Jesus Christ Is Coming To RULE!

Atheists, agnostics and just plain scoffers certainly abound. But the Bible means what it says!

As a young man coming to Ambassador College in 1949, I heard Mr. Herbert W. Armstrong proclaim publically—again and again—that unless Britain and America would come to genuine repentance before the God of the Bible, quite a number of specific events would begin to happen:

• The British Empire would come to an end.
• The great “sea gates”—such as the Suez Canal, the Strait of Hormuz, the Strait of Malacca, Singapore and the Panama Canal—would be removed from the control of the United States and the British-descended nations.
• Russian control over the East European nations would come to an end. Mr. Armstrong specifically foresaw the fall of the Berlin Wall and the unification of East and West Germany.
• British and American dominance over world events would end. For the Eternal God would “break” the pride of their power, unless they would turn to God and His ways in genuine repentance.
• A powerful European Union would arise—eventually coalescing into a genuine European Empire—the final prophesied revival of the Holy Roman Empire that controlled most of Europe for centuries.

My friends, these are all major developments that few if any “secular” prognosticators would have expected 50 (or even 30) years ago. They touch the lives of hundreds of millions of human beings. Yet, just as Mr. Armstrong foresaw, they have all been fulfilled, or are in the process of coming about! For there is a real God! And that great God—who directly inspired the Bible prophecies from which Mr. Armstrong gained his understanding—is right now beginning to intervene in world affairs more powerfully than in thousands of years—certainly since the time Jesus Christ was here on the earth!

Why? Because we are truly nearing the end of the first 6,000 years of human history, and are approaching the prophesied Millennium—Jesus Christ’s thousand-year rule as King of kings over physical human beings here on planet earth (Revelation 11:15; 20:4).

Sadly, the very nations God has blessed and used in modern times to forestall total world chaos—the nations that have sent out more Bibles and more missionaries than all other nations on earth combined—have today practically rejected the true God! Through our political and religious teachers, and our influential and pervasive media—such as television and the Internet—most are either actively or passively “going along” with the greatest anti-God movement in centuries! Millions right now are even beginning to accept the “marriage” of men to other men, and of women to other women! We often “look the other way” when we see the increasing millions of our fellow citizens openly living in relationships outside of marriage, which God plainly calls fornication. We see the glorification of drug addiction as a “lifestyle.”

In fact, we have passively allowed our nations’ politicians, educators and media leaders to “reinvent” the English language. So, fornication is no longer “fornication.” Rather it is now just “living together.” New ways to deviate from the natural use of the human body and emotions are constantly being added to the range of practices praised as “alternative lifestyles.”

Meanwhile, the continuing widespread execution of millions of unborn children is no longer called “murder.” Instead, advocates call it “exercising the woman’s right to choose.” Virtually nothing is said about the right of the other body inside the pregnant mother—about half of the time another woman, a little human being made in the image of God—who is deprived of her own “right to choose” staying alive!

As this so-called “progress” in human affairs becomes more pervasive, the great God—the Creator of heaven and earth—will at some point say: “Enough!” Then, the horrifying wars, storms, drought, famine, disease epidemics and massive earthquakes that Jesus Christ specifically predicted (Luke 21:22–27; Matthew 24:6–7) will begin to strike with never-before-seen intensity!

As this Work of the living God has warned for many decades, the Creator who gives us life and breath will soon intervene in human affairs to stop the rot! He is not a “mean” God for doing this. Rather, our Creator will intervene in order to literally save man from destroying himself. As Jesus predicted, the soon-coming period of enormous wars and weather upsets will be so terrible that, “unless those days were shortened, no flesh would be saved; but for the elect’s sake those days will be shortened” (Matthew 24:22).

What Is Just Ahead?

My friends I know that most of you—especially our older readers—have come to expect that America and Britain will “muddle through” each trial and test that comes along. But, on the authority of Scripture, I need to warn you that, very soon, it will definitely be different! For we are near the end of an age. God’s prophecies will come to pass! Please understand: Jesus specifically told true Christians, “Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and kill you, and you will be hated by all nations for My name’s sake. And then many will be offended, will betray one another, and will hate one another” (Matthew 24:9–10).

We are now about to enter into a time of horrifying tribulation surpassing anything the world has ever before experienced (Matthew 24:21). Even as I write, I have before me a shocking article from Newsweek magazine, describing in detail the sickening persecution and violence against professing Christians throughout the Islamic world. This secular publication writes, “It is a rising genocide that ought to provoke global alarm.” The article goes on to describe scores of instances of horrifying violence: “In the month of January 2012 alone, Boko Haram was responsible for 54 deaths. In 2011 its members killed at least 510 people and burned down or destroyed more than 350 churches in 10 northern states. They use guns, gasoline, bombs and even machetes, shouting ‘Allahu akbar’ (‘God is great’) while launching attacks on unsuspecting citizens. They have attacked churches, a Christmas Day gathering (killing 42 Catholics), beer parlors, a town hall, beauty salons, and banks. They have so far focused on killing Christian clerics, politicians, students, policemen, and soldiers, as well as Muslim clerics who condemn their mayhem” (February 13, 2012).

Meanwhile, God is removing His protective hand from the American and British-descended peoples as they turn further and further away from the Ten Commandments. If you have not already done so, request your free copy of our booklet, The United States and Great Britain in Prophecy, to learn more about this vital prophetic connection. In a prophecy that applies directly to American and British-descended nations today, God explains, “All your lovers have forgotten you; they do not seek you; for I have wounded you with the wound of an enemy, with the chastisement of a cruel one, for the multitude of your iniquities, because your sins have increased. Why do you cry about your affliction? Your sorrow is incurable. Because of the multitude of your iniquities, because your sins have increased, I have done these things to you” (Jeremiah 30:14–15).

Because of “vile” practices and anti-God attitudes displayed throughout society, the American and British peoples will indeed be brought down, unless there is a national turning to God, in a way that has never been done before in modern times! As you who read this begin to see the continuing fulfillment of these specific Bible prophecies all around you, then you need to understand that the real Jesus Christ of the Bible must return soon or this world will be destroyed.

Yes, the specific prophecies we have preached or written about for decades are right now beginning to occur. Even secularists see the increasing dangers. Citing “inadequate progress” on nuclear and climate issues, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists earlier this year moved its “Doomsday Clock” forward, to “five minutes to midnight.”

So, the time is drawing short for God’s true ministers to give a truly powerful warning to our peoples—and to the whole world—about what lies just ahead. We have a huge job to do! And Almighty God certainly does intend for His faithful servants to “warn” all of our fellow human beings about the soon-coming Great Tribulation. God tells us in His Word about this very thing and about the sense of urgency which we should have in delivering this message: “Deliver those who are drawn toward death, and hold back those stumbling to the slaughter. If you say, ‘Surely we did not know this,’ does not He who weighs the hearts consider it? He who keeps your soul, does He not know it? And will He not render to each man according to his deeds?” (Proverbs 24:11–12).

Again, as Jesus stated about this coming tribulation, “unless those days were shortened, no flesh would be saved.” The real Jesus Christ of the Bible must return, lest warring, carnal, God-rejecting nations erase all human life from this planet!

Consider that, apart from the major nations who have had atomic weapons in the past, three other countries—Israel, Pakistan and India—have amassed substantial stockpiles of atomic bombs, and are capable of delivering these warheads to the financial, industrial and political capitals of their likely enemies. Now we behold a spectacle of a fourth country, Iran, which is barreling ahead with its nuclear weapons development—even at the risk of destroying its global trade and gutting its domestic economy. That nation seems totally bent on gaining atomic weapons. In response, many news analysts have been writing recently about the assumed “inevitability” of an Israeli attack on the Iranian nuclear facilities. For, as some Israeli leaders have stated repeatedly, “It is not just a political option with us, it is a matter of our very survival!”

If Israel attacks Iran in the next few months—perhaps even before you receive this article—it may indeed cause a “firestorm” throughout the Middle East. This would certainly speed up the process of the European nations drawing together into the final revival of the Holy Roman Empire. It would speed up the unification of the Arab nations into what is called the “King of the South” (Daniel 11:40). And it would also speed up the very end of this present society.

The END of Democracy?

Speaking before Britain’s House of Commons in November 1947, Sir Winston Churchill said, “No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government, except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.” Many of America’s early leaders deeply understood that not just any people, anywhere, could make democracy successful. In fact, our second President, John Adams, wrote to Massachusetts military officers in October 1798: “We have no government armed with the power capable of contending with human passions, unbridled by morality and religion. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

However, overall, the American and British-descended peoples today do not fear God or follow “morality and true religion.” Few even pretend to study the Holy Bible to see what it actually says. And our nations are quickly removing even the most nominally Christian references and practices from the public square. Frankly, most media leaders and educators act as if they despise the God of the Bible and His teachings!

God warned our forefathers that if they were to “despise My statutes, or if your soul abhors My judgments, so that you do not perform all My commandments, but break My covenant, I also will do this to you: I will even appoint terror over you, wasting disease and fever which shall consume the eyes and cause sorrow of heart. And you shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it” (Leviticus 26:15–16). So, we should not be surprised that we have experienced “terrorist” attacks and many other disturbances. And horrible “wasting diseases” such as cancer and AIDS are increasingly taking away the health, the vitality and the very lives of millions of our people.

The powerful prophetic warning given in Leviticus 26 continues: “And after all this, if you do not obey Me, then I will punish you seven times more for your sins. I will break the pride of your power; I will make your heavens like iron and your earth like bronze” (vv. 18–19). So, national degradation and humiliation, coupled with drought, famine and food shortages are in our future—along with disease epidemics (Matthew 24:7). Therefore, it is imperative that we turn to God and pray that a truly Christian government, ruled by Jesus Christ Himself, may soon be established on earth to bring the entire world a degree of peace, prosperity and joy it has never experienced.

How can this occur?

To those of you who have never understood the Bible, this may sound simplistic. But establishing right government on this earth is what the true gospel of Jesus Christ was all about! The Apostle Peter preached this plainly to the early Christians: “Repent therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that He may send Jesus Christ, who was preached to you before, whom heaven must receive until the times of restoration of all things, which God has spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the world began” (Acts 3:19–21).

A time of “restoration” will soon come to this earth! From the prophecies of Daniel—who described the four world-ruling kingdoms and then the Kingdom of God that will “never be destroyed” (Daniel 2:36–44)—to the prophecies of Revelation, God’s Kingdom is foretold in detail from one end of the Bible to the other.

The prophet Isaiah was inspired to write, “Now it shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established on the top of the mountains [great nations], and shall be exalted above the hills [smaller nations]; and all nations shall flow to it. Many people shall come and say, ‘Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; He will teach us His ways, and we shall walk in His paths.’ For out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. He shall judge between the nations, and rebuke many people; they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore” (Isaiah 2:2–4).

God Will Rule!

So, a genuine “kingdom”—or government—will be established in the “latter days” on this earth. It will be based upon the law of God going forth from Jerusalem. It will have as its Ruler the King of kings—Jesus Christ.

Scripture describes what will happen at the end of the prophesied “trumpet” plagues: “Then the seventh angel sounded: and there were loud voices in heaven, saying, ‘The kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ, and He shall reign forever and ever!’” (Revelation 11:15). Jesus Christ—the King of kings—will be assisted by many other kings, the true saints of God who, as faithful Christians in this present age, were willing to actually believe and act on what God says!

As God promises, “And he who overcomes, and keeps My works until the end, to him I will give power over the nations—‘He shall rule them with a rod of iron; they shall be dashed to pieces like the potter’s vessels’— as I also have received from My Father” (Revelation 2:26–27). So, those of us who are willing to believe our God and our Creator—and actually do what He says—have ahead of us an awesome future, assisting Jesus Christ in ruling and bringing peace to this war-torn world!

The inspired Song of the Saints, in Revelation 5:10, reveals that God—in His awesome Plan—will have “made us kings and priests to our God; and we shall reign on the earth.” Notice that God’s Kingdom is to be set up on this earth—not up in heaven! Note also that it is going to be very difficult for liberal ministers to continue prattling away with their teaching that all of these specific prophecies are “poetic” or “metaphors,” and therefore do not mean what they actually say about a coming world government!

Wake up!

The “true saints”—those who will actually be granted to rule in Jesus Christ’s soon-coming government—are clearly described over and over in your Bible in this way: “Here is the patience of the saints; here are those who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus” (Revelation 14:12). The Ten Commandments of God are not “nailed to the cross.” Rather, the record of our sins was nailed to the cross by Jesus Christ our Savior. Surrendering to let Him live His life within us (Galatians 2:20) through the Holy Spirit—and therefore having the power to truly obey His commandments—will mark the Christian character of those who will be qualified to assist Christ in bringing this entire way of life to the earth in God’s coming Kingdom!

Describing Jesus Christ’s coming rule over this earth, Psalm 72 tells us, “He will judge Your people with righteousness, and Your poor with justice. The mountains will bring peace to the people, and the little hills, by righteousness. He will bring justice to the poor of the people; He will save the children of the needy, and will break in pieces the oppressor” (Psalm 72:2–4).

So God’s coming government will involve a great deal of genuine understanding and mercy for those in need. As verses 12–14 explain, “For He will deliver the needy when he cries, the poor also, and him who has no helper. He will spare the poor and needy, and will save the souls of the needy. He will redeem their life from oppression and violence; and precious shall be their blood in His sight.”

After Christ descends to the Mount of Olives in magnificent glory, the nations will be taught to obey their Creator: “Yes, all kings shall fall down before Him; all nations shall serve Him” (v. 11). Through genuine obedience to the Creator, “There will be an abundance of grain in the earth, on the top of the mountains; its fruit shall wave like Lebanon; and those of the city shall flourish like grass of the earth” (v. 16).

Those of us truly preparing to be part of that coming world government need to learn how to “judge fairly” and think through our decisions in every part of our lives, even now. For the Apostle Paul was inspired to tell the Christians of his time, “Do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if the world will be judged by you, are you unworthy to judge the smallest matters? Do you not know that we shall judge angels? How much more, things that pertain to this life?” (1 Corinthians 6:2–3).

Many of Jesus’ parables clearly indicate that true Christians should be preparing to rule over cities and nations under Jesus Christ. When the “nobleman” of Jesus’ parable in Luke 19:11–27 returns, this person—who typified the returning Jesus Christ—tells his faithful servant, “Well done, good servant; because you were faithful in a very little, have authority over ten cities” (v. 17). Again the “reward” of the true Christian is not to float around heaven all day with nothing to do! Rather it is looking forward to assisting Christ in ruling over cities and nations on this earth.

It is that kind of government for which this world literally “cries out!” It will bring peace and joy far beyond what planet Earth has ever experienced. Remember, were it not for the intervention of the true God of the Bible, cosmocide would indeed wipe out the peoples of this earth.

So, those of us who are willing to believe what the Bible actually says should be learning to prepare ourselves right now for that coming world government. We need to totally surrender to the living Christ of the Bible and let Him genuinely live His life within us through the Holy Spirit. We need to study the prophecies I have referred to, and many more. I urge all of you who are beginning to understand to enroll in our Tomorrow’s World Bible Study Course to really learn the details of God’s magnificent plan. Your enrollment and participation is absolutely free and without obligation. May God help all of us look forward to the fulfillment of the truly Good News which Jesus Christ and His servants talked about—the coming world government under Jesus Christ as King of kings.