sure, very needed exhortation.

And I'm giving it to you now. Be careful. Don't allow yourself to get to where you just get all worked up over some little inconsequential, insignificant matter, and after you've just almost exhausted your capacity to hate by hating some little of trinket or toy or counterfeit over here.  And then when the time comes to hate at all, you can't even get excited, can't even get worked up. We're told to hate evil, "Abhor that which is evil".

Well back to this now, Isaiah. Again, 17:11,

In the day thou shalt plant thy plant ... make thy plant to grow, and in the morning shalt thou make thy seed to flourish: but the harvest shall he a heap in the day of grief and of desperate sorrow. Woe to the multitude of many people, which make a noise like the noise of the seas; and to the rushing of mighty waters! The nations shall rush like the rushing of many waters: but God shall rebuke them, and they shall flee far off, and shall be chased as the chaff of the mountains before the wind, and like a rolling thing,

or a tumbleweed,

a rolling thing before the whirlwind. And behold at eveningtide, trouble; and before the morning he is not. This is the portion of them that spoil us, and the lot of them that rob us.

Now let’s listen to this, please,  the representative of the nation Israel.  Some of the things anyway. (You think you hadn't better put it up here? You can maybe hear it there.) Talk, remembering it was at the special meeting, special called assembly of the League of Nations ... I mean the United Nations as you can ... you know of course about the Israel and, Britain and French invasion of Egypt. And because it was a Jewish man, in his pleading for Israel, they had so much to say about Egypt and Israel, in the light of Bible prophecy. That's why I quickly got my tape recorder to going  and caught this much of it. We won't play all that I caught but some of it.

"I will not offend the General Assembly with a sordid chronicle and all its details. Suffice it to say that during this period of Egyptian belligerency, there have taken place 435 cases of armed incursion, nearly 2000 cases of armed' robbery and theft, several hundred cases... "

It might be helpful to, inasmuch as you don't hear the preliminary to that, he was. bringing out before the League of Nations, the United Nations:, Thursday night and past midnight, he was bringing out, trying to prove of course, that Israel's going into the Sinai Peninsula and the Gaza Strip ... and by the way I bought a San Francisco paper the other evening just because the headlines, "Gaza Falls to Israel". Great big box car headlines, and I intended to bring it down here and use it on Hollywood and Vine this afternoon. l told my wife I was planning on doing it. I said, "I want to use that,^,,"Gaza Falls to Israel", and bring out, "Yeah but not like Samson pulled the gates off the prison at Gaza"." You remember that? That's a beautiful type I think of the Lord Jesus, whose the only one that can conquer Israel's Gaza and do an abiding job of it. "Gaza Falls to Israel", the same Gaza, right down there ... Gaza means stronghold, and in the times of Samson it was the strongest of Egypt's five strongholds, Philistine, so forth.

But anyway... he's bringing out, trying to prove that Israel isn't actually the aggressor in going into Egypt. And that's his line of argument is that Egypt has done all of this and all of this and all of that and all of that to Israel, and Israel is now simply on the defense and fighting with noble self-preservation.

.. armed clashes with Egyptian armed forces, 172 cases of sabotage perpetrated by Egyptian military units and Fedayeen in Israel. As a result of these activities, 455 of our people have been killed and wounded. In 1956 alone so far with the result of this  one act of Egyptian belligerency 28 of our people have been killed and 127 have been wounded.

I have said that this activity is merely the spearhead of Egyptian belligerency. It is a new device for making war and for making it with safety. The doctrine is one of unilateral belligerency. The Egyptian-Israeli frontier is to be a one-way street. It is to be, wide-open for these armed Egyptian units to penetrate deeply into Israel to accomplish their mission and to return. It is to be closed in their favor against any defensive response.

It was in these circumstances that the government of Israel faced the tormenting problem of its duties and obligations under the charter of the United Nations. We are not satisfied with a justification of our actions in pure terms of national expediency. There is perhaps no member of this organization more sensitive to world currents of international opinion, more vulnerable to the disfavor and to the defense of friendly world opinion. Broader is the scope of its universal association. Less able to maintain its life and its existence on any principle of self-sufficiency and of war.

He said, "We're not unmindful of the necessity of being friends of the nations. There's probably no nation," he said, "that is so dependent upon . , we're not self-sufficient. We're looking around, looking around, looking around." They don't believe that... they need only one thing: a prophet like unto Moses.. They are looking around them. And that was so tragic, it stirred my heart. Think ... he realizes; and of course ... I don't know of course if it's a shenanigan -- some of the ones I've heard, and several of the speakers, Arab speakers, and all... accused England and France and Israel of very, very clever diplomacy, conniving, to have Israel go in and then it would give a semblance of authority; reason for the British to kind of help them. And then others said it was nothing but a masterly, diabolically clever trick on the part of... Israel, the Jews, knowing that they couldn't do it, like he's saying here. "We know we can't live by ourselves, we're not self-sufficient." Then why did you start in there? Didn't you know good and well that that would stir up all the Arab world, with more intense hatred and determination to stop you? Sure. they knew it. But they either already had an understanding with Britain and France or thought they'd get it that they would come to their help, realizing that the oil interests in the Arab countries, Great Britain and France, need the oil.

I heard one of the speakers last night at the second special session saying that it is already reported (he was against Britain of course), it is already reported that Britain has started gas rationing. Because in the Arab countries where most of the oil of that whole European and Asia countries ... the Arabs have blown-up oil pipes, enormous pipes.

Your brother-in-law who went to be with the Lord a little while ago, Howard Pugh, how many years did he spend over in ...

(answer from audience)   Two years.

Two years over in the Arabian oil fields over there for one of the United States oil companies. And I was interested to hear a good many things from him a few years ago when he came back.

So this, you see... it's the pipeline, it's the lifeline for much of the mechanical life of Britain and France and so forth. So maybe it was masterly clever. I announced this morning on the radio that I thought tonight I would bring out something like this: Whether the Israel president and council and all, whether the leaders did say, "Now the smartest thing that we can do right now is to go ahead and precipitate a war and throw in our chestnuts in the fire and then Great Britain and France will pull them out." And they are accused of that very thing by some of the speakers, using that very figure.

But this is a thought that I've had. I don't think there's any question about it; in fact more than a thought, because after I heard some of the Arab speakers and all, "Israel's action has been like sprayed gallons of gasoline poured on the  smoldering fires where they were only smoldering." They say, "Yeah, that's your Israel nation for you I wish I had a record of the speaker, the Lebanon speaker, who spoke last night. He was the most eloquent speaker I think I ever heard in my life. Oh-h his language... and he did make a case out against England and France and the Israel nation. I could just imagine ... and when he got through he really was cheered too.

And I was just thinking, "Oh-h, all the heavy hatred that is necessary for the wars that are prophesied to really break out, it's really coming  on." But just think of how those nations and different ones were saying, "Yeah, those Jews, Israel. They have done that trick that Jacob did way back yonder. They are schemers. They knew like this Jewish representative is saying, they knew that they were not sufficient of themselves. Well then why did they start a thing that would so likely precipitate an Arabian world. And the Arab world is a whole lot stronger than Israel, numerically and financially and all like that. Not when God's going to work for Israel of course, but today. And so why did the Jews start that, unless it's because they already had a secret understanding with Britain and with France or thought that whether they had one or not they would force Britain and France and maybe the United States ...

And I heard awhile a speaker on the radio, evidently a socialist in this country, speaking against both the Democrats and Republicans but on this very subject. He said, "Don't think for one moment that because President Eisenhower didn't openly endorse Britain and France and Israel  that that is a real true picture of the case." He said that, "The capitalists in Israel," and he went on with some of their wars, their schemes for oil and all... the Suez Canal, the capitalists in Israel, he said, "They are not concerned with the farmers in Israel anymore than the... British capitalists and imperialists are concerned with the farmers in Britain and the farmers in France." He went down the line. But he said, "You just watch, you just watch. President Eisenhower and the capitalist leadership in this country, they are with the capitalists of Britain and the capitalists of France." He said, "Don't be fooled by this present strategy, and it's another clever thing." And of course, I think there's no doubt in the world that the United States. of America, so far as our horizontal interests are concerned and the leaders realize that we have far more in common with England and even with France probably than we have with the Arabians. And so, it's a seething, boiling, mess of course. Now I'll try not to interrupt him up again till we're through with him.

 

"... with a full knowledge of this fact, that we have been forced to interpret Article 59 of Charter as furnishing both a legal and a moral basis for such defensive action as is literally and specifically applicable to the dangers which we face. Under Article 51 of Charter the right of self-defense is described as inherent. The French translation, "      ?       it is something which emerges from the very nature of its fate and of humanity. This inherent right of self-defense is conditioned in the Charter by the existence of armed attack against a member state. Can anyone say that this long and uninterrupted series of encroachments did not constitute in its totality the essence and the reality of an armed attack? Can it be seriously suggested that we made no attempt to exhaust peaceful remedy? Time after time at the table of the Security Council and in meetings of the     ?      Armistice Commission efforts were made to bring about tranquility on this frontier. And yet all of this well-intentioned, enlightened, and at certain times hopeful effort ended without making the life or the security of a single citizen of Israel greater than it was before.

I adventure the problem of opinion, it is perhaps natural that the Council should interpret its own obligations for the preservation of security more stringently than those who enjoy greater security far away. If we have sometimes found it difficult to persuade even our friends in the international community to understand the motive for our actions, this is because nobody in the world's community is in Israel's position. How many of the nations have had hundreds of their citizens killed over these years by the armed actions of armies across the frontier? How many nations have had their ships seized and their cargoes seized in international waterways? How many nations find the pursuit of their daily tasks to be a matter of daily and perpetual hazard? In how many countries does every single citizen going about his duties feel the icy wind of his own vulnerability? It might be ..."

Now this stirred my heart. I know the God of Israel. The One who wept over Jerusalem. Listen to all that and thought, "Oh" ... like Christ said before He left the earth, "Oh-h, if you'd only known the day of thy visitation." This appeal, "What other nation has had their ships sunk? What other nation has had all... everyone of their citizens daily fearful of their life?" Because they are surrounded you see by Arab countries and enemy, enemy, enemy, enemy. "What other nation", and down the line he goes and presents the condition that we know it's got to obtain until when the nation tears their hearts and not their garments in true repentance as we read in Joel the 2nd chapter, "Turn from man and cease from man". As I read over the radio this morning in Isaiah 8, "Say not, "Confederacy", with those that say, "Confederacy". That's what they've got now, confederacy. I want to read directly in Daniel 11 about "they will sit down and tell lies at one table"; Boy, if that doesn't fit ... "they will tell lies at one table"; that's in the 11th chapter of Daniel the 44th verse. "Sit down and tell lies at one table", getting ready for the antichrist, that's the picture there in the 11th chapter.

But now if I remember correctly, I didn't play this back, but if I remember correctly, from here on for a little while now, he gives things, not necessarily that he's giving all the truth, that's not the point, the point is though that he is making an appeal from... an Israel nation that I think in all this had made a hundred enemies while they made one friend.

... requiring unusual methods of humility and imagination for others to answer the question how they would have acted in our place. Nobody else is in our place. Nobody else is in our place, and is therefore fully competent to equate the advantage and the disadvantage of our choice. The government of Israel is fully convinced that we have done what any other nation would have done in our place with the reservation that many would have done it earlier and perhaps with greater impact of resistance.

It is especially moving to us to find that despite the uniqueness and the eccentricity of our position, the something of it is making its way into the generous consciousness of mankind. And since this discussion proceeds not merely from the rostrum of the General Assembly, but also against the bar of world opinion, it's I think legitimate to quote an eloquent and a poignant passage from one of the great organs of opinion published in this, the host city of our organization. In yesterday's edition of the New York Times, "it would be ridiculous, it wrote, "to permit Colonel Nasser to pose before the United Nations or the world as the innocent victim of aggression, or to hold a protecting hand over him. On the contrary, insofar as there is any one man guilty of aggression, it is the Egyptian president, for he has  waged war against Israel, Britain, and France by gunnery means, by propaganda, by infiltration of murderous bands, by stirring up rebellion in Africa, by seizing the Suez Canal with force and scrapping a treaty in the same manner in which Hitler marched into the Rhineland, by blocking of the canals for Israeli shipping in defiance of United Nations' orders, finally by the whole loudly proclaimed program of throwing Israel into the fate of an alliance with other states and creating of them an empire extend its hegemony which would extend his influence in concentric circles to all Africa and to the whole Moslem world."

In these circumstances Mr. President, both the position and the attitude of the Israeli government are clear. The attitude is based upon our fundamental concept of reciprocity. If the frontier between Egypt and Israel is to protect Egyptian territory against Israeli entry, then it must protect Israeli territory against Egyptian entry. We hold as a self-evident truth that the lives of Israeli men, women, and children are not less sacrosanct or less worthy of international protection than are the lives of the highest Fedayeen group which are the main instruments of Nasserism in its assault upon the peace and the decency of Middle Eastern life. Beyond these incidents, brave as these are, we could certainly choose of even greater numbers.

World opinion must surely choose between the two candidates who have conquered us: on the one hand farmers and workers., the men, women, and children of Israel; on the other hand, the fantastic warriors of the Fedayeen group. Behind that confrontation  there stands the much broader and more significant alignment between Israel and Nasser: a full people filled its society and culture in its renascent homeland. In the early days of its independence it is set upon by the armed might of all its neighbors who attempt to wipe it off of the face of the earth. In the following years its neighbors continued their assault with war-like acts of their own choice. They attempt their destruction by armed intervention, they send armed units into her territory to murder and plunder, they strive by every means to ensure that nowhere shall there be tranquility for peaceful pursuits, they blare forth the most violent threats of Israel's destruction. They accumulate vast armaments for bringing this about. They announce as they did last week from Cairo that it is they who will choose the time and the place for the final assault and it is for us to wait passively for the moment of their selection. They proclaim that a state of war with Israel already exists. They seize to break as to ... the world's international waterways and convert it into an instrument for unilateral, national pressure. Across Africa a nation. Wherever Nasserism spreads its painful influence, it corrupts activity to subvert all peace and progress and to establish an ambitious and insatiable hegemony. Now having considered that it has humbled and defeated the international community and the maritime powers, Nasser's action returns to its first project, Israel, which is to be swamped from three sides with a new wave of Fedayeen violence.

The Assembly here recall that the new wave began shortly following the Tripartite Military Alliance concerted ten days ago between the governments of Syria, Jordan, and Egypt under Egypt's control. The President while studying with a pension all proposals for strengthening security in the Middle East, we must reject with vehement indignation the charges of aggression launched against us here, launched by some states whose own current international and security activities are well in the forefront of today^'s international attention. There is aggression, there is belligerency in the Middle East, but we find here have been its victim, not its author. That is what I mean when I say world opinion as here represented should decide whom to trust. Shall it be the small, free people establishing its homeland in peace and constructive progress, or shall it be the dictatorship which has bullied and blustered and blackmailed its way across the international line of our time     ?       threatening peace on many continents, openly avowing belligerency, placing its fist on the jugular vein of the world's communication, bringing the Middle East and the world ever nearer to the threshold of conflict, intimidating all those who stand in its path, all except one people at least which will not be intimidated, one people who no dictator has ever intimidated, the people which have risen up against all the tyrants of history, the people which knows that the appeasement of despots yields nothing but an uneasy restive. And let a government which allows its own citizens to be murdered daily in their homes would lose the dignity and the justification for which governments are instituted among men.

In conclusion Mr. President, I would ask the General Assembly to believe that Israel, the Arab states, the region in which they and we must forever live now stand at the crossroads of their history. An aggressive dictatorship has for the first time. encountered successful and glorious resistance. The    ?     elements of its pride have been broken. Those whom he has outraged with impunity have stood up and asserted their right. And the hope of freedom burns brightly in the Middle East today, not only for Israel but for many others in our region who have found ways of communicating to us their own deep apprehension of what Nasser's encroachment means for their own cherished sovereignty. The power of this tyranny is not artificially arrived.

Our region will again become a place where men of all nations, including Israel, can live and work in peace, where legitimate universal interests will be respected under the sanction of law, where conquests without a     ?      will be held in respect, where all those in Asia and Europe whose fortune is linked by history and geography with the Middle East will receive justice and respect for their legitimate interests. It will be a region where the great maritime nations will not have to suffer the indignities which they underwent in this building last month when they have to hang       ?        exaggerated difference on every wave of the hand, on every knot of competition, from the representative of the territorial power which converted the unconditional right of navigation into an act of grace or privilege..."

I think that's the main point. You heard him say that, "Tonight Israel and the Arab nations stand at the crossroads of their existence".  Of course I don't believe that's quite right. But let me repeat one of the things that made me want to get a recording of it, in light of what I'd heard before I began recording, was that to me it was such an impassioned appeal by one that is hoping against hope, that has... let me tell you something that some of you heard me give. Years ago... where's Ralph Johnson?  He here     ?       ?        ...looking at him.  When Ralph and I rode the (was it the Los Angeles Union Pacific?) train back to Chicago on our way to Toledo, we were on the train that night when the news came over the radio on the train... that Hitler had gone into Poland, I believe it was.

(gap on tape)

... of course he wasn't for Hitler because Hitler had already to some degree shown his hand against the Jews at that time. As I got to talking to him, he was of course a well educated and a world traveler, a brilliant fellow. And in a few minutes, he said, "Now, we Jews are rather generally thought of being money mad, as being covetous, as being out for money." But he said, "That isn't true. That isn't what the Jew wants." He said, "The Jew loves the magnificence. The Jew is aspiring to success and brilliance." And I said, "I see. Maybe you really have something there." But I said, "Do you know why? Why do you think it is that a Jew aspires to and dreams of magnificence and splendor?" I said, "Because it's.. been held out to you by your prophets, Isaiah and Jeremiah and Ezekiel and Joel and Zephaniah and the Prophet like unto Moses." I said, "Of course you can't fit. You’re out of place in any country." No Jew can be as to his nature a Loyal, patriotic, 100% patriotic citizen in any country but Palestine. He's got too much background. And even if he repudiates everything like Einstein tried to do in the way of religion, he's not at home, he won't        ?        , I mean successfully.  God is      ?      .

Well that's what I was thinking about in ... with this fellow ... he's got some of the impassioned ... made some ... of appeal. I don't ... and some of the other speakers were as good or better orators, but to me he had a little bit of the downtrodden Jew that's still dreaming, that's still battling. And that struck me with a responsive chord in my heart.

Daniel the 11th chapter, a little bit. Now if there's anybody here that doesn't understand, that doesn't believe the Bible teaching that the Lord is going to restore Israel as a nation, and that Palestine, that Jerusalem is yet to be the capitol of the world, and the Jews. Israel as a nation is going to be the head and the rest of the nations will take their place. In one of the prophecies we're told Israel will no longer be the tail, but the head.  He spoke tonight, "We're not self-sufficient. No nation is so dependent upon world opinion as Israel", and so forth. He's realizing you see something of the terrible enemies that they have and their hopelessness unless they get the help of the nations. But they are not in a condition to make the nations love them. They don't know how to do it, you see; they are too involved. And it's ... they just can't get what they need. And they are yet going to be confined.

Well let's read some in the 11th chapter of Daniel. Remember we're told in the Word of God, God said to Abraham, "I'm going to make you a great nation. I'm going to make you a great nation." Well Israel, the decedents of Abraham, never became a nation till they ... the Jews were baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea. That's when they became a nation. They were a family and families, slaves, until they came out, redeemed as a people, and were baptized unto Moses in the cloud and the sea, and were given national laws in every realm of human life, including spiritual you see; dietary, political, and all the laws that men need. And given them by God. Today, I have read such things ... I read statements from William E Gladstone, the grand old man of law of England, and from men, lawyers in this country, and gone to the library, encyclopedias and all, I've read things about ... that men say that all of our modern jurisprudence in the English speaking world for instance, England and the United States, is basically Mosaic. That the Mosaic law, health and hygiene, dealing ... civil dealing one ... and all, is basically ... it's built upon the Mosaic economy. Of course, we know it was given by God. And nothing like it's ever been given before, or since, or will be. And Israel, a Jew, specially a Jew like this, and undoubtedly (I would presume anyway) is a student of history, the history of his people, and world history. And they are bound to be (thank God) ... that they are bound to be dreamers of the day when we won't be, we can't have ... even if they are modernistic and deny all of the inspiration of the Scriptures. They still must respect their greatest characters, Moses, Isaiah, and have some respect you know. And that makes them dissatisfied with the cheap and the little. We Gentiles have to take our hats off.  There's no question in the world that you start the average Jew out with a little something and a hole-in-the-wall, working for some Gentile, and look out! he'll buy the Gentile out and the Gentile will be his bootblack. And Christians of any spiritual intelligence shouldn't hate the Jew for that. We should say, "I see something, I see some of the remains of what God intends with the nation that is to be the head and not the  tail."  And when you and I as Christians, whether Gentiles after the flesh or not, when we see cases of Jewish greed and Jewish chicanery, cleverness, and duplicity and diplomacy and all, instead of hating them for it, we should say, "That's a little bit of their instinctive superiority". They are superior in God's program. That doesn't mean that individually now they are all superior, but they are dreamers and they should be dreamers. When they are unsaved they don't know anything about Christ and they are not content therefore with the present program, the church which is Christ's body, and to be content whether you live in the United States or Russia or jail or out or where if you're a child of God, have the Holy Spirit in you, see. An unsaved Jew simply can't be content.

I heard a man... brother O'Hair, years and years ago speak on four things that are out of place. And he gave beautiful truth. I've read some things from others since that time about that. I forget how he put it first, maybe the devil, the  first so far as this world's concerned. He said until these four things get in place, the world will be in turmoil, trouble, and all. He said the devil's out of place. His place is the pit and he's going to be put there one day.  Second, the church is out of place. It's down here in a vale of tears, misunderstood, we belong in the glory, and as long as we're down here, the Lord can't resume His dealing with Israel.  And the Jew's out of place. He belongs in Palestine as a nation with a king, a king there on the throne.  And the Lord's out of place so far as the earth is concerned. He's coming back. There are four things that are out of place.

You know when we look at the world in the light of these great, great avenues of divine truth and all, we can get our distances anyway, able to locate, and we won't admire the schemes and dreams. When I hear things like this Jew, when I hear Stevenson and hear President Eisenhower and all blowing their bubbles of peace, peace, peace and social security and goodwill and mutual love, we must love each, we must trust each other, we must build a civilization where everything will be lovely, mosquitoes will just sing us an orchestra, I mean a beautiful symphony orchestra and won't bite us and they, and everything, and the cats, and the dogs will... lamb and the lion, lie down together as the result of man, see.

And we read of a woman lion tamer that for years was one of the leading lion tamers; but she was torn to shreds by one of her best lion actors here some months ago. And we see the combination there: the fact that a woman could be a lion tamer, that could with her look, her fascinating and intriguing, all by hypnotic look, and methods in cracking the whip and what. The fact that she could have the king of the forest obey her, suggests what Eve did without any extra trouble at all. Adam and Eve you know could just say to the lion and the elephants and the tigers and the doodlebugs and the snakes and what all but the serpent... Adam was intended, was created to have dominion. But when the lion tore to pieces, that was a terrible reminder that it isn't the time now for all the lions to obey men and women.  It's out of order.

We need these truths to transform us so we wont be conformed to this world. Oh, I thrilled the other night and still do as I heard those  world leaders in diplomacy, in world statesmanship, politics, history and so forth, just beating with words, words, words, words, not knowing what's wrong. Just like Job's comforters, to whom, including Job, God finally says, "Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge? You don't know." They didn't know why Job was sick. Job himself didn't know. That's perfect parallel to world conditions today. But we know why Job was sick (Job learned it later), we know why Job lost his possessions and ... it was God's sovereign will to teach the devil and you and me that read the book, humbly to teach the devil that He, God, is worthy to be loved whether He gives people a lot of things or not. He's worthy to be loved and worshipped whether you're rich or poor, good health or... covered with boils and your wife tells you to curse God and die. That's the book of Job. And you and I, you and I can know... why things are like they are today in the world. And we should thank God that we do. Four things out of place.

Daniel 11. I'd like to read all, but I won't have time to read all. I'm not saying now that of course that this has been fulfilled, but these are prospects. And ... not all of these events are going to burst onto the scene without preparation, without stage setting. Just like we read in 1 John, "There are many antichrists already" and they've got to do their business getting ready for the big antichrist, you see. Many antichrists getting ready to prepare the people, you know, softening them up for the big antichrist. There are many movements today of Gorse that conditioning people, softening people, "Well after all you know, today you've got to do this, join that, you've got to join this, you got to, you got to", softening people see. Instead of you and me saying, "We don't have to do but one thing, and that's to meet God and answer to God." We don't have to live; we're all going to die lest Christ comes soon enough. We don't all have to eat; plenty people starving to death, a lot of them in the world tonight. We don't all have to be healthy physically; we're not, most of us are sick already and we've all got enough to take us to the grave sooner or later if the Lord doesn't come. But we do have to meet God. That's an obligation that we can't escape. We've got to meet God.

Daniel 11, I'll begin at the 15th verse. Oh, I keep backing up, I don't know where to stop. But anyway, 14th verse,

And in those times there shall many stand up against the king of the south: and the robbers of thy people shalt exalt themselves to establish the vision; but they shall fall.

The king of the South, as far as I know, is the king of Egypt, south of Palestine.

So the king of the north shall come, and cast up a mount, and take the most fenced cities: and the arms of the south shall not withstand, neither his chosen people, neither shall there be any strength to withstand. But he that cometh against him shall do according to his own will, and none shall stand before him: and he shall stand in the glorious land,

Palestine undoubtedly,

which by his hand shall be consumed. He shall also set his face to enter with the strength of his whole kingdom, and upright ones with him; thus shall he do: and he shall give him the daughter of women, corrupting her: but she shall not stand on his side, neither be for him. After this shalt he turn his face unto the isles, and shall take many: but a prince for his own behalf shall cause the reproach offered by him to cease; without his own reproach he shall cause it to turn upon him. Then he shall turn his face toward the fort of his own land: but he shall stumble and fall, and not be found. Then shall stand up in his estate a raiser of taxes in the glory of the kingdom: but within few days he shall be destroyed, neither in anger, nor in battle. And in his estate shall stand up a vile person, to whom they shall not give the honour of the kingdom but he shall come in peaceably, and obtain the kingdom by flatteries. And with the arms of a flood shall they be overflown from before him, and shall be broken; yea, also the prince of the covenant. 

And after the league made with him, that's undoubtedly the league that this vile person coming in peaceably is going to make with Israel, when Israel ... will believe that there's no hope for her survival any other way.

And after the league made with him he shall work deceitfully: for he shall come up, and shall become strong with a small people. He shall enter peaceably even upon the fattest places of the province; and he shall do that which his fathers have not done, nor his fathers; he shall scatter among them the prey, and spoil, and riches: yea, and he shall forecast his devices against the strong holds, even for a time.

Going to make a lot of friends.

And he shall stir up his power and his courage against the king of the south with a great army; and the king of the south shall be stirred up to battle with a very great and mighty army; but he shall not stand: for they shall forecast devices against him. Yea, they that feed of the portion of the meat shall destroy him, and his army shall overflow: and many shall fall down slain. And both these kings' hearts shall be to do mischief, and they shall speak lies at one table; but it shall not prosper: for yet the end shall be at the time. appointed. Then shall he return into his land with great riches; and his heart shall be against the holy covenant; and he shall do exploits, and return to his own land. At the time. appointed he shall return, and come toward the south; but it shall not he as the former, or as the latter. For the ships of Chittim shall come against him: therefore he shall be grieved, and return, and have indignation against the holy covenant: so shall he do; he shall even return, and have diligence with them that forsake the holy covenant.

(whispered comment from audience) Intelligence.

Intelligence, thank you.

And arms shall stand on his part, and they shall pollute the sanctuary of strength, and shall take away the daily sacrifice, and they shall place the abomination that maketh desolate.

We read about that from the lips of the Lord in the 24th of Matthew.

And such as do wickedly against the covenant shall he corrupt with flatteries ... by flatteries,

and lots of folks are being corrupted now by flatteries aren't they? Corrupted by flatteries.

But the people that do know their God shall be strong, and do exploits. And they that understand among the people shall instruct many: yet they shall fall by the sword, and by flame, by captivity, and by spoil, many days. Now when they shall fall, they shall be holpen with a little help: but many shall cleave to them with flatteries. And some of them of understanding shall fall, to try them, and to purge, and to make them white, even to the time of the end: because it is yet for a time appointed. And the king shall do according to his will; and he shall exalt himself, and magnify himself above every god, and shall speak marvelous things against the God of gods, and shall prosper till the indignation be accomplished,

probably the day of the Lord, closing the Tribulation period, 

for that that is determined shall be done. Neither shall he regard the God of his fathers, nor the desire of women, nor regard any god, for he shall magnify himself above all. But in his estate shall he honour the God of forces: and a god whom his fathers knew not shall  he honour with gold, and silver, and with precious stones, and pleasant things. Thus shall he do in the most strong holds with a strange god, whom he shall acknowledge and increase with glory: and he shall cause them to rule over many, and shall divide the land for gain. And at the time of the end shall the king of the south push at him: and the king of the north shall come against him like a whirlwind, with chariots, and with horsemen, and with many ships, 

now that could include all the jet planes and all the modern methods of warfare, 

like a whirlwind, with chariots, and with horsemen, and with many ships, and he shall enter into the countries, and shall overflow and pass over. He shall enter also into the glorious land, that's Palestine, and many countries shall be overthrown: but these shall escape out of his hand, even Edom, and Moab, and the chief of the children of Ammon. He shall stretch forth his hand also upon the countries: and the land of Egypt shall not escape. And he shall have power over the treasures of gold and silver, and over all the precious things of Egypt: and the Libyans and the Ethiopians shall be at his steps. But tidings out of the east and out of the north shall trouble him: therefore he shall go forth with great fury to destroy, and utterly to make away many. And he shall plant the tabernacles of his palace between the seas in the glorious holy mountain; yet he shall come to his end, and none shall help him. And at that time. shall Michael stand up, the great prince which standeth for the children of thy people: and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time: and at that time. thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book. And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. And they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness, as the stars for ever and ever. But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book,

that's the reason I do not profess to be able to interpret all of this. But the general view, the general tendency and the general outcome is too obvious.

O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end.

Now, Herbert Armstrong and nearly all the Anglo-Israelites and a lot of others say that we're already in the time of the end, the end.  And they figured out Daniel, you know, and they got all the dates just exactly. William Miller had it in 1843, made a mistake when Christ didn't come in 1843, he found a mistake of one year, said it's 1844, he lost some of his followers but others came in, and Christ didn't come. Herbert Armstrong now ... I haven't written for his booklet yet on... 1975; He says just write for that book, you just can't understand the world events until you get (I'm not plugging for you to buy that book now or write for it), and he's got dates and they are date setters, date setter, they understand the book of Daniel as to all the timetables.

Well...  none of them do.  None of them do.  Because I believe it's sealed as to the exact time element. You and I during this church dispensation don't need to know the times and seasons. I believe this fits perfectly with Acts the 1st chapter.  After the Lord Jesus, the risen Christ, had talked to His Jewish disciples for forty days speaking to them of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God, and then said, "John truly baptized with water but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days hence". They said, "Lord, wilt Thou at this time. restore the kingdom to Israel?" He says, "It's not for you to know the times and seasons". They haven't come to the time of the end yet; it's shut up. The book of Daniel and the times and seasons and all, those things are shut up.

But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time. of the end many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased.

Now, every once in awhile preachers bring out that that's a prophecy of the automobile,    ?    ?   But now that they got the jet planes ... I read of a plane the other day; you read of it    ?     a jet plane that shot itself down.

(comment from audience) Yeah.

I haven't been able to figure that one out. Clay, I want to talk you about that, maybe you can explain ...

(Clay Rapp from audience) ... Ran into its own bullets.

Ran into its own bullets. Now I don't quite get that, but that's what they said it did. So this is ... it'd be pretty tame to say this is just an automobile, unless it's a new Chevrolet.

(laughter from audience)

I don't have one understand, but I heard them talking about it, that it's just a dream. No I believe it's a ... well it depends on which one you're listening to, which ...

(comment from audience)

I believe it's the Plymouth, it's just three years ahead of everything, it's just ... boy oh boy. But it doesn't go as fast as that plane the other day that shot itself down.

Many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall increase. Then I Daniel looked, and, behold, there stood other two.

I'm going to close after reading some in the 2nd chapter of Joel, 2nd chapter of Joel. I read years and years ago a statement that I've often remembered. I don't know that I've ever given it ... yes I may have to some of you here. A Bible teacher was commenting on the  value of reading and studying the prophetic Scripture. And he said, "We should all do it, because an understanding, a familiarity, on the part of a Christian, with the prophetic Scriptures will show us, as nothing else can, the transitoriness of things down here; this is temporary." We're so inclined to think ... now brother LaForce, when you go down, when you first used to go down into that office of that new G.P. building down there on 6th Street, "Oh boy, that's just ... I'm going to be here forever". You ...sound like you didn't want to, in that new building Earl. Has that new office already gotten old?

(Earl LaForce from audience)  It was old to begin with.

It was old to begin with. Well anyway, they are building buildings you know that are earthquake proof. How about when the Lord rises to shake terribly the earth? Boy oh boy. Your machines brother will really fall apart, really fall apart. Yes sir, when the Lord shakes ... back to Joel 2.

Let's study the prophecies more and meditate upon them. They will help us see the transitoriness, the temporary character of men's proud things. And children of eternity ought to read the timetable more than we do. Joel the 2nd chapter.

Blow ye the trumpet in Zion,

Campbellites say that's their little sect. Yes sir, that's their little sect. But no! You know where it is? It's Salt Lake City. Sure. Toot in Salt Lake City. No! Voliva, Alexander Dowie ahead of him, started it outside of Chicago, Zion City, Illinois. Yes sir, Zion City, Illinois, still got the post office there. But it went bankrupt, literally, sure, it went bankrupt a few years ago. Well... this Zion's not going to go bankrupt after this has been fulfilled.

Blow ye the trumpet in Zion, and sound an alarm in the holy mountain: let all the inhabitants of the land tremble: for the day of the Lord cometh, for it is nigh at hand; a day of darkness and of gloominess,

we heard this Israel speaker a moment ago winding up and talking about a time when "they will live together, "We and the Arab peoples must live" ... didn't he say together forever or something like that, use that phrase, in peace and all? The dream of pretty pronouncements of orators you know dreaming about everything lovely. It's like the presidents, every one of them almost that I ever heard speak usually winds up by bringing the name God in. President Roosevelt when he was giving his first inaugural address, he said, "The moneychangers have been driven from the temple".

(comments and laughter from audience)

That was about as prophetically true as poor President Wilson's shibboleth about the war to end wars and make the world safe for democracy. You know you and I shouldn't just hear those things and more or less laugh at the pitiful or the ridiculous short-sightedness and falsity of it. We should be deeply humbled and grateful. How does it happen that you and I know more about such things than the eminent, ex-president of Princeton University, President of the United States, Woodrow Wilson? How's it happen? Are we grateful like we should be? Does it humble us? Do we say, "Oh God, help me to live. I know so much better than these poor gropers, brilliant gropers in the dark. I know so much more than they do about God's program." Well what's that mean? Then I should live more. You know you and I are obligated to live better than any body, out live people that don't know the truths God's taught us. Ever think about that? Why you know I ought to out live anybody in my neighborhood, except those that know more, and l don't know anything as I ought. We ought to out live people that don't know the glorious truths that we know. Did you know that? We ought to live them. Live lives that are superior. And yet when you and I as Christians get up ... get excited and all, head up, and upset you know over some little ol' thing. Isn't that awful. You and I know all these things are coming on the world and in spite of all of that the Lord ... well let's read a little hit more here... (I lost my place; Joel the 2nd chapter.)

A day of darkness and of gloominess, a day of clouds and of thick darkness, as the morning spread upon the mountains: a great people and a strong; there hath not been ever the like, neither shall be any more after it, even to the years of many generations. A fire devoureth before them; and behind them a flame burneth: the land is as the garden of Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness,

that's Palestine, that's Palestine, it's going to be fulfilled. All the irrigation projects, all of the splendid farming and gardening that’s been done in Israel in the last several years, it's just getting ready for this.  "Plant your plants with      ?      , but in the day of grief and desperate sorrow it will be a heap", we read in Isaiah 17 awhile ago.

A fire devoureth before them; and behind them a flame burneth,

that's what left you see;,

the land is as the garden of Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness; yea, and nothing shall escape them. The appearance of them is as the appearance of horses; and as horsemen, so shall they run. Like the noise of chariots on the tops of mountains shall they leap, they could be airplanes, bombers, I don't know what all, like the noise of a flame of fire that devoureth the stubble, as a strong people set in battle array. Before their face the people shall be much pained: all faces shall gather blackness.

Think of the little, sweet, brown-eyed, Jewish babies and boys and girls. Our hearts should ... and probably you who heard about it, I don't know how much Wilbur said last Sunday about the burning to death of Walter Lowenthal. He was a tragic figure. I'm sure I didn't do all I could have done to ... kept him among us and help him in his weakness and his bewilderment. He was in Hitler's Nazi Jewish camp and saw members of his own family butchered, murdered by Hitler. The Jewish people ... let's not let anybody stir us up to anti-Semitic attitude toward the Jews.

I started to say awhile ago, God told Abraham, "I'm going to make you a great nation, and I'm going to bless them that bless you, and I'm going to curse them that curse you." Over and over and over again when Israel was rebellious and God let them be defeated by their enemies, He punished the enemies for defeating Israel. It seems like a contradiction doesn't it. No! No. Anymore than if my ... that if I would have allowed ... Jimmy was a little boy, say, "Don't you go out in the street, it's dangerous". And suppose he went out and got hit by a truck just enough to scare him real bad. And the truck driver ran on. I'd maybe tell Jimmy, "I'm glad you got that". Then I'd run and call the cops and say, "Overtake that truck, license plate number so-and-so". Sure. I'd do both, I'd do both.

Israel, this is going to happen to Israel. Their face, 

all faces shall gather blackness.

That's the same as I read awhile ago of course in Isaiah, "the day of grief and desperate sorrow". You and I have used the expression from time to time, "I was just desperate". You know, meaning that when the flapjacks got burned too much on one side you know, 'we were just desperate". Mrs. LaForce invites some of the company over there you know like they've had so often over there, invite the company and she's making some coffee for the tramp preacher and it boiled over, "She just got desperate". I mean that's the way I do at times, see, "Just got desperate". We use those extravagant adjectives often don't we? And what do we know, what do we know about sorrow and desperate grief, desperate. Despairing of your very existence and wish you could, wish you could die quickly to get out of the horrible things that are coming.  Every... 

all faces shall gather blackness. They shall run like mighty men,

that is the enemy coming down, and

they shall climb the wall like men of war,

that could be tanks, it could be poison gas, I don't know what all it could be,

and they shall march every one on his ways, and they shall not break their ranks: neither shall one thrust another; they shall walk every one in his path: and when they fall upon the sword, they shall not be wounded.

That could be mechanized equipment, and I don't know what all.

They shall run to and fro,

or it could be some diabolical forces like we read of in Revelation, it couldn't be hurt by normal methods of destroying a man, and ... I mean among others.

The earth shall quake before them: and the heavens shall tremble: and the sun and the moon shall be dark, and the stars shall withdraw their shining.

Could we get a modern description that would be a more accurate description of the atomic and hydrogen bomb warfare and all that you can dream of in the light of any of the projected and professed things of today? No. This is inspired language my friend. It takes care of everything that man can ever invent. This is inspired language. This doesn't need to be rewritten to be brought up to date. You think so? That Roman Catholic on the street this afternoon, "'Well that was written way back yonder when people could understand the parables. But today we don't ... that's been translated, we can't ... this just covers every kind of a warfare that the every, latest chemists and atomic scientists and all have dreamed of.

The earth shall quake before them; the heavens shall tremble: the sun and the moon shall be dark, and the stars shall withdraw their shining: and the Lord shall utter his voice before his army: for his camp is very great: for he is strong that executeth his word.

Aren't you glad for that? "He's  strong that executeth His Word." You believe that? You believe when God's time came to say "Go to, let Us go down now and confound their language", that the Babel builders had to just quit building? Sure, when God's time came to "Go to, let Us go down". Five times in the 11th chapter of Genesis they said, "Go to, let us, let us., let us, let us, let us build us a tower reach unto heaven. Let us build us a city, get us a name lest we be scattered abroad." God said, "Let them go ahead for awhile". Then we read God said, "Go to, let Us go down and confound their language". And when God just did that you know where the hod carrier couldn't understand the brick layer's words, they just got all balled up and couldn't do any building anymore. That's the way God just stopped the whole thing. Last night a little bit, and Friday night... Thursday night and Friday morning early, I heard babble, babble voices, babble voices at that United Nations so-called Tower of Babel.

I must draw toward a close. Joel 2... a little bit more here. "The Lord's strong,"

that executeth his word: for the day of the Lord is great and very terrible; and who can abide it? Therefore also now, saith the Lord, turn ye even to me with all your heart.

This poor fellow awhile ago we heard was turning to the United Nations. He said, "No nation is so dependent upon world opinion as we," and so forth. But this here is God's pleading with them, "Look up, don't look around you. That's been your trouble all along. Look up."

Therefore also now, saith the Lord, turn ye even to me with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning: and tear your heart, and not your garments.

It's interesting that Israel has had a weeping wall outside of Jerusalem for years and years and years and years, they would go through that form of weeping. Go there you know and bow and weep and wail and pray for Jerusalem. God knew they were going to do that and so He said, "Turn your hearts and not your garments". Don't just go through external, formal weeping.

Tear your hearts, and not your garments, and turn unto the Lord your God: for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repenteth him of the evil.

Time's going to come when God's going to change His mind toward Israel and stay, "Like as I've watched over you to tear down and to pluck up and to destroy and to scatter, I'm going to watch over you to build and to plant, saith the Lord", Jeremiah 31. You believe it? I want to be there.  I'm still trying to write a poem that I started on you know. As a poet I'm a, what?, brick layer, hod carrier, or something, but anyway I'm still trying to write on a poem,

I want to be there 
    when the world's on fire,
When the last are first 
    and the first retire.

Every once in awhile I get to thinking about it. Still want to write upon it, want to be there.  I'm going to be there my friend. And look here, I'm not going to sit in the galleries and cheer and laugh like I heard some of them the other night. When one of the speakers, I believe it was the speaker from that... what's that Arabia, the... ?

(answer from audience) Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Arabia. He provoked more laughs, and he was a smart guy, smart-aleck too. He'd come down the line you know about England and France and all and their claims and all, and he said, "Who do they think they are fooling?" And the balcony cheers. He was really clever and vicious and smart-alecky. And he said that, "We know that we, we nations, small nations that don't have the wealth in the modern advanced equipment for war and all like that. We know that we can't and all." But ... and I thought, "What are you doing being so smart-alecky about?  Because you're gambling for Russia, maybe the United States, thinking there's a possibility of getting the big nations that do have a lot to line up against Israel," and so forth. But God is on the part of Israel, I mean finally, not now.

Who knoweth if he will return and repent, and leave a blessing behind you; even a meat offering and a drink offering unto the Lord your God?  Blow  the trumpet in Zion, sanctify a fast, call a solemn assembly,

it won't be the United Nations either. No sir, it will be the penitent nation, all by themselves,

gather the people,

Israel,

sanctify the congregation, assemble the elders, gather the children, and those that suck the breasts: let the bridegroom go forth of his chamber, and the bride out of her closet. Let the priests, the ministers of the Lord, weep between the porch and the altar,

rebuilt temple in Jerusalem,

and let them say, Spare thy people, O Lord, and give not thine heritage to reproach, that the

Gentiles, the Arabs, and the others shall

rule over them: wherefore should they say among the people, Where is their God? Where is their God? Then,

that is when Israel, a remnant nation, truly repents, and quits looking around them and looks up to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and acknowledges that they are God's people in a miserable shape, but look to God.

Then will the Lord be jealous for his land,

and it isn't California, it isn't California,

and pity his people. 

Yes... 

yea, the Lord will answer and say unto his people, Behold, l will send you corn, and wine, and oil, and ye shall he satisfied therewith: and I wilt no more make you a reproach among the heathen.

Back in Deuteronomy we're told that Israel was going to have a byword^-, and one day I heard somebody say that "The Hebrew of that is 'sheniynah', and I fulfill that by calling Jews 'shenies'." and I thought, "Well I did too, I did too," and I looked it up in the Hebrew and sure enough, the Hebrew was 'sheniynah' and I used to call little Jewish boys when they were smaller than me, in Fort Worth I called them "shenies", I did use 'sheni'. And I was fulfilling a prophecy made 3500 years before, I was fulfilling a prophecy, made back there in Deuteronomy. "I won't make them a reproach anymore," God said.  God made them a reproach remember because of their disobedience.

Who is that makes a drunken bum bleary-eyed and stagger and foul breath and later have delirium dreams that keep on? God, God's the one that assesses the penalty for breaking His laws. I see that plainer and plainer and I'm more and more glad for it. I'm  glad that God determines to advertise the fact that you can't break His laws and get by with it. I'm glad that God makes bad blood come out sooner or later somewhere. You can drive it back and I can drive it back but it will bust out somewhere. God Almighty has determined. He's the one that assesses the penalty.

I'll send you corn, and wine, and oil, and ye shall be satisfied therewith: and I will no more make you a reproach among the heathen, 

the Gentiles, 

but I'll remove far off from you the northern army, and will drive him into a land barren and desolate, with his face toward the east sea, and his hinder part toward the utmost sea, and his stink shall come up, and his ill savor shall come up, because he hath done great things. Fear not, 0 land; be glad and rejoice: for the Lord will do great things. Be not afraid, ye beasts of the field: for the pastures of the wilderness do spring, for the tree beareth her fruit, the fig tree and the vine do yield their fruit. Be glad' then, ye children of Zion, and rejoice in the Lord,

not the United Nations but the Lord. That's the same as Isaiah, "When they say a "Confederacy", don't you say a "Confederacy". Sanctify the Lord God and let Him be your fear and your sanctuary", Isaiah 8. "And be not afraid," when I read in the little bulletin of the Hope Union Church over here, "On Wednesday night the pastor speaks in the sanctuary". In that new little shack they hold over there, they call a certain room in that building the sanctuary. That's popular you know, 'sanctuaries'. You know if you call something like that sanctuary and then read about the Lord 'sanctuary', it kind of waters it down doesn't it? Whittles it down, see. My friend, let's let nothing be called a sanctuary but what Almighty God calls a sanctuary, see?

It's like the use of the word 'hell'. "It's as hot as hell", "cold as hell", he's as big as hell", "little as hell", "she's as pretty as hell", "ugly as hell", and so hell means nothing, it's nothing. And you come on and say, "My friends., the wicked shall be turned into hell". "Is that so? Heh-heh, that so." Another use of the word 'hell', water it down, make it common, familiarity breeds contempt. Let's be jealous for God's language, God's institution.

"Holy and reverend is His name", don't call me Reverend Johnson. Get to calling little squirts around here Reverend, Reverend, Reverend; and then read, "Holy and reverend is His name". "Oh yeah, I know a good many named Reverend." That's the devil's business you see.

Be glad then, ye children of Zion, and rejoice in the Lord your God for he hath given you the former rain moderately, and he will cause to come down for you the rain, the former rain, and the latter rain,

the Pentecostalists say that's speaking in tongues and falling on the floor. But this is wet water in Palestine, my friend, that makes them have several crops in a year. "I've given you the former rain, and I’ll cause the latter rain to come"

in the first month. And the floors shall be full of 

"feet", as the Pentecostalists wallow on the floor waiting for the latter rain.  No, the inspired text, "the floor shall be full of wheat", and I'm sure it's wheat, it's wheat, just what it says, wheat.

And the fat,

it doesn't mean fat Pentecostalists... this is inspired language you see, so I want to call your attention to it.

And the fats shall overflow with wine and oil,

sure enough wheat, sure enough wine, sure enough oil,

And I’ll restore to you the years that the locusts have eaten,

literally, physical locusts,

the cankerworm, and caterpillar, and the palmerworm, my great army which I sent among you. And ye shall eat in plenty,

now that's their part of it, you see,

ye shall eat in plenty, and be satisfied, and praise the name of the Lord your God, that hath dealt wondrously with you and my people,

Israel,

shall never be ashamed.

That hasn't been fulfilled of course has it?

And you shall know that I am in the midst of Israel,

The Campbellites say, "That's us". And the Roman Catholics say that's ... the pope says, "Jerusalem should be decreed by the United Nations an international city^", proving again his stupendous and stupid ignorance of the Word of God on the subject. Imagine the guy that claims he's representing Jesus Christ saying that Jerusalem should be an international city. In Jeremiah the 3rd chapter 17th verse were told that Jerusalem will be the kingdom of God, Jerusalem shall be called the kingdom of God, Jeremiah 3:17.  "I'11 be in the midst of Israel and they shall never be ashamed."

And it shall come to pass afterward,

I'm going to close with this chapter, end of it,

And it shall come to pass afterward, that I'll pour out my spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions: And also upon the servants and upon the handmaids in those days will I pour out my spirit. And I'll show wonders in the heavens and the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke. The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and the terrible day of the Lord shall come. And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be delivered: for in mount Zion and in Jerusalem shall be deliverance, as the Lord hath said, and the remnant whom the Lord shall call.

I'd like to read a whole lot of the 3rd chapter but it's late enough, I'd better stop. Oh-h, let's ask God to let these truths stay with us and undergird us, and tomorrow make a difference as you hear people talking about the election and talking about he war and all. Don't be afraid to say something for the God of gods, don't be afraid to let people know that you have some certain knowledge that these things are being fulfilled. Many an unsaved person has been arrested, I've known of many cases, arrested, made to be sober when his attention is called to the fact, "Why that's exactly what this was prophesied in the Word of God".  Because they know today they are ... how many people know today that the big fellows don't know?  Why that's rather common talk that they don't know what's going on. Because they know that one brilliant voice says this and another brilliant voice says no of the world's brilliant leaders.  And you and I ... only God knows when we can get somebody's attention, make them become interested in the God of the Bible, the Bible of God, God's Word.

Let's stand and bow our heads.

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