Attitude in Service

See, it's just like classroom. All the students stay in the back. I hope they do this for John as well. I hope it wasn't me that drove you away. Actually, when I did my Master's degree, I always sit in the front row, because with Mr. Armstrong, the last six months I read in the dark, and my eyesight went from 20-20 to 2,200 in six months. So I had to sit in the front to be able to see the board. And I found out they'd give you better grades if you sit in the front.

So maybe we ought to grade you for church services, then everybody would move up. And I understand where you are. Especially if you get older, you want to get closer to the door and closer to the restroom. Those are the prime seating. In fact, I said, if you want to really disrupt a church, all you got to do is take one group of people and shift them to another section.

Then everybody has to move, and it just makes everybody uncomfortable. Because you can close your eyes and say, someone's still sitting there, and so on and so on. I mean, every week you're in the same place, right? Where creatures will have it. And it's fun to realize that. It's just the game. What I do, it's interesting, I'm in a little different Bible study. I did a few ABC samplers and different things, and I was asked to talk to the ministry and people. And the subject they kind of asked me to do was lessons I learned in 50 years in the church, because for whatever reason, God chose to put me in different positions where I saw and heard almost everything that went on.

And I always wished Timothy had written a book. Because Timothy was with Paul and witnessed everything that Paul went through. Witnessed divisions, witnessed, witnessed, split, witnessed all these different things that happened, and the stonings, etc. And it had been interesting to see what he would have said and done had he written a book for us. But he's written about and had a book written to him, but as far as I know, he never wrote a book himself. But there are so many things that happen that we understand. And to me, the lessons I think that really helped me get through different difficulties in our history was the fact that the Bible becomes real to you.

And when it says that these things were written as examples for us, they truly are. And as you go through trials, you go through tests, you go through difficulties, you really have to be able to take the stories in the Bible and make them fit. Because everything we go through, someone else has gone through it before. Somewhere, somehow, something very similar has happened that you can use to encourage yourself to realize that this too shall pass, that anything that seems wrong or discouraging has happened before. And then you realize that Satan has always tried to get in the middle of where God's working, and that's where he wants to do his damage.

He doesn't need to do it in Mongolia. He wants to be where he can do damage to the people of God. And you will find that people then, therefore there are some people, well, everyone will make mistakes. No question about that. Everyone does make mistakes. Some people do it deliberately for selfish gain. Other people do it mistakenly. It's just something that happens. And you learn to sort out the motives and the things and the reasons why people do what they do. And then you recognize, if you're like me, I'm somewhat naive early on. As a child, we're all naive, and you all want to believe the best.

And my history was 12 years of Imperial schools, which all the old-timers would know, the young people wouldn't, but the church had a grade school and high school and a college, three colleges actually. And I was a product of all those. I was 12 years of Imperial schools, 4 years of ambassador, and 12 years of Mr. Armstrong, and so kind of cradle to the grave. And in fact, it was funny, when I was first introduced to King Leopold, when I became his aide, or not King Leopold, but King Phuong-Phuong in Thailand, Mr.

Armstrong introduced me as a product of what we produce, which was kind of fun. I never thought of myself as a product before, you know, that you're produced. But in reality, all of us are a product. And because he said that, you know, he said, all his schooling's been in my schools that I've started, and ambassador, and that's, you know, what we make.

And it was interesting to think that, okay, we do live up, and we set an image, and we are what we're supposed to be. And I felt like I was like those little statues in a glass jar spinning around so people could look at you, which is uncomfortable. None of us want to be that, because we all have flaws.

But I realized that, indeed, we should be a product of Jesus Christ. And that's really what I was taught my whole life. And that's what I tried to live up to, and that's what I expect that everyone else to live to. And all of us expect everybody else to live up to that.

And we'd like to live up to it ourselves, but it doesn't always happen. And so for me to go through all these things and to see the various people make mistakes, and again, some innocently, some deliberately, and to wonder, why is God allowing that? Why is he doing that? Then you go back and read about the Old Testament, the Book of Kings and Chronicles, and you see what the people did there. And you go to the New Testament church in Acts, and you see what the people did there.

And you read about diatrophes who seeks preeminence among you, and you wonder, well, how in the world could somebody so evil that those out the people that John, the Apostle, sends to them, how could he rise in the church? And you realize that a lot of people do it through personalities, a lot of people do it through talent. People have personal abilities, and you can learn the rules. And you can find out that you can rise in an organization by learning the rules and doing the right things.

And you should do the right things. When I was young, and I was always told in Imperial schools the thing was attitude. And Mr. Armstrong said that a lot. You've got to be in the right attitude. It's true. You do have to be in the right attitude. But what I have learned over the years, and I learned to smile all the time because in Imperial, they said, wipe that attitude off your face, and I practiced in the mirror what a good attitude looked like.

And the only thing I came up with was smiling. So I would smile at anything. Weddings, funerals, you name it. I was smiling. I mean, you know, at times I had to learn not to smile, try to force myself not to smile on occasions when it was the wrong thing to be doing, but the point is, for 12 years, I was taught about attitude, and so that was it.

And it served you well because overseas, if you're smiling, people think you're happy, and they tend to overlook any protocol mistakes you might make. And I had to learn protocol in, you know, 50 different countries and violated it occasionally when I had no idea what the protocol was. But smiling always lets you get by, plus being young, because I was 21 when I started flying, so I was young enough to make innocent mistakes and get away with it without knowing it. But the thing I learned, it really wasn't attitude so much as it was motive.

And the thing I've come to see more and more through the years is the tree of life and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. I mean, the two trees. Anybody who's been in the church more than 25 years heard the two-tree sermon several times from Mr. Armstrong. And a lot of people didn't get the sermon. And when he said, half of you didn't get it, he was being generous, it turns out.

But it was interesting because if I want to get somewhere, and in the church, you know, Christ said serve. You have to serve. So if you want to be a good Christian, you serve people. But also, anybody that went to Master's College knew that if you wanted to be an officer or get ahead, you had to serve. Okay, the question is, are you serving because Christ told you to serve? Are you serving because you want a position?

Both are serving. The action's exactly the same. And I saw John on the way here. I said, if you see someone helping, you know, say there's this young lady, has a flat tire, and there's this young man helping her change her tire. Is he helping her because he's serving her? Or is he helping her because he's hitting on her?

The action's exactly the same. Now, the key is, over a number of years, you see him out there with little old men, little old ladies, and everybody else changing tires. Then you know he's doing that to serve. But you don't know because the action's the same. And the thing is, is if you are doing something for the wrong motive, you can be at a really good attitude. I knew men who wanted positions, and they served and served and served to get the position, and they were in a great attitude. I mean, how many of you get in a bad attitude for getting what you want? You don't.

And so your attitude is critical only in the sense that if you're doing it for the right reasons.

And so a lot of times, I would see people and think, oh, they're in a good attitude, when maybe what they were doing, their motive was to get something rather than to serve. And so then you find out, and sadly, our history shows, and I think biblically you can look at the same thing, about nine out of ten people who get something and are in a good attitude, when it's taken away from them, you find out the motive for why they wanted it. Because when you take something away from someone, all of a sudden, wait, I work for this, I deserve this. And it's fascinating to me because I said, you know, you want to get the benefit of the doubt, and to the pure, all is pure. And our naivety sometimes is a good thing in the sense that if you get burnt because you're naive, maybe you're a better Christian because you are pure because you're thinking the best of people.

And I'd rather do that than think the worst of people. You sleep better at night, not worrying about other people. But these people who got ahead with the wrong motive when you take it away, all of a sudden, I owe this. And whether it be 50 years ago or 40 years ago or 30 years ago or a year and a half ago, people have decided that they deserve what they have, and then they either leave or start throwing church or do whatever because I mowed this.

And it's interesting when you think about how God judges people and how He looks at it. What do you say about David? He says, you know, Samuel. God looks on the heart, you know, because Samuel, hey, this is the firstborn. Firstborn is very important in Israel. You get the inheritance, you run the family. And so Samuel's saying, this should be the king. And God says, no, I don't want him. And the secondborn, he was in the army, he was a soldier and all this stuff. No, I didn't want him. And finally, he came down to the shepherd boy who wasn't even in the lottery, so to speak.

He was still out there. His dad didn't bring him in. Samuel said, gather your sons and he didn't bring him in. You know, he brought all the other sons were there. But God said, no, I look at the heart. And so we can't see the heart. Samuel can't see the heart.

So I said, I have Samuel's disease too. I can't always see the heart, but I can see what happens after something is taken away. And then you understand and you wonder, okay, now you understand. Because they were in a good attitude. Everything is wonderful as long as everything I was getting what I wanted. But when it's taken away, then your attitude shows. And for me, I see a lot of people that they want to be Joshua instead of Caleb. That's one of the analogies I always use because to me, I like Caleb. Caleb went into the Promised Land. For all of you who know the story, you know, they sent the 12 spies in to spy out the land and ten of them come back and say, no, they're giants.

We're grasshoppers. They're going to kill us all. We can't go in there. Joshua and Caleb both said, no, we can take it. We'll do it. He had a good report. Joshua ended up being the leader of Israel, the judge over Israel in Moses' place. Caleb, God promised him a descendant. Someone, maybe one of you in this room is a descendant of Caleb. Somebody on earth came from Caleb because God promised him that forever.

You'll always have a seed. What's wrong with that being that? I mean, what's wrong with doing your job and then stepping back and letting someone else do it? But all too often, people get an entitlement mentality where they're owed this. And I've seen that over and over in 50-some years in the church, in my lifetime, where people started getting things and then they begin to think they're entitled to it. And like I tell people, the only thing I'm entitled to is death. That's what God promised. You've sinned, you deserve death.

And he graciously offers you life and repentance and all those things. But when you see people then who give up or do things wrong or cause division or whatever or get angry, and every time the argument's the same. One of the older evangelists from years back, Dr. Hay, who died 10 years ago or so, it's interesting, he cast out some demons. And he was talking about one of the demons that he cast out.

Me, I like to avoid demons. That gives me the creeps. If I face one, I'll do what I have to do, but I certainly don't want to. But he was unique, and so he asked the person before he cast a demon out, why did you rebel against God's perfect government? And the answer the demon gave was God was not fair. And I think about that. That's the same thing I've heard from almost everybody in 59 years of my life that left the church, that something wasn't fair.

I earned this, and you took it away. This happened, and I deserved it. Somebody said something or did something or whatever, and it might have been unfair. And a lot of times it wasn't unfair. A lot of it was just perception. But the interesting thing to me was when you think about it, if you don't go through something that seems unfair, do you really have faith in God? When everything is going wonderful, that's what Job, what Satan said about Job. Of course he loves you.

Of course he does this. You've put a hedge about him. You've made him rich. You've given all the stuff. Of course he likes you. Take it away. Then see what happens. And it's interesting because that's the same test he's given a lot of people over, I'm sure, 2,000 years or 6,000 years. I suppose you can go back that far. But if you're talking about the church era, it's 2,000 years.

There are people that have risen and gotten things and sometimes it's taken away. And then you find out how they react. At that time, then you've got to examine the modus. And almost every time it wasn't fair. And when we read about the rebellion of Lucifer and taking the angels and making them demons, the third of them that he apparently drew away, we don't read anywhere about God trying to convince them he was fair.

Because to me, I've come to the conclusion that you have to believe God is fair. You just have to know that. He is fair and he is just and he is righteous and honest. Everything about him is perfect.

Therefore, anything that happens is done for your benefit or for the benefit of what he's trying to make in you. And when I look at my life and all the things I've gone through, I've got to say, why should I be upset at God because he chose to mold me in a way that makes me useful to him in whatever position he happens to have in store for me? And if you look at every test you go through that way that God is doing something, God is fair.

And God's up there saying, if you decide that I'm not fair, you're on the wrong track already because you're judging me. My mother-in-law is not the church. She loves the God of the New Testament, but she doesn't like the God of the Old Testament.

She just killed too many people and did too many things. I tell her, Mom, it's the same person. Christ is the God of the Old Testament. But she wants this great, good God that does everything good all the time but doesn't want anything to go bad.

And everything that God does is fair. And with the demons, God wasn't trying to convince them he was fair. You have to know that he's God, he is fair, and that he is going to judge righteously. In the end, it's all going to come clear. And if you take that position, you can go through almost any trial or any event in your life.

It doesn't mean they're fun. It doesn't mean that you want them. I keep praying not to have trials. If people have prayed for trials, then you get upset when you get one. Well, maybe you shouldn't ask so hard. To me, I've always prayed, God, please let this be my trial and not my preparation for one.

Because every trial you go through gets harder. Some are emotional, some are physical, some are financial, some are with close friends. This last episode, I had a lot of close friends allowed. And it hurt deeply. And there's nothing I could do, nothing I could say. Even with documents and things. When people make emotional decisions, you cannot cure that with a logical answer.

Logic will not defeat emotion. And it's interesting, if you study the brain at all, your cortex in the front, where you make all the decisions and things, is there. And it's interesting, the emotional part of your brain has this giant cord that goes directly to the front cortex. So when you see something happen, that's why they have these stories about women picking up a car to get their baby out and things like that, because of the adrenaline thing. It's an immediate reaction. And all of us have that, the flight, you know, fear factor thing. It's interesting, the logic portion of your brain, though, they were talking about a Discovery Channel about this, how the logic portion of your brain, it's kind of like you're taking all the back roads to get there. There's no direct line to the front of your brain. It's kind of like you're going to go down, you know, to Cincinnati, and you're going to go across the bridge and over the river and ride the train for a while and get in a boat, go across the other river, swim part of it, walk part of it, bicycle part of it, drive a little bit, go there, and eventually you get there.

The logic, that's why, you know, they talk about sleeping on something before you make a decision. And don't go to, don't, you know, let the sun go down your wrath. Don't, because the logic side of your brain gets so quick and you make mistakes. Or the emotional side, you make mistakes. The logic side takes all this time to get there. And by the time it gets to the front of your brain and says, oh, you just said something stupid, then you've made a mistake already. That's why a lot of times you've got to be careful when you say it. But it's interesting that as human beings, people react with their emotions instead of waiting for the truth. And when the truth comes out, then you're embarrassed. And hopefully you repent. Sometimes people try to cover it up. And I always wondered about David with Nathan, when Nathan came and told him that you're the man. And one of the things I did when I became Mr. Armstrong's aide is I studied all of the servants in the Bible. I figured what better way to find out how to serve than to read all the servants of the Bible. And then start praying that, God, please don't make me do some of the things like Abraham's servant. I mean, how would you like to go find a wife for your boss's son? I mean, talk about a no-win situation. If everything goes perfect, you're okay. But if anything goes wrong, you found that woman for me. And that's going to be your future boss, because the son's going to inherit everything.

And that one got me. And then, of course, Elijah and Elisha's servants, and of course, Naaman, and of course, getting the leprosy and taking the soul and all the stories of the Bible. And you'll have to go through that. Those young people that don't know the stories yet. Hopefully you all know those stories, because I thought time to go through them all. But it was interesting, because I figured if I'm going to be his aide, I'm going to have some of those things to go through. And I don't want to be a bad aide, and I don't want to do things wrong, and I want to help the work going.

But if you don't think through things, you can come up with some real trouble. When I was in Imperial schools in my junior year, I was in choraleers in the music thing, and most of the high schoolers in choraleers. I played football, and so I was out throwing a football in a game, and I was looking backwards, and I threw a perfect pass to somebody. And the reason I did is because I was running forward and looking backwards and ran into a tree.

And I think we should have touched on it. I don't remember much of it. But it hit right off the front of my head, and they sent me up to the firmiary, and my whole wide eye turned blood red. It was a terrible looking thing. I mean, I really looked like I could have fit in a horror movie. But they had me wear some dark glasses that night and told me to wear those. The next day I came to class, and I was sitting in the classroom, and the bleachers were where the choraleers were.

And the teacher came in, and he wasn't a bad man or whatever, but he walked in, he looked up and looked back down, and he sat there, and he said, okay, man, cool the shades. And he was being really, you know... And I knew he was talking about me. I was the only one with sunglasses on. And so I pulled him off, obediently, and he looked up, and, oh, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, you know.

And I thought, you know, he didn't get a lot smarter to ask me, is there a reason why you have sunglasses on? Because the way it came out, he looked like an idiot. He was the one that had the problem. I wasn't trying to do anything. And I've seen that happen before. It even happened with Mr. Armstrong and Mr. DeCotch. Mr. Cotsch came in, he was upset because the minister had walked out of their fresher program back then. They brought the ministers in for meetings and things.

And he was up talking to Mr. Armstrong about this man who walked out and didn't care about the program and didn't. And Mr. Armstrong was, well, yeah, that's right. He looked at me, and he said, Aaron, what do you think? And I looked at him, I looked at Mr. DeCotch, and I said, well, does the man have to go to the bathroom? And Mr.

DeCotch licked Mr. Armstrong, he licked Mr. Armstrong, he looked at me, he looked at Mr. DeCotch, and he said, well, did he? Mr. DeCotch had never asked the man why he left. What if he had a legitimate reason to go out? What if he had a phone call? What if he had something that he had to do? What if someone died or something? I mean, the key is, I've always told people, ask the question before you make a judgment.

If you ask the question first, you know, if I take my sunglasses off and I'm perfectly normal, then, yeah, why are you trying to act like, you know, some cool dude or somebody? Then you don't look like an idiot. Then you can make the judgment without the ridicule. But I've seen a lot of people pass judgments over the years by just making statements without asking the questions first.

And again, give the benefit of the doubt to people. Ask, and things like that you learn. And when you try to do your job, again, the only reason I survived, I think, was because of all the history and all the things I'd gone through all those years. And witness people that I loved and respected.

And like I said, I always got 12 points, or 10 or 12 points, depending on how many evangelists we had because of the peril. They wanted you to pray for the evangelists and things. And we had a hierarchy that really wasn't the way God intended it, I don't think, in that sense. But it was interesting because I memorized all their names so that I could get points on my test. There were extra credit points in every Bible exam I took, and it was always nice to get an extra 10 points or so.

But it was interesting when I became his aide and I saw some of these men who had risen to positions not because of service, well, because of service, but not for the right reasons. And when they lost their positions, they got angry. And it's not fair. Same arguments.

And I realized, for me to see men who you put on a pedestal tell technical truths to me, which was deceit, they would do different things that say things, and a lot of times it would be for selfish gain. And that always bothered me. And so a lot of things I heard, and my saving factor in the airplane when I got hired on the plane was, I saw everything, I heard everything, but I wasn't allowed to say anything or do anything. And so I wasn't responsible for it, but at the same time it scared me to see these things happen. I thought, what happened to these men that could happen to me? What is it that drew them away that could draw me away from God?

So I began to realize that I had to put hedges around myself to protect myself from the thing. One of the things that I saw, because Mr. Armstrong asked me after men would leave, he said, Why did these men leave? I said, Mr. Armstrong, you've taught the way of give and get. I said, You took some of the men, actually really good pastures in the field. They served and did all these things. You brought them in. They got a house, they got a car, they got salaries, and they began to get instead of give. I said, One of the things that happens when you start getting instead of giving, you start taking instead of serving, is a switch goes off in your brain, and all of a sudden you start thinking, I'm entitled to this.

You can never feel that kind of mentality without becoming like Satan. Guess what does Satan think? I deserve this. I think part of Satan's problem when God created mankind, obviously, was the fact that, when we read about Lucifer, he was the sum of all wisdom and beauty. Oh, wow! Then you read that man's a little lower than the angels, but we're going to judge angels. How would you like to be the sum of wisdom and all beauty and have one of us judge him? I've got to say, if God's got an angel protecting me, I've got to say, half the time he's saying, You're going to judge me?

Because of all the stupid things we do. If I was an angel up there, I'd be thinking that probably. But they know. They can see us, and we learn. God's righteous angels understand what he's doing in creation, I imagine.

But when you see those things happen, you decide, okay, there's a place in the script where it talks about putting a hedge around you. And the law of God is a hedge around us, in a sense.

It sets the parameters where we get in and get out. And each of us knows where our weaknesses are. And if you put parameters around yourself so you don't cross those lines, then you can protect yourself. And God will help you do that. One of the parameters I put around myself with Mr. Armstrong, when he made me his A, is I promised myself that I would never ask him for anything. In some ways, it may have been a foolish promise, because the last five years was life.

I only had two days off. I had Christmas Day off one day and Thanksgiving Day off one day. And I didn't celebrate Christmas, but I did enjoy Thanksgiving. And I got Christmas Day out because I asked the Imperial Schools class, they were going to do a snow line party. And I asked them if they could ask me to be a chaperone.

And so I said, Mr. Armstrong, the Imperial wants me to chaperone their ski party. I don't think you can go. You'll probably break a leg, and you won't be any good to me. And I said, well, no, I won't break a leg and stuff. So he finally relented. And he said, but I can't work with that. And I said, Mr.

Armstrong, I've set up television. You're going to do two programs, and you can go up to the studio. All the people are there. Everything's there. The scriptures, your notes and things are done. So you don't need me. And so he finally relented and let me go. And they complained every time I was gone all day long. I found out from the other people. It was interesting because, you know, I'm talking seven-day weeks. Basically, I was with him on the Sabbath.

And again, we didn't do the work on the Sabbath, per se, although we'd listen to both services. And we'd talk about articles and read things. So in that sense, we'd do church visits and speak. But the other day, six days a week, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, I was there with him. And I was there early in the morning and late at night. And if we were on trips, I did all my work between 10 o'clock at night and 3 and 4 in the morning. And I'd get up at 6 o'clock in the morning and set up that day to do that. And I did that for several years.

So it was difficult. In fact, that's how Jay Brothers ended up on the plane, because I was doing the stewarding and all the cooking, all the setup and everything. And then when I became his aide and did the foundation work as vice president, I had all that to do. And I did all of it for about two years. I did all of that. And I would just die because I wouldn't get any sleep.

And so I finally asked Mr. Armstrong. I said, Mr. Armstrong, I think I'm going to need some help on this job. And this comment, I'll never forget. He looked at me and said, Well, you know, I thought you'd need help, but everything seemed to get done. And I always wondered if you ever wondered when I slept. Because the first thing he'd asked me in the morning, did everything get back fascinating and everything come here?

And he knew I was with him all day and not doing that. So he knew I had to do it at night. But he never asked those questions. But I just said I would never ask for anything, and that included time off, basically. Because people before me, there were things that they had. I mean, most of them got a Patek watch from the factory, church expense, sadly. And it wasn't wrong, necessarily, because we were meeting with dignitaries and heads of state and things like that.

So it wasn't necessarily wrong, because that – and I couldn't afford one. And so the thing is, the church were not buying it if I were to get one. But I didn't think the church needed it. Because I'd seen enough Rolexes and Pateks on the Hong Kong on the fake ones to know that the fake ones look just like the real ones.

And it's interesting to me. If people think you're rich, you can wear a fake, and they think it's real. If people think you're poor, you can wear the real thing, and they think it's fake. And so I knew it wouldn't be a problem if I had a fake Rolex or a fake Patek that they'd think it was real. So I wouldn't have a problem with that. It's still told time. But the thing is, I didn't want the church – you know, my mom was a widow. My dad died when I was three years old, and so my mom was a widow for a while before she married my stepfather. And I just couldn't see spending the widow's money for a watch for me that really didn't make any sense. And I didn't blame or fault the people before me who all ended up with them. But I knew – the hedge I put on myself was I knew if I went with him to Switzerland, which we'd do, we'd be landing there. And he would go, and he bought a watch every few years or whatever, and he always paid for his own money out of his own checking account. The church never bought him a watch. But I knew if I went, he'd say, well, you need to buy a watch, and I'd say, I can't afford it, which I couldn't. And then the church would end up buying it for me. So we had a bank account in Geneva, a church account. I wasn't a signature on it. He didn't know that. But I just said, we have accounts at the bank here, and so I'd sit in the bank. And then he'd go to the factory, and then come back and pick me up, and get on the plane and go. And so I never got a watch, which is good, because if you start taking, all of a sudden, your mind switches. And then you start being owed things, and you deserve a big house. You deserve this, and you deserve that. And again, it wasn't because I was any better than anybody else. And I didn't blame some people because other people didn't even think about it a hit of time, and they'd be in the watch factory, and maybe they didn't want it, but they got caught with it. But I'd been on the plane for seven years, and I saw what other people did, and how Mr. Armstrong was, and things like that. And so for me, you set up your life in a way that you protect those shortcoming areas, or you protect yourself from anything that might cause you a problem. And you realize you have to see the end, the result of what anything is. It's kind of like Covey's name. It began with the end in mind. It's an interesting concept. You have to see where something's going to lead. And if it leads to a wrong place, then you've got to avoid it. In fact, one of the reasons I think Christ was able to be so successful, I mean, He had God's Spirit in full measure and everything, but I think when Christ made the statement, I saw Satan cast down from heaven. And I think what God gave Christ as a human was the memory of history, all the things that happened.

And I use that statement to semi-prove that. You don't know everything, but obviously He didn't see Satan fall from heaven while He was on earth as a human. So it had to be some memory that God gave Him. But the question, I think, is for all of us. When I was in Texas at college, we had some kids that got kicked out for drinking.

They went out and got drunk, unfortunately. And they were called in, and they were going to be kicked out. One of the young men had come from a small church and didn't have much money in the family, and the whole church had chipped in to pay his way to college. And now he was going to have to go back to that church in disgrace. And he was in the Dean of Students' office, and I walked in, and I wasn't handling the case.

And I knew all the students, and I liked them, and they liked me. And I just sat down with them, trying to encourage them a little. I asked him a question. I said, tell me this. If you could feel what you're feeling right now before you took that first drink, would you have touched that bottom? Now, if you could see the result of every action you make before you make that action, you'd make some different actions.

All of us would. I would, too. And I think that's what Christ had, the ability for anything that would come by to see, up to his point, 4,000 years of human history, to know that thought leads to this action. This thought leads to that action. If we could actually see that, we would act differently. And that's what we need to do. We need to pray for God to give us the wisdom to see things as He sees them.

To see things ahead of time. To understand it. I mean, a marriage. Is this the life for you? Or is this an infatuation? Is this a husband that's going to be good for me? Or a husband that's not going to be? Is this a compatible thing? It might both be good people. But is this something that's going to help me toward the Kingdom? Is this something that, you know, in every decision you make, in jobs, are you chasing money or not?

I got put in a position when the college closed in Texas, where I got the college closed at shutdown, and I was there in the Big Sandy, and my kids were, at that time, I think, 12 and 9 or 11 and 8 or whatever. And we waited 12 years to have children, because the years we flew, when Mr. Armstrong wanted us to have children, he kept asking me, when are you going to have children? And I said, well, when are you going to quit flying? And he never answered me, and I never answered him. Because there's no way I was going to be an absentee parent. You know, the first seven years, my wife wasn't flying, and I wasn't going to be gone and have her raise on the kid by herself.

And so we did everything we could not to have children. In fact, people would come up and say, oh, we're praying for you. We know you're barren, and we weren't barren. We were just deliberately not trying. And I kept praying, God, please don't listen to these people. But because it wasn't... I knew God wouldn't raise my children. I'd seen enough people who thought God raised their children, and God didn't do a very good job.

But because God doesn't do for you what you can do for yourself. He expects you. Now, He'll help you. If He makes you do something, He'll help you. But for me, I'd seen enough problems with different people to know that unless I can be there to raise my children, we're not going to try to have any. And so we waited 12 years, and then she got pregnant right a month before he died. It's about the only night I spent at home, so we know when it happened.

We're not sure how it happened because we were trying not to, but God knew we needed that to fill in the gap. So I had a son, and then I had a daughter three years later. And I wanted him two years apart. My wife wanted three, and I said, okay, but no more. She almost made it. It was three years and 13 minutes. But that's pretty close. But anyway, I had my two kids, and I wanted to raise them another college closest.

And I had a choice now. What do you do? I could stay in the Big Sandy area where there's low pay and whatever, and I got offered a really good job in Dallas, make a really good income, and I chose not to take it because I taught priorities as a family. And I'd asked God for 20 years to raise my kids in one spot. And I couldn't see chasing money. And it would have been in finance, which meant I'd have been gone every night, and I wouldn't have seen my kids their whole teenage years.

And so I didn't take it. And God makes up the difference for those things. But you've got to live what you believe, and you've got to set your priorities, and you've got to follow them. And like I said, when you look at these things in the Bible, you've got to place your own life in the middle of that situation. What would I do if? Would you be a Shadrach, Bishach, and Abednego? Would you be a Daniel? Would you be a Dotrophys if you're seeking something that God doesn't necessarily have in store for you? And again, it says if you desire to be a bishop, you desire good work, and all of us should be growing to be that.

We're all going to teach in the millennium. We're all going to be...that's what God's called us for. But is it for your own aggrandizement, or is it really for service? And like I said, sometimes the way God figures that out is by taking something away from you, and then you find out. And it's always sad, and I always pray for people to repent. And on each of the episodes, I always say repentance is to God. It's not to us. It doesn't like somebody to have to come back and do anything for us. But they do have to repent of sin.

And division is a sin, just as any other sin. Adultery, lying, whatever. They're all sins. And so you pray for people to repent and overcome. And yet, at the same time, every one of those things, I look at myself and I say, okay, am I enamored with a job? Am I enamored with a position? Am I enamored with this? And made sure I wasn't as much as is possible.

In fact, most of my life I spent trying to give away my job to other people because I didn't see it as glorious. I didn't see it. I mean, the trips were wonderful in the sense that you... I saw a lot of...I mean, I can tell the story about all these countries I visited, the beautiful places, or I can tell you about all the hotels I sat in for 12 and 15 hours a day, and the airports I sat in waiting for passengers, and the meetings I sat and waited for.

And I never saw any national parks and things. I wasn't a tourist in any of these places. But you can tell the stories one way or you can tell them another way. The education I got was incredible. The protocol of diplomacy, the heads of state, the various people, was a remarkable education. And more precious than that to me was watching what God was doing for His church at that time.

But at the same time, let no man take your crown. Don't lose your calling. Don't make your calling election sure. The way you do that is to examine these scriptures to know what the application is, but also to put those hedges around yourself to make sure that you don't fall into any traps that are going to take you away, and that you look at things logically, and you ask yourself, is this true? And it's a difficult task, and we all make mistakes. I've made mistakes in the past.

I've followed some people in certain areas because everything on the surface looked right. We had a gentleman that the older people know, the younger people wouldn't know, Stan Rader, who taught me a lot about law and accounting, but there were things that he did that were wrong. But yet, he changed the baptism. Now, he got trapped in the baptism, and he even talked about how he got baptized. He wrote a letter to Mr. Armstrong, and it was about the work in the church and how wonderful the Bible was, and everything Mr. Armstrong taught was wonderful and great. Really, when you look back, it was a flattery letter, is what it was.

But at the time, he was being accused by different people of things, and so in order to look good, he wrote this letter saying how the church is so wonderful, and he'd like to be part of it and stuff like that. However, he quoted all the things he had heard in campaigns and in church. And the last clause was interesting, because the last clause of his letter kind of went like this.

But I can't see myself joining an organization who has this minister with this sin and this sin. And he listed some of the sins of some of the top men. And you can see it, legal letter, flattery, flattery, flattery, but legal clause can't join. I don't think you're right in intention to join the church. But the thing about it is, is Mr. Armstrong read the letter. And this one in Hong Kong. And the first question Mr. Armstrong asked him was, is this true? Now, if you write a letter to flatter somebody and they ask you, is that true, what are you going to say?

What's the right answer if you're trying to make points? Yes. Because if you say, no, I'm lying to you, that's not very flattering and it doesn't make a lot of points. So he says, yes. Mr. Armstrong looks at him and says, okay. If this is true, these people have nothing to do with your salvation.

You're ready for baptism. Now, what do you do? No, no, I don't get baptized. I won't do that. Then you're going to cut off the goose and lays the golden egg. So you get baptized. Okay. What happens when you're playing soccer and you change the football? You're allowed to touch the ball. All of a sudden he's baptized. The rules changed.

There were things that were done before he was baptized that were very wrong in some ways, caste system, different things. And all of a sudden these things changed with the game change, with the baptism. I got invited to dinners. I got invited to things that I had never invited to before and things that I had to do before to stay away from. And all of a sudden I was involved. And it was interesting to me to see that change. And all of us, when we see a change in a person, we tend to interpret that as spiritual change. And a lot of changes aren't spiritual changes. They're physical changes. Now the key is, I was deceived. I supported a man and did a lot of things for him for a couple of years until I began to realize that after the receivership, especially, that it wasn't about the spiritual, it was about the physical. It was about wanting to be in charge. And it was about doing the right things to get a certain thing. And I'm the one that ended up blowing the whistle and telling all the things on him.

And I paid for it. I paid a dear price for it, in the sense that I got attacked and different things. Long story, I won't go into here at this time.

But even, I mean, it went so far as to the fact that Mr. Armstrong had to call me up and say, Leave town immediately. Life's been threatened. And I jumped motels for a month, you know, because there were things that I had to tell Mr. Armstrong. There were things that were going on that they didn't want anybody to know about. But again, it was an awkward time. But I had to realize that you've got to do what you've got to do.

And the key is, it's not whether you can be deceived, because you can be deceived. Everybody can be deceived. With God's Spirit, though, He ends up showing you what the truth is, in some way or another. And then the question is, how do you react to the truth? I mean, you can react by trying to cover it over. You can react by denying it. You can react by making excuses for it.

Or you can just say, hey, I was wrong and change. And I've seen all those different reactions. And you examine yourself, and you look at yourself, and you decide, what would I do? And the thing is, the pre-program, I mean, in baptism, we always say, what would happen if? You try to, you know, any man putting his hand to the plow and turns back is not worthy of the kingdom. And so you're asking, what would you do if something happened? None of us can truly see what God is going to put us through. And when I got baptized, I certainly didn't see everything that I would go through. And so there's no way you can totally know.

But you do have to start deciding, as you see things happen, what would I do? And you have to be willing to stand up for the truth, regardless of who or what. You know, in this world, it's the opposite. In this world, as far as I'm concerned, this world today is a reality show, because it's not just that anybody is about winning. You lie, cheat, steal, whatever it is, the goal is winning. And that seems to be what the election is about, winning. It's what all these shows are about. And if I can deceive somebody into, you know, thinking some way and do the other and win, then I'm successful. And that's not what success is, and sadly the world has become that.

And we're supposed to be out of the world. So we have to look at it differently. And we have to turn the other cheek. We have to be willing to suffer loss when these things happen. And when I look at that, and I think that's what it takes for spiritual maturity. And to me, I say there are so many wonderful things. The fun part to me was watching God set up meetings and watching God do things on trips that were just amazing.

And then to see the people that were against all these things, writing stories and rumors, and saying we bought meetings and saying things didn't happen the way they did. To sit in King Hussein's palace and to be in a meeting with him in an office, the meeting that they told me that, well, you have five minutes, you're in there for two hours.

And you have the Egyptian ambassador outside the door, and the aides coming in saying, the ambassador's meeting, the ambassador's meeting, and getting their watch and stuff like that. And him just saying, keep them out, keep them out. And you're sitting there thinking, okay, God's doing this. It just doesn't go this way. And those are the type of things that you realize that God doesn't, but at the same time you realize that these other incidences, all the good things in the Bible, all the deliverances, and the ones where they weren't delivered, and the people who sought power for the wrong reasons, and the Jona's and the Elijah's, and name the character you ought to name, each of them has something to offer all of us, either good or bad.

And I've learned from the good, and I've learned from the bad. And I've hopefully learned not to be bad and to be good, but you also, if you want to be a Machiavelli, you can learn the system on how to play the game. And sadly, we've had people that have learned how to play the game at times.

And as I said, it hurts. Because to me, I've got to tell people, I'm in the salvation business. I want everybody to get in the kingdom. I want, you know, like God, He loves the whole world.

And that's what we're about. It's not about hurting people. It's not about winning. You know, we all can win if we do the right things. But, you know, when you ask people why they did something they did, and they can't explain it, or they justify it, and you ask them when they're going through something. And I don't know, the last few years I've asked a lot of questions to people. I say, what about this scripture? What about this? Why can't you wait? Why can't you do this? And you get these funny answers. You get people that you find out that for something, something's got a hold of them emotionally, and they can't let go of it.

And you pray for them. And again, if you haven't got spirit, God leads you out of things. Things work out. And, you know, why God will let things happen the way He does is probably to let us know how physical and human and weak we are. But at the same time, He'll lift you up and get you through things.

And if you put the hedges and you do what you can, if you do what you can do yourself, God will make up the difference. If you don't do the things you can do, and like I said, if I'd had children when I first started flying, I'm sure I'd have had kids that were a mess, because they wouldn't have had a father at home most of the time, until Mr. Armstrong died. We were married 12 years before we had kids, so that would have been 12 years. All the formative, constructive years of their character would have been gone.

And so, again, you make those choices. And again, even people that make wrong choices, God still helps them. There's no end of the road. There's the prodigal son. The story is, like I said, there's no blame. You never blame people, because here's a father who raised both his sons. One did one, and one did the other. And so there are things that happen, but the things that we can control, we should control. And the things that we can't control, we pray and ask God about.

And like I said, in this book is everything you need. I did my degree in management, and it was funny because every management principle is in here. God doesn't go through all the steps and experiments. He just says, do it this way, and it works. And mankind does all these studies to prove what he said to do in here works. And that's what's fun to me. I clouded my classmates. They said, how come you understand these things so easily? And I never told them. I just said, oh, I've read another book. This was the book I was reading.

And that was where the answers were. And it's so simple in one sense, but so complex in another. But human beings are the same, and we're all in the same boat. We all should be rowing in the same direction. And I said, it hurts. And one day we will all row the same route. When the persecution strikes, I think a lot of people, at that time, you get a common enemy. And it's like I've told people, I've got to tell once, because I wasn't in another group.

And they said, well, you have to be in our group to be in the place of safety. And I said, so you're telling me that if God puts me in the place of safety, you're going to go, nah, nah, nah, you shouldn't be there? And they said, well, you're not going to be in the place of safety, because you don't believe in that anymore. I said, what? Who told you that? Well, United doesn't believe in the place of safety.

I said, really? And people get these ideas and things. But it's funny. I said, frankly, anybody who is protected by God is going to be there praying for everybody who's not there. And thankful for each other that is there. And it's not going to be. You were in this group or that group or whatever. Because, frankly, God knows who His people are. We don't. I've learned a long time ago, I can't necessarily judge who has the Spirit and who doesn't. I prayed. I even asked God, I said, I wish you could just, when I'm counseling someone for baptism, just send them a fire in the wind, and I can say, okay, you're ready.

It's never happened yet. It'd be a lot nicer. And Peter knew that the Gentiles were ready. It came down. At Pentecost, they knew they had the Spirit. I know 120 people who know they had God's Spirit.

It came and sat on their head. But the rest of them, the people they baptized, 3,000 in one day. I have a hard time thinking most of them were converted, especially when they all dissipated so quickly afterwards. But to me, it was free healthcare. If I could run through a hospital and heal everybody there, and they all walked out free of diseases, I could fill a football stadium next week.

And they'd all be going, yay, Aaron! Yeah, Jesus is Lord! Anything I want to say, they'd be repeating after me. But it wouldn't take long before humanity set in, and they'd dissipate because it wasn't about God's Spirit. It was about free healthcare. And it was about a miracle that happened. And that's not what it's about. I mean, I love Shabbat Meishak and Abednego. God is God. He may deliver us. We may die. If we die, He's God. If we don't, He's God.

It's not about being healed. You want healing. We pray for healing. And you want all the good things. But there may be a time when that's not what's in God's plan. And that's the thing that each of us has to really examine ourselves and try to live up to. And I'm preaching to the choir.

You people are all still here. I was so thankful when things were falling apart in the 90s. Michelle and I had already seen this going on beforehand. And Mr. Armstrong made me promise that I would tell Mr. DeCotch when he's wrong, which is, I said, it's one of the hardest promises he ever made me make. Like I said, I said, you're asking me to tell my future boss when he makes a mistake and when he's wrong. And his comment, I thought that was an unreasonable request. And his answer is, well, you did me. Which is probably the best compliment he ever gave me in his life, in a sense, because I did.

I was honest with him. And there were very few things I did. But when he had something that I thought was wrong and he'd ask me, I'd tell him. And if I could prove it from the Bible, he would change. So from that standpoint, it was a great compliment. And I don't know, I hope it was because I was trying to help him.

Maybe it was because I didn't want the job and wanted to get with my wife. I don't know. I guess I could have selfish motives there, too. But it was interesting to have him say that. And so Mr. DeCotch, I did. When he did things, I'd tell him. I was asked to lie from the pulpit the first week after Mr. Crouch on died. And I said, Mr. Crouch, I'm not lying for you. That's not what it's about. And so I faced that. Michelle and I would sit there and think, God, are we the only two that know what's going on? And you kept praying.

And like I said, when I see anybody that still has God's Spirit, believes the truth, is the Sabbath of the Holy Days, I'm thankful. I'm proud of the people that are still here. Because, you know, it's kind of like Elijah when he said, God, it's just me. And God said, no, there's 7,000 of you out there. And you don't know who they are, but I do. And right now there's a lot of people out there that God knows who they are. And I don't. I know some of you, you're here. But all of you?

I don't know. Like I said, it's one of those things. It's almost noon. Actually, I didn't get into a lot of scriptural things there, but I'd understand you have regular Bible studies and things that go good.

But it's an interesting thing to be able to look at the history and help. I think one of the reasons that God put me on there so young is so I'd still be alive to be able to refute all the people that say all the other things that are out there that are totally wrong. And I'm always impressed with people who they say, I know this happened for this reason. And I said, no, it didn't.

Well, I know it did. And so I was there, and that was not even brought up. Well, I know that happened. I understand why there's four Gospels. If there's only one of you, it's really hard. Even four people, some people don't believe. But to be able to try to set the record straight in a lot of areas where there's, you know, truths, half-truths, lies, everything floating around, and to try to help people. And again, it's not so quite Washingtonian thing because I talk about some of the mistakes of the past that we made because we did.

And we had knowledge. We did. The best thing that Mr. Armstrong and God gave was the knowledge of the truth. But the problem is we had too many people that used the knowledge to beat people up with it. And the knowledge is only good if you use it with the love of God. And I said, I have the truth.

I'm going to make you do it. You better get in line. I mean, am I showing you love? I may have the right truth. Maybe I'm right. But the point is, if I'm beating up with it, I'm not showing any love. And what is what Christ said? Do my children, if you love one another? Now, if I don't have the truth and I just say love, love, love, that's no good either. But the key is we were so proud of our knowledge in some cases that we tended to forget how to be kind.

And there's a kindness and a gentleness that Christ had. And again, I can understand why we do what we do. Look at His disciples. Hey, they didn't let you in. Can I call fire down from heaven? I mean, that's what they wanted to do. That had been fun. My son thought that was great. He wanted to be one of the two witnesses until he found out how they died. And he decided it wasn't so much fun anymore because he was only five or six years old.

But he thought, man, call fire down from heaven? Wow, that's great. But you put things in perspective as you get older and more mature. And if you use those things, like I said, you have the source, God, His Spirit, and you have His Word. And with that, you can move mountains. You can conquer things.

And God may not let you move mountains because maybe He doesn't want the mountain moved. And maybe you're moving the mountain so you can...like I've seen some people, they use, I have new truth, or I did this so that God is with me and you should follow me. And God doesn't endorse us. We endorse Him. And I've seen too many people want God to endorse them more than vice versa.

And the key is, everything God gives us is a gift. It's by His grace. What we deserve is death. What He gives us is life and is truth. And He gives us brothers and sisters to share that with. But He also lets people come in and they can come in unaware and they can act. And like I said, doctor fees had to be a good speaker.

He had to be a pretty good personality to rise. How else would He get in charge of a church if He didn't have those? I mean, I've never seen anybody run away after somebody who is terrible and harsh and ugly and rude. You follow people that are polished and personalities. And so from our standpoint, it still comes down to what's the truth. Paul obviously wasn't a good person to look at. He talks about that. And if you've been stoned a few times, I imagine you don't look too good. And he didn't speak too well, apparently, too. But he wrote very powerfully. But it's interesting. It's not about the look.

Again, back to God, Samuel's disease. God looks on the heart. And if you purify your heart, God will help you through whatever trial it is, whether it's in grade school or high school. In fact, I suggested one of our feast films, and it may happen someday, that beyond our children and the trials they go through in school to stand up. My daughter went through a number of them. My son always managed to work his way out of everything.

And we all didn't even have to explain things. My daughter faced every issue you could. She had to have a church or a holy day camp. She had to explain it the whole thing. And when she went to college, her program, she was in therapy, and had 20 people went through the whole program together. And she asked for the holy days off and the feast. And the school said, well, now God can only have three days off.

And she said, I'm sorry, God takes more days than that. And she had to fight. They were going to grade her down for it. And then she had to explain. She had to go all the way to the dean's office and the president and write a letter explaining her beliefs to them. She had a test at Christmas time.

And the teacher said, this is really a hard test, so I've given a lot of bonus questions for you to get your grades up so that you can pass. All the bonus questions were, fill in the blanks to Christmas carols. My daughter didn't know any of the Christmas carols. Well, you never sang it, did you? You grew up in a home that never plays them, turns right out the list of...

And the teacher, she wrote a teacher, a real nice miss. I wanted to write the nasty letter, but my daughter wouldn't let me. So she wrote a letter to the teacher, said, look, I understand this. I appreciate you wanting to help us like that, but please, this is not fair. I don't know any of these songs. And so for me to get one of the top grades of the class and then be at the bottom because everybody else got the Christmas carols wasn't fair.

And the teacher wrote back, well, these are all common songs. You should know that. I felt like writing back and said, okay, I've got to fill in the blank to these Jewish hymns and see how you do. You know, but I didn't write it. I'm part of the carnality of me. But my daughter went through that. And it was funny because she had to fight the battle. She took a couple of zeros on papers. But the kids respected her. And it was interesting, the second year of the program, one of the Holy Days fell on one of the exams. And it was a presentation she had to do with her group.

And it was interesting because she just told the teacher, I can't be the teacher. She said, well, you're going to get a zero. And her class stood up and said, if she gets a zero, we get a zero. We're not coming. And when you have people that can build a respect that way, you're a light to the world. And that's what we're supposed to be, is a light to the world. And I know some of your kids probably went through some of you may have when you were in school. I was an imperial.

I got a feast off every year. It wasn't a problem. My son complained, my daughter, Dad, you had all the days off because I'm an imperial. And Mom, you weren't in the church, so you didn't have to worry about the days. And you never went through what we did. I said, you're right, son. I didn't. But the thing is, I think about the Philippine girl who kept the feast and got cane for it, publicly in front of the whole school.

They're part of our young people that have done some things that are pretty amazing. And those are the type of things that I think they encourage me, they help me to realize that, yeah, this is a way of life. And our young people can know what it is, and they can do it too, just as much as we can, maybe even better than us. And so you're proud of that. And you understand that there are still Daniels around. There are still Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.

There are still Josiahs around. And we just have to be that type of person. Anyway, I'm going to go horse. I got another sermon to give later. So I guess I can include Bible study and start potluck, right? Okay.