If You Want to Be King, Be a Servant

Thank you very much. Good to be here with you. I always enjoyed getting out and speaking. Mr. Armstrong always told me I should speak more. And I was with him, so I was never asked. I told him, I said, they're here to hear you, not me. And I have some habits to overcome, too. I've worked on this a long time. My wife told me to slow down, so in my notes I used to write in the margin of slow down. My first sermon I gave was about 28 pages, and I did it in 35 minutes.

I always like the people that sign for the deaf, because you look at them, you see them, they probably just give up on you. So you realize you've got to change, and it works once you finally realize it. Everything's going well at Cincinnati, the home office. It's good to see Richard coming through. He's bringing a car back for us, a truck. Guess it's going fine. He got this far, anyway, so someone donated a truck in Yuma, Arizona, and since Richard has family back there, every time we get something, we try to send somebody to the home office to do it, where they can meet family and kind of mix business and pleasure in family. And we are, we're a big family there now, really. I can't think of anyone that doesn't get along, and it makes a really pleasant atmosphere to work with. And things are going well. We had a budget that we're doing a little better than we budgeted, but we're spending a little more because there's things going on that are good in the work, and so we're happy to do that. And we put a faith line in our budget this year that you probably read about a million dollars because we knew we needed a million more than we were going to have to do what we wanted to do. And God supplied that before the year even started. I told a few people this story, but it's interesting. Anyway, I got a call in January from an attorney who wrote in and told us that we were getting the residual of an estate that the lady had left for the church, and it was the residual after the other people took what the portions they were supposed to have. And I didn't hear anything at all, but it meant he called me back about a month later and he made a comment that she wanted this money to be used to spread the gospel and do the work of the church, and not just for retirement of ministers, which a previous council ten years before had made a policy and a resolution actually that all the state donations would go for retirement of ministers. And that didn't make a whole lot of sense to me because we've always taken care of people. If you trust God, to me it was putting people first and God's second, and I've always felt we should put God first and people second. You know, if we take care of God's work, then He'll take care of us. If we take care of us and ask for more, then why should He? So anyway, the council, thankfully, when I presented this treasure, rescinded the old resolution, and now all the state donations are to do the work, whatever the best needs for God's work are. And so when the lawyer called me back, I said, well, we've already changed that, so there's no problem. And then, didn't hear anything until a couple months later, and in June, he went, the attorneys and people looked up all 10 people that were listed in the will. And the lady lived to be 99 years old, and all 10 people in the will had died. And she had a state of $900,000 in CDs.

And of course, the lawyers started counting. We ended up with $777,000, which is a good number. I wouldn't mind. Another decimal point would have been good, too. But things like that. You know, is it coincidence, or is God helping you? And so God's done a lot of things to help us. And like I said, we remain humble and selfless, and turn to God, He'll take care of us. And so I'm very, very happy that that's what's happening. And so many people have risen to the occasion. So many people are having opportunities that didn't. God has us in a training program right now. And if we're not doing what He wants us to do in that training program, then He'll find some other way to make it get done. And certainly what's happened recently and so many times throughout our history. I said we have to be a church first and a corporation second. You have to do the business. But at the same time, that's not what we're about.

The sermon I want to give to you today is one I always tie some history for those of you who are new in the church, those of you who are old in the church know my background. I've been in the church all my life, except for the first couple years I had one pagan Christmas. I don't remember it, but I have a picture of it. So I know I was there. I'm long since repentant of that. But it was, you know, my whole life has been in the church. And I had 12 years of Imperial schools and four years of Ambassador College and then 12 years of Mr. Armstrong before he died. And didn't ask to be with him. He called me to graduation and asked me to be with him. And so I ended up graduation day was Friday. On Monday we flew for Europe. It was supposed to be a three-week trip.

It ended up being six weeks. I had to call I had to talk to him and tell him I'm supposed to get married next week and I'm still in Paris. You know, kind of go home. And so I got a ticket back to New Jersey to get married to my wife, which is kind of like our life seems to be that type of thing. Ever since then it's been back and forth and separated together and wherever. And God's helped us out with that. But I've always told people don't ask for things like that because it's tough. But if he makes you do it, he helps you. My sermon today I've titled Want to be a King? Be a Servant. It's an interesting thing. You know, we know if you turn to John 18, it's interesting Christ is talking to Pilate. Or Pilate is talking to Christ, actually. Christ hasn't said a whole lot. But it was a little less than 2,000 years ago. And John records in chapter 18 that Pilate asked Jesus, Are you the king of the Jews? In verse 33, Pilate entered into the judgment hall again and called Jesus and said to him, Are you the king of the Jews? Ask him again. And Jesus answered him, Do you say this of yourself or does someone else tell it to you?

And Pilate answered and said, My Jew? Why should I know that? Your own nation and the chief priest have delivered you to me. What have you done? Jesus answered, My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews, but now is my kingdom not from here? And Pilate therefore said to him again, Are you a king then? And he answered, You say that I am king. To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness to the truth and everyone that is of the truth hears my voice. As you and I prepare our future, we should hear the voice of our Lord, the voice of truth. In a world full of lies, do you really hear your king and the truth?

We should be seeing our inadequacies, as brought the sermonette, and becoming more like our Lord and our Savior, who had no sense. We are told in Philippians 2.5 to have the mind of Christ. And indeed, that's a lifelong journey to have that mind. But it says, Let this mind be in you that was in Christ. And to become perfect as our Father in heaven is perfect. A tall order, a tall order that I've never witnessed in anyone. I've seen some people better out than others. I've seen people good at it in one area and bad in other areas. I've seen people fail miserably.

And we recently adopted the phrase Christ-like service. And we adopted it because of the fact it's for all of us. You know, we had servant leadership. It's not like, Oh, you have to be a leader to do that. Or it's not for members. And no, it's for all of us. We're all called to be leaders. It's a small army, kind of Gideon's army. It seems like God keeps bringing it down to the people that are going to serve Him and do it His way. But it's interesting because Christ was born to be King of kings and Lord of lords. That was what He came for. And if He's the King of kings, that means that you and I are also to be kings under Him and under God. When we think of kings in terms of majesty, we think of it in terms of beauty, in terms of wealth and power. But Christ came as a suffering servant. Our King, He came in a different vein. And that's how He qualified to be a king, by serving and dying for us. For whatever reason, God saw fit to place myself and Michelle. So we traveled the most I don't know why. But we were able to watch them work and watch them do what they did. And to understand their frustrations and their goals. Some who wanted to do it right, some who wanted to grandize themselves. Some who really wanted to help their people, and some who didn't. It was interesting because even kings of this world have to seek help to do the things that they want to do. Things they want to do for their country. And they have difficulties. They have trials, they have tests they go through, they have things that they wish they didn't have to go through. Things that they wish they could change in their countries. But in some cases, constitutional monarchy and they can't always change those things. And we all get discouraged at times, no matter what your station in life is. Other people don't live up to our expectations. We think they should do better. We may not live up to our own expectations of what we expect of ourselves. We think life isn't fair sometimes. And we see things from a different point of view. And people get upset. But all the things are in God's control. He controls all these things. And oftentimes, I think he's testing it to see our reactions. I've seen a lot of people react poorly to tests over my lifetime. People that I'd looked up to as a child. People that have risen to the top, only to fail. Because they didn't know how to prepare to be a king in reality.

Can not he be testing us like he did Job? Job hadn't. I mean, I wish I was as righteous as Job was. I mean, if the only sin you have is self-righteousness, that's pretty good in some ways. But it was interesting because God has a purpose for each of us, like Joseph, when he tested him for so many years. He put him in prison. He sold him slavery. He had a purpose for him. I know many in the church have become discouraged over time. Some of you may be discouraged. People leave. People come. People go. Is the answer to walk away, to get upset? Or is the answer to have faith that God knows what he's doing? And he is training you to know that every event that you're put through, and every event that I've been put through in my lifetime, is something that God used to train me, to help me, as he molds me. I firmly believe God is molding me. I believe he's molding you and all of us. And so you can't get discouraged. Really, if you do and give up, then you've lost what he wants you to do. You've lost what he's training you for.

And like I said, others can take your crown. And you don't want others to take your crown. Again, none of us expected when we were born to be a king. We didn't look at that. It isn't our journey, what we thought, although some people were born. We see Prince William and England get him married. He was born to be a king. Trained that way. We came from a different group.

There's no sacred that I've always favored the royal family of Thailand, because I spent more time with them, probably than any other group of royalty. And although I respect some of the others who tried, but I spent more time with them than anyone else. And it was interesting. I have a book of his speeches that the king has given over his lifetime. He's the only reigning monarch, the oldest reigning monarch, for the number of years, going on 56 or 7 years now, as a reigning monarch. But he started his rule with a statement that I found impressive. It says, We will reign with righteousness for the benefit and happiness of the Siamese people. We, not I, we, he recognized his wife in this statement, that it was a family, that everyone in his family had a duty to reign with righteousness. He recognized that righteousness means ruling with justice, with fairness, with equity, and peace for the benefit of the Siamese people. Not about his family, but about others that he's over. You must serve others. It's about service and giving. It's interesting that he saw this in giving honor where and when it was due.

It's interesting when Queen Sarah could visit the campus of Ambassador College in 1985, the Governor's Prime Minister couldn't walk very much then it was the year before he died. He was 92. So he asked me to escort her all these different places. And this sweet talk, we spent hours together. And she asked me all sorts of questions, told me about the events and the things we're going on in his life. And her son, Her Royal Highness Crown Prince Maha, Verrecta Corn, was having difficulties at that time. And she asked me a question that I'll never forget, because she was talking about some of these things and I didn't expect it. She asked me, and she was serious when she asked it, she said, How can I raise my son to be a good king?

His Royal Highness Crown Prince of Thailand was born on July 28, 1952. He was 33 at the time she asked this question. I was two months younger than he was. And she's asking me, How do I raise my son? What do you do with someone 32? And I wonder why she should ask me this question. He's born to be a king. He's already been raised. And what he needed really was the knowledge of God.

But they are the protectors of the Buddhist faith. And so it wasn't a time to make a convert.

I knew she was sincere. And like we all do when these things happen, you kind of throw up a prayer quickly to God of what answer do you give. So I answered her this way. I said, Your Majesty, you should raise him the same way that you were raised.

Because they never expected to be the king and queen of Thailand. Never expected it.

His Majesty King Pumapong Ndilyadeh, Brahma IX of the Chakra dynasty, was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts on December 5, 1927. He was a second-born son, not the first. He never expected to be king. He was born in American soil, so he's American citizen, and the only American citizen that is the king, actually. He was expected to follow his older brother, His Majesty King Amandamahadal, Rama VIII, who died unexpectedly. Actually, he was poisoned because he was trying to clean up the government, which is very corrupt. And of course, like everything in government, they spin the story they want you to hear and not what actually happened. Queen Surakut was born August 12, 1932, five years younger than her husband.

Her father was a great-grandson of Rama V, and you had to be of royal blood to be able to marry in the royal family, and so she was a great-great-granddaughter, so she was eligible to marry.

And they had some lamb and things, but she was not from one of the favorite wives, Rama V, in their ancestry, so they had some lamb and not a lot of money. And they had all sorts of things that had gone in their lives because the government had come, the Japanese were at war with Thailand, and the occupation had begun. And she was telling me about the fact that even though they had a few servants and things, her job was to carry water from the well. It's a little girl, seven, eight years old. You know, the one with the pole there with the two tanks? She carried that from the well to bring water into the house. She told me how she was scared at times because the bombs were falling when she was carrying water. She saw people who were injured, shrapnel and various things from them. And there was death and screaming and noise and pain and suffering that she witnessed. That's a little girl. And she, even though she was a royal lineage, understood hardship in a real personal way. It was interesting, though, because at 16, she was invited to the palace, to a royal ball, kind of a Cinderella story of sorts, except that it wasn't quite like Cinderella, in the sense that she didn't have mice turn into chariots and pumpkins turn into carriages. And that she wished she would have. But it was a very special opportunity for her. And she said, she went to her father and said, Father, Father, I've been invited to the party at the palace. Can I buy a new dress to go to this ball? And her father looked at her and he said, circuit. He said, we don't have any money. We can't buy you a dress. She said, Daddy, Daddy, we have land, though. Can't we sell a piece of land? We'll have some money and then I can have a new dress to go to this palace party. He said, Well, yes, we could. But the people now that would buy it are corrupt. And these people of service, and they'd throw them off the land and they would starve. An honor and character and respect is more benefit and better than a new dress for to go to a ball. And so she asked him and she begged him, said, Father, Father, can I at least have a pair of new shoes to go to this party? And her father said, No. Character, responsibility, honor are more important than a pair of shoes.

So finally she asked him one last time. She said, Well, can I at least have some taxi money so I can ride to the palace? And he said, No. Honor, character, responsibility are more important than money for a taxi. So he let her go to the party. And she went to the party in her school uniform and a pair of tennis shoes on a bus. How many of us would go to a party like that, dressed more or less in rags compared to what everybody else is going, because all the people invited would are mostly wealthy, going in beautiful things. And I'm sure she was noticed at that party, but not because she looked so beautiful and wonderful. That's why I told her, Raise your son like you were raised. Her father had taught her character, honor and responsibility, a love and concern for the people that others would have discarded and thrown away. People the world looks down on. People like those God calls, like you and me, those of us.

When we think of looking at ourselves and trying to examine ourselves, what we need to do to become servants of God and Christ and the millennium as we approach the feast, as we approach Trumpets, where kingship is coming, we see our own faults. But do we look at the well-being of others and the service to others as part of our training? Like Christ said, I was born to be a king. We also were born to be kings, but we have to look at it the same way Christ did from the point of service and humility.

If we look at it that way, we're fine. I've seen too many people look at it as an entitlement and power. If we look at it that way, we have problems. Most royalty are caught up in luxury and seek pleasure. Like the man in the parable in Luke 12, do we come before God? Man, remember, he has the barn full of stuff and he has more crops and he says, I'll build a bigger barn. And I'll store it up and I'll take care of myself. And he lays up that treasure. And God says, you fool, because your soul may be required of you tonight. You can't take those things with you. The material things that you amass don't come.

Most royalty is spoiled. And when you don't think you'll be a king, humanly, you seem to do your best. When you don't think, you don't get the big head. You don't think you're that important. Pride often goes with status and pride can destroy. I've seen pride destroy a lot of people, people that have come in contact with God's church and risen to different heights. If you have become proud, you lose. Turn to 1 Samuel 8 if you would.

Because God talks about human kings and what happens. And of course, 1 Samuel 8.

Israel didn't really know what they asked for.

1 Samuel 8, verse 1, it came to pass, when Samuel was old, he made his son judged over Israel. And the names of his sons there. Verse 3, it says, His sons walked not in his ways, but turned aside after money, took bribes, and perverted judgment. This is biblical. It's a stated fact. His sons were not just people.

They weren't like they should have been, unfortunately.

Then all the elders of Israel, verse 4, gathered themselves together and came to Samuel to Ramah and said to him, Behold, you're old and your sons don't walk in your ways. Make us a king to judge us like the other nations.

Did they have a right to come to Samuel and say, Your sons are evil? Yes, they did. That's what they should have done. Come to Samuel and say, We've got a problem here.

What was the problem with what they did, though? They decided the solution.

Too many people decide the solution for God. If you decide for God the solution, you may have a problem. That's what they did here. Because they said, We want a king. This is how we want to solve it. They didn't say, Samuel, why don't you go ask God what He wants for us? Go ask Him how we can get past this hurdle. It was true. They had a right to do it. But they shouldn't have chosen their own course.

And God said to Samuel, verse 7, Listen to them, hearken to the voice of the people and all that they say. They've not rejected you. They've rejected me. That I should not reign over them.

Is Christ our king? Hop and ask people, are you following man or are you following Christ? I think since God hasn't appointed a single man, that I can tell. A lot of people spin the truth to try to make themselves the appointed leader. But it's interesting. I look at the Scripture. I think this is a time when each of us look and say, what do I believe? Who is my king? And although I respect people and I submit to authority, Christ is my king. And that's the ultimate authority for all of us.

When people choose someone else other than Christ, they're rejecting him.

And he tells them, go ahead and tell them, they can have a king. And drop down in verse 11, what God tells them to say to him. He does. Samuel tells the people, verse 11, This will be the manner of the king that shall reign over you. He will take your sons and appoint them for himself. And for his chariots and his horsemen. And some shall run before his chariots. Be cannon fodder in the wars, basically, and dine. He will appoint captains over thousands and over fifties. He'll set them to till his ground and reap his harvest to make him instruments of war and more chariots. Verse 13, He'll take your daughters to be confectionaries and cooks and bakers. He'll take your fields and your vineyards and the best and give to his servants. He'll take a tenth of your season. He'll take this and he'll take that and he'll take everything. That's what most of the world's kings do.

And they still said, give us a king.

Verse 19, Nevertheless, the people refused to obey the voice of Samuel, and they said, no, we'll have our king over us. We've made our decision. They didn't choose God to be their king anymore.

They wanted to be like the other nations. And Samuel heard all the words of the people and rehearsed them in the years of the Lord. Lord said to Samuel, hearken to their voice, make them a king.

And he sent them in back to their cities. Is this the kind of king you would be? God made us a king now, perhaps, but we're going through a training that's different. We're being taught honor, respect, and character. Similar to what Queen Sera was taught.

If we simply desire power, then we're not going to be kings. Now, you can have power and you can desire for the right reason. But in this world, usually it's desired for the wrong reason.

That's a hard thing because you can be corrupted by it. People want to be respected of men.

Always compare people to Christ, because my whole life, that's why I've tried to emulate in some ways, and we all fail at it at different times, and we succeed at different times through the help of God's Spirit. But when I think about Christ and I try to see the difference between Him and some of the men who have failed, it was interesting. Christ came from being God, coming down to be a human, growing up, being ridiculed, but serving His whole life, healing in His ministry, helping people constantly.

And then, right before He's going to die and go back to being God again, the last thing He does is wash feet.

I've seen a lot of people wash a lot of feet so they could get to the position where they wouldn't have to wash feet.

When you do that, you get the wrong motivation. You're trying to seek position. It's not about service for the sake of service, for what's good.

That's why we've got the term Christ-like service. You want to be a king? Be a servant.

Be able to do what it takes. Get on the bus.

And when you don't think you'll be a king, you seem to do the best humanly.

Samuel was humble.

Saul was humble before he became king. Talks about it, even though he's tall and big. He says he was humble.

Powers hurt a lot of people.

It's interesting, Christ, when we're going for Him, and Peter's trying to defend Him because of the other servant, and they ask Him, can I strike down these people and call fire down from Heaven because they didn't do some little thing? And Christ looks at him and says, are you kidding? He says, don't you know I could call down legions of angels and they'd come down and help me?

How many times in Christ's lifetime, 33 years, did He call down legions of angels?

None recorded.

He didn't come to destroy people. He came to serve and to help.

He didn't use his authority wrongly.

And he taught his disciples the same. They didn't understand it. But that's what he was teaching them.

We have to learn from scriptures how to have a Christlike attitude, to learn God's will.

It's interesting with God's Holy Spirit, we can get close to Him, to understanding Him. But we have to respect God's authority, not our own, to make His decision. Even Moses, Moses says the meekest man on the earth. And boy, how to be described. I'd love for somebody to be able to say something nice about me in scripture. In scripture, it's true. No matter how many times you may say it, or your wife or friends, it doesn't make it true. God says it is true. Makes it a lot better.

But it's interesting because Moses even lost it momentarily. He says, must I bring water out of this rock?

Ouch! A little too much eye there.

Figurative asking others strike the rock too many times. I've struck the rock too many times. The bad examples I've witnessed have kept me from striking it more than I should have, thankfully. I've learned a lot from other people. But we're all human. And if you're not careful, you can lose it. And thankfully, God grabs repentance. And the physical price you may have to pay for it can be forgiven, as we call out to Him and love and ask Him to help change us.

Our King, whose return we celebrate soon when Trumpets comes another week, came and lived not as one of the kings of the world.

He did what no other king could or would do. He came to show us how to be a king, a king with perfect love for mankind, willing to die for everyone who's ever lived. Even if you're the only one who did live, he died for you, for your sin.

Whatever sin that is. A king who taught give, not get, service, not being served, to accept hatred and attacks without guile, without striking back. Yeah, he was strong at times with the leaders that were leading the people to stray, Pharisees and Sadducees and those.

But he was never at fault.

Turn to 1 Thessalonians 4.

Because yes, he will come back in power, but if you're focusing on the power, then you'll be putty in Satan's hands, like so many other people have been throughout the centuries. 1 Thessalonians 4.16, it says, For the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God, the dead in Christ shall rise first. Then we which are alive remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so shall we ever be with our Lord.

Wherefore comfort one another with these words. Where to comfort one another in knowing that we can join His family if we prepare as Christ teaches us.

If you want to be a king, be a servant.

But our desire must be in humility and a proper attitude, because there will be injustices, and this world is full of them. In fact, that's probably apparent injustices, probably what Satan used to turn angels into demons. But is God checking to see how do you see it? Can you see it as He sees it? And how will you react? Where to comfort one another knowing we make it, we rise to meet Christ.

It's interesting. Christ says He learned obedience through the things He suffered. Do we learn obedience? There's a lot of suffering we go through. Different types of pain, emotional, physical, spiritual pain sometimes even. But we learn. Turn to Matthew 20, if you would.

Because Christ qualified, we get a job. And our job is coming soon.

It's interesting. Our job qualifications are not a resume of how good we are. And we write resumes now. We say all the things we know how to do and how good we are at this and how good we are at that and all our certificates. God's resume is not how good you are. Matthew 20, verse 20.

It says, Interesting.

I've always used the Scripture to say that God's government is hierarchical. Christ didn't say, there is no right or left. He just said, God knows. And when God appoints us, wherever we are, we'll be happy there, I'm sure. But Jesus answered here and said, you know, you don't know what you're asking.

And He's not really asking it of her because He says, Are you able to drink of the cup that I shall drink? And do you baptize with the baptism I will be baptized with?

And they said to Him, He was talking to the sons, We are able.

Well, it wasn't very long before they proved they weren't able at that point in their lives.

Are we able?

Christ says to them, He knows what positions you'll be in. And they wanted power, positions, and they wanted to heal. They wanted to do good things with it, I'm sure. But that wasn't the attitude.

And certainly the other 10 learned something from this, too. They learned how indignant they were and upset at their compatriots. Because verse 24, the 10 heard it. They were moved with indignation against the two. How dare you step in line in front of us? We want that. Basically what they were saying.

And people look at jobs like that. I said, I didn't ask for the jobs I had with Mr. Armstrong, but I had a lot of people ask me, how do you get that job? And I said, I don't know, because I didn't apply for it.

And I told them, you don't want it. It comes with a lot of trouble. It comes with headache. It comes with heartache. It comes with absence from your family, your wife. It was interesting. I looked in the logs, and in 1975, the airplane, G2, was out of the country 312 days, outside the United States.

You don't run life that way. It doesn't work unless God helps you. I always tell people, why do you want a job that does something like that? If you want it, God may give it to you, and then you'll suffer. Everybody who flew on the plane has been divorced, as I Michelle and I, because there wasn't a way to run a marriage. But He helps you. If He makes you do something, He helps you. And I never asked to do it. In fact, I kept trying to say no every time He made me do things. But that was part of my training, part of my humility, I guess, trying to get out of it. Didn't work.

But they were indignant. They wanted it. Jesus called them and said, You know the princes of the Gentiles, exercise dominion over them. And they that are great exercise authority upon them, but it shall not be so among you.

That's not how you're supposed to do it.

But whosoever will be great among you, let him be your servant, your minister.

Verse 27, Whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant.

It's not what this world thinks of when it thinks of royalty. It's kingship being a servant, not in the way that Christ did it. Now, I'm serving my country because I'm king and I have this palace and they can all look up to me. So I'm serving them. It's not what Christ had in mind.

Verse 28, Even as the Son of Man came not to be ministered to, but to minister and to give His life a ransom for many.

Are you willing to give your life? Are you here to minister for others? Are you here to take care of your own desires? Do you complain that the world doesn't seem fair to you?

Go run off.

Your duty in the church doesn't seem fair sometimes to people. I know people who laugh because they got changed out the sound system or changed out this and they've done it for so many years. I'm the only one that can do it and they get upset.

I'm trying to teach people to do my job. I'm always trying to get my jobs away.

That's what we all should be doing. That's what Christ was doing. He's teaching to be like Him. Not that you could do what His job was in the physical sense because we sin so we can't pay the price for anybody. But we can serve. We can do those things.

Should we really expect fair?

If I look at the Bible, I see a lot of examples that don't seem fair.

Funniest one to me as a kid, I couldn't understand it, was a Dimalak with Abraham. Abraham lies to the Dimalak. If this is my sister, he takes her in because he likes her. Then God gives a dream and causes all this trouble and tells him, a Dimalak, I'm going to kill you. Why? Because you're taking this man's life. I didn't know his wife. I know you didn't know his wife. Well, but it was in my innocence. Well, I know it's in your innocence. Now, I'll tell you what I want you to do. The guy who lied to you. You go to him, you ask him to pray for you and forgive you so I don't kill you.

That doesn't seem fair.

A lot of things don't seem fair.

It's fair what it's about. Of course, in that case, I think God wanted to know that Abraham was his servant.

Our job is to be fair with others as much as we can be, but not to expect fairness from them, even if they treat you badly.

Some stumble onto the right things. We didn't stumble onto it. God called us to it. He called us to a greater purpose. For us, the physical beginning was when we accepted Christ, the baptism. We renew that every Passover. Our begettles and our spiritual journey began then. Our birth will be when Christ returns.

When we go to meet him as King of Kings, when he calls up the saints, those that are dead, those of us that are still alive.

And it's not those that are mighty, but those that are humble, those that have learned character and honor and responsibility.

You must be willing to give your life. It's interesting, the older days in the wars, when they perfected at the point, the generals stood on the hill, and the other generals stood on the other hill, and all the people came down, they killed each other, and somebody walked away. But that's something they hated about the American Revolution. We shot officers and weren't used to shooting officers. That's not fair.

But that's the way this world seems to want to make it work.

Armacai was out in front. Those generals wanted the enlisted men out in front die.

Armacai had died for us. He always represented God.

He had what we read in Isaiah 66.1, where he tells us.

It says, Verse 2, Isaiah 66, For those, all those things my hand has made, yeah, he created the whole universe. And all those things have been, says the Eternal, but to this man will I look. Even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit and trembles at my word.

And we built that kind of attitude where we want to know God's word and understand it, put it into our lives.

You may not have to give your life literally as Christ did. I pray not. I never pray to die a martyr if I have to or will. But you must be fully dedicating your life to God and His service and the things of God willingly to live and practice, giving and serving as a way of life where it becomes second nature to you to help others. It's a surrender of your will to His will, your mind to Christ's mind. This is what it means to fully understand the Passover and the plan of God through His holy days.

King Pumapaun was a second-born son.

And it was interesting because he chose a life different. He went to school in Europe because he recognized the fact that his brother was going to be king, and he wanted to help his people, and so he thought he'd get an education to help them.

But how did this young second-born son of the king become king? And how did the 16-year-old girl who went to the party in her school uniform and tennis shoes on a bus become the king and queen of Thailand?

It's interesting. The war was over. Thailand wanted to send an ambassador to Europe.

And because the government was corrupt, they picked out a man that they wanted to send, and he was so corrupt that the British said, we won't have this man as ambassador to Europe. They refused him.

And they searched out, and they chose a man because the man that they had sent before had no honor. And they demanded a man named Nakhatra Mancal Ochandaburi, none other than Queen Serkis' father, because he had honor and character and respect.

And so he became the ambassador to Europe, and the family moved to Switzerland.

It was interesting because after the war, the young prince gone to Europe for his education, and he wanted to become an engineer. He said, my country has a lot of agriculture and rice and farming and things. So he did an engineering degree in water management and conservation and various things. He thought, I'll be able to help my people with that degree. And that's what it was about for him, to help his people. Not as king, though, but just using his position to be able to go out and serve wherever he could.

In Switzerland, on a ski trip, where the king had taken his... or the crown prince, or the brother of the crown prince, was going skiing, it just so happened that the family of Queen Serkis was there skiing.

And obviously, there weren't a lot of Thai people in Switzerland back in the 1940s and 50s, so he met her. She was beautiful. She was a beautiful lady.

And he was very impressed with her. This time, it wasn't in the school uniform in tennis. She was in a bus.

And if he remembered her at all from the party, it wouldn't have been with anything a favor. But now he saw a beautiful young woman with character and respect and honor. And so he asked her to marry him.

It was that year when he asked her that his brother was poisoned and died. And he was recalled to Thailand to be made king.

And so, he and his fiancé returned there, and he became king, and she became king.

And indeed, they kept the promise they made a coronation to serve with righteousness the benefit and happiness of the Thai people. People recognized the value of character and honor, and the Thais loved their king and queens. Surprisingly, they've done it very different than most kings and queens of the world. They didn't start out in riches. They had some palaces and land, but they weren't rich, really, as king and queen. But they decided to help the people, because he knew if he tried to get involved in politics like his brother did, he'd be killed too.

And so he began serving. And they went up to the far regions of the borders, to the hill tribes, people with no status, and began building bridges and dams and roads and trying to help them with projects and bring back the arts and crafts and give them jobs.

And indeed, the people respected them for it, and they dedicated their lives to the serving and giving. With interesting, they were preparing not by knowing they were going to be king and queen.

They were preparing by learning honor and respect and authority, and kings by wanting to get an education to help his people.

God expects us to prepare us well. We do know that we will be kings and priests. It says so very clearly. And because of that, knowledge is imperative that we understand how we're to be that from God's point of view and not from man's.

God expects us to prepare. We can't earn what we'll be in givens, because it's not about works. You can't earn it, and we're indeed saved by grace. But what makes Christ and God apply that grace to you and to me? To give you that gift of eternal life? To crown you with a crown.

What is it about you that allows for you to become part of his family?

Well, the way the mind of Christ is about the heart. In Acts 13, 22, there's one verse there. I'll read it. I have it here. I'll read it before you get time to turn to it. It says, And when he had removed Saul, he raised up David to them to be their kings, to whom he also witnessed and said, I have found David, the son of Jesse, to be a man after my own heart, who shall fulfill all my will.

Even though David sinned mightily, his heart was right. So it's about the heart.

God wants to see in you a pure heart. It's also about the mind. As we read earlier, Philippians 2.5, let this mind be in you that was in Christ. One of service.

It's about humility. And if we read Numbers 12.3, It says, Now the man Moses was very meek, above all the men which were on the face of the earth.

Humility, not pride. And a man who actually was a leader, he was destined to be Pharaoh, raised in the Pharaoh's house. But he recognized, and I'm sure when God asked him to go back and free the people of Israel who were slaves, it'd be like someone coming to this country and being over the military, the chief of the U.S. military, and then being told later that you had to come back there and take over. You know, free somebody from this powerful force. He understood how powerful Egypt was. Yet he became the meekest man.

He became poor and of a contrite spirit and trembled at God's word.

It's about building godly, righteous character, because that's what it's about. You take nothing with you to the grave but the character you've built. A lot of people often say, Well, you must have been really good to be asked to work with Mr. Armstrong. I said, No, I wasn't that good. But I assumed to have the qualifications he needed, which at that point were cooking. Because when I was in college, I learned how to cook.

Did it for free. I had a job, another job, but I didn't have to study very much. Having 12 years in parallel, I'd read the Bible three or so many times that I didn't have to study a whole lot. Not that I didn't study, I did study a little bit. But at night, I'd ask if I could go in because I want to eat better. Because the lime food isn't as good as the food they serve for the special meals. So the two men in charge of the kitchen at the time came from the school of culinary arts. So I came in and said, Hey, can I learn to cook? So we did French club, Spanish club, and German club. Then we had the men's nights and ladies' nights of four nights a week. On Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, I'd have filet mignon or chateau brianne or whatever. It was really good. Just a typical college diet. But I just did that for to eat better. I wasn't doing it for a job. And sure enough, when it came time, they needed someone on the plane. Everything on the airplane was cooked from scratch and served on china and crystal. And they wanted someone to graduate from Basterin's. So they suggested me, which was odd to me too, because I didn't think they'd suggest me for anything. So I ended up getting asked to fly on the plane. But it wasn't because I was good, believe me. And I told people, you don't have to be good. If you sit next to the minister, you're not going to screw up unless you're really, really stupid. It's like children, when you're sitting next to your parents, you don't tend to do things. I mean, when the lights go out or in another room, you do stupid things. But it was interesting for me. I spent 12 years. I had a short leash. I mean, I couldn't leave them at all. Basically, the last five years, I had two days off. And that was Christmas Day off one year. Not to celebrate Christmas, but I asked the pearl to ask me to be a chaperone for a ski trip they were taking at Christmas Day. And I heard that all day long, Mr. OPsch had been playing about me being gone because he couldn't work. But then I had Thanksgiving Day off one year, too. That was basically it for out of 365 days. But so I wasn't going to do a whole lot of things wrong because he was there. But it's not about that anyway. Character is what you do in the in the dark. And it was good to be with him. I learned a lot. It's a great education. It was a lot of work hours, hard days. My wife finally got to fly the last five years. He asked her to fly without asking her. He asked, in fact, I didn't even ask. I came in one day and said, What do you think of the decision? I said, Fine. I have no idea what he's talking about. He said, Well, not not may not be permanent. It's just going to take one trip and see if it works. And I don't know if your wife will work out. And that's kind of when I got the idea. My wife. Okay. And so I came back and told her she's flying on the plane at Stewart as the secretary. And and she said, What? I said, Yeah. So we took a trip. The first trip she wanted to quit. She asked me to tell him that she wanted to fly. I said, You tell him. I'm not telling.

So we kept on. But that's the way life goes sometimes. You know, you don't ask for things and you end up doing them. And it was good to be with her. Although it was hours with cabinets like that, it was still an awkward thing because you try not to wake each other up in the middle of the night when you're off time, etc. But it is more fun being together than apart. And so we did change our pattern a little bit there. But again, character is what you do in the dark. Not when you're standing next to someone who can stop you. And I'm still trying to do today, to this day, what the scriptures have taught about character, responsibility, honor. And God is about love. Our love of God and our love of our neighbors. Like Christ said, all things hang on these two, all the prophets and law hang on those two things. And truly, if you have love, really the love of God. You don't need Ten Commandments because if you love God, it's automatic. But I say with my children, you know, my children don't have to tell me they love me. When they do things that are right, and their actions are just and right, that says they love me. You know, if my kid breaks the window and says, I love you, dad, and goes out in those drugs, and says, I love you, dad, and goes out in those whatever else, says, I love you, dad, he didn't love me. You know, their actions show your love.

And so you do those things that are right. We examine ourselves all year long.

And we should have a foot washing attitude all year long. We do it sometimes at Passover, and a lot of times seem like a ritual. I know in Pasadena when they had 1100 people at a Passover, so it's kind of like a assembly line. Kind of took some of the meaning that my favorite passwords were the ones with them with two or three people, or maybe as many as seven or eight. And it was Bill Inamont, and you talk, we discuss things, and more like, I think their first one was like, it's harder to do that now.

But it's interesting, because your daily life that you do shows your heart and your mind. The compassion Christ showed when He healed people, when people came to Him, whether they were Israelites or not. It's an arachnomer moment. Well, He didn't want a healer. You're not an Israelite. Well, the dogs eat the crowns. Okay, your faith. Go. You're healed. It works. We have to see it as a way of life. It's not a checklist. Too many people think it's a checklist of things they can do.

Your daily life shows your heart. One of the reasons I really respect Queen Seriket was what she does for people. And she and her husband both do so much over so many years. Her whole life's been dedicated to them. But it was interesting, because when we, in 1984, I believe it was, or 83, we were going to visit the Queen, and Mr.

Arpsman tried to meet the Queen for years. And he never better, because he always asked the King about her, and he kind of just shrugged his shoulders and not said anything. And I didn't figure it out. I finally kept asking. And it wasn't until in the mid-80s I looked and talked to the people and found the protocol. Protocol, when you meet the King and Queen, is they only meet together with someone, if it's a President and a First Lady, or another King and Queen, or whatever, other than meet separately.

So when he came alone, the King would come alone. So it was against protocol to do this. And so finally, we set up a meeting to meet with the Queen. It was unusual, too, because at that time I wasn't sure how God was going to do everything, because there were things done in the 70s before I was his aide that shouldn't have been done.

There were meetings bought and some things that Mr. Arpsman said nothing about. So I'd had to change all the people that they were dealt with before. And I didn't know how I was going to do that. I remember praying and asking God, you know, how are we going to do this now? And this Buddhist monk, he was a pro, kind of like a cardinal in the Catholic Church, but in the Buddhist religion, he was in Van Nuys.

And he was the favorite proptep of the Queen. And he came over the campus to visit Mr. Armstrong one day. And he's in there, again, orange-shaded, chaffron, bald, shaved, you know, whatever. And I'd been praying and asking God, you know, what do I do to set this up? And he sends me this pagan. Of course, everybody's pagan. It's not Christian, in the sense of true spirituality, even the Christians are pagan.

So, I mean, you know. But it was interesting because I'm thinking, God, is this really what you want? I might criticize a lot of people, how can we have these people in these orange sheets doing this stuff? And kind of like, you know, God used Balaam's donkey to talk to him. So whoever God wants to send, I'm not going to reject him.

I had no idea what I was doing anyway. So he says, well, I can set that up for you. And he says, in fact, do you need housing or anything? And so he ended up getting us in the Montyem Hotel, he gave us the $1,000 a night suite for $300 a night. And he did all this stuff for free, you know, just because he liked Mr. Arshon, he liked what the church was about. It was funny. But it was interesting because he set this up so we were supposed to meet the Quain.

And so in the meeting with the Quain, the King comes out. They violate a protocol to meet together. But it was interesting because before the visit, Mr. Arshon, the Queen had asked her husband, what should I do with Mr. Arshon? You know, when the meeting set up. And the King said, well, why don't you take him up to see the projects? He started back in 74, the first projects we did, we built some schools to teach agricultural farming and the till traps, some portable buildings.

And they taught him how to grow apples and oranges and peaches and vegetables and things to sell. And so the Queen says, no, he's 90 years old. He can't, that's your old rugged up there. And the King said, well, just ask him.

He can say no. So she asked him and he said yes. And so we end up going up to Angkang, from the very corner of Thailand, Burmese border. And it was nice because we, we picked the G2 up to Chiang Mai and then we took the Queen's helicopter with a Royal escort guards up to the plateau in this rural rugged terrain where we landed. Then we took this Jeep down these really steep roads that are kind of one-lane roads and three-quarters of a lane road, actually.

And, and Mr. Archdale was on the downhill side, but that was a bad eye. You couldn't tell. My wife was on that side. She could tell. She was on my lap, practically, the whole trip. Because it looked like we were going to go off several times and it didn't look like a lot of fun.

But anyway, we got there. Mr. Archdale enjoyed it. Because, like I said, it was his blind side. He never, never knew what was on that side. But we go down and she's down there with the people and they're all pinned to these little notes on their lapel saying what's wrong. Because, and it's in English, because she's so polite, she doesn't want anybody else to know what's wrong. So they put it in English and then she knows what it is and then she can talk to the people individually and no one else would know what it was. And she did this all day long.

It came lunchtime. At lunchtime, they just packed lunches for us. And so we went back to this little area with these grass thatch huts and nice stone tables and things that we could set up. A kind of Tahitian, Polynesian type setting.

And while we're there sitting at the table, Mr. Archdale was trying to look at his food and unwrap but he couldn't see very well. And everything they did for the King and Queen of Joar artistic, and the napkins were full of little swans. And he couldn't tell the food from the... they all looked like swans and things. So he wasn't sure what he was eating. So the Queen reached the door and started unwrapping stuff for him. Everybody's looking because the Queen doesn't do that for people. That's not her job. But she's helping him because she considered him like her grandfather. And so she's helping him. My wife, she wanted to wash her hands before for dinner and had to go to the restroom. So she asked Tampany, Super Pot of the Queen's Lady in Waiting, where the restrooms were. And she pointed him out to her over at this place. And it was interesting. My wife started walking toward the restrooms and the Queen saw her. And she got up and ran ahead of her and said, Wait here. And she went in and claimed the restroom for my wife before she let her in. Now, that is an act of humility, an act of kindness, something that, you know, we'll never forget as long as we live, obviously. But when you think about, you know, we weren't her peers. We weren't anything special. But yet, that was the way she treated it. And when you see someone do something like that, you really understand what the attitude of foot washing is about. What humility really is, what treating other people better than yourself means. Very special. Do we clean the bathroom for others? Or do we get in a station where, like I said, we serve to get a position so we don't have to serve anymore? She didn't serve to get a position so that she could wash my wife's feet or clean the restroom for her. And she came out and gave her some wipes and said, be careful of the water here. That's okay now, but just do this, this, and this, and told her what to do.

Interesting. Do you love your neighbor? Do you love others? Does our daily life show our heart and our mind and our character the way we should be and your love for God? You can't really love God unless you do love your neighbor. John makes that clear in 1 John 4.20, where he says that the man says he loves God and hates his neighbor. You know, how can you? You're a liar. Because how can you love someone you haven't seen or love someone you've seen when you the way you treat people doesn't reflect it. You gotta love your brother because you can see their needs. Do you fill those needs? Does it become second nature for you to fill a need or do you have to be told what to do?

God wants people that see needs and fill them, and you can't love God that you haven't seen if you don't love the brother that you see. We have to develop that love for people. Why do I look forward to the feast? Because I realize how little I can do now. I've walked in the ghettos of Bangladesh and places where people are so poor and you wish you could reach down and heal people, seeing people crippled by their parents, to leave you better beggars, children. And it's sad. It makes you want to cry. It hurts. And you want to see the kingdom, to heal the land, to teach them.

Kings of this world, even the ones that want to help, can't do that much. King and Queen of Thailand can't do that much. They've done a lot more than anybody else I know physically, but they really they can't help that many people. Our job and our life, our true reality begins when Christ returns and we become kings. When that trumpet sounds, and if we desire to serve, fervently desire to serve, then we will be there to help people. Matthew 24, you turn there.

We have to learn to serve because that's what a true leader does. But people don't learn those lessons and they do it for the wrong motives. And so in Matthew 24, 10, after reading about nations rising against nations and kingdoms against kingdoms and famines and earthquakes and sorrows, verse 9, it says, they shall deliver you out to be afflicted and shall kill you. And you shall be hated of all nations for my name's sake. And then shall many be offended and they shall betray one another and hate one another. And many false prophets shall arise and deceive many. Because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold. But he that endures to the end, the same shall be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations, and then shall the end come. The gospel is being preached. The world is falling apart. There's anger among the nations.

How much is that to be preached? When is it going to happen? I can't say, but it's certainly close. I have a hard time seeing more than a very, very few years. We're seeing these things happen before our eyes. We need to wake up and realize that we're being tested and get our actions to match our words. And even with God's Spirit, you can only change yourself. You can't change others. I ask God to change me. You need to ask God to change you. That's what repentance is all about. But we're like Abraham to Lot, though. What do we choose? I always enjoy reading about the story because they have the argument between the herdsmen, and they're both fairly wealthy at this point, not enough room. And so Abraham says, okay, Lot, you know, we're kids. We're kinsmen, we're relatives. You're my nephew. Look, you want to go that way? I'll go this way. You want to go this way? I'll go that way. When he looks and he sees the well-watered plains, perfect herding area, and Lot says, boy, I want those. Abraham says, okay, that's yours. I'll stay up in the hills and the mountains where I have to rely on God because it's not any natural rivers other than the Jordan River in Israel. So I have to rely on God for the rain, for everything, and have that faith.

And it's interesting because we look at Lot's choice, and we look at what he had to go through. He chose to go down where the plains, where the cities were, the people, the sins.

This is Lot in New Testament. Lot was vexed daily because of the choice he made. He lost his family, his wife, except for two daughters, and then had a problem with them when he got drunk because they thought they were the only people and ended up having children by their father. I wonder if Lot could have seen far enough ahead the choice he was making if he had chosen something different. Do we see ahead to know what our choices should be and where they'll lead? Christ always pointed to God. God puts us in positions to test our faith, to know where we stand. And every time I've gone through a trial, I've always prayed, God, please let this be my trial and not my preparation for one because they get tougher. And I always want God to say, now I know every time I go through one, when I read about Abraham and God didn't say, now I know, until after you offered Isaac, he'd already left the early Chaldees. He'd already waited 20 some 30 years for a child. He'd already conquered the kings. He'd already done all these things. And finally God says, now I know. It's a lifetime. It's our whole choice is disinteresting. Give versus get. We've heard a lot about that. How many times did the old among us hear that? Christ always pointed to God to do the things that God wants done.

It was just mechanical is nothing. It has to be from the heart. Again, the actions we take because of what we know mean everything. Our motives for doing them must be pure.

It must be selfless. A true foot washing attitude. Matthew 25 verse 31. Scripture I read periodically. Man builds things to make a name for himself. That's all we have. Parabeds in Egypt. So someone knows they were there. We're not here to build pyramids.

I know one of the young men who left college made the comment, I'm going to be remembered. They're going to know who I am. And I'm going to think, wow, that's a wrong way to look at it.

Verse 31. When the Son of Man shall come in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, He shall sit on His throne of His glory. And He's going to gather before Him all the nations, separate them one from another. The shepherd divides sheep from the goats. The sheep on His right hand, the goats on the left. And the King shall say to them, Come, you blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. This is what God has been looking for. If I was hungry, you gave me meat. I was thirsty, you gave me drink. I was stranger, and you took me in. Naked, you clothed me. Sick, and you visited me. In prison, you came to me. Do we do those things for each other? Do we help? Do we serve?

And the righteous say to Him, Lord, when did we ever see You hungry and fed You, or thirsty and give You drink or stray? We never saw You that way. We didn't do this. What are You talking about?

And He explains it. Very late, He says, verse 40. King answered and said, Rarely I say unto you, and as much as you have done it to one of the least of these, my brethren, you have done it to me. If you have cleaned the bathroom for one of those peoples, you did it for me. If you got on the bus when you didn't want to go, you did it for me. It's second nature.

If you think you're doing it, you might be doing it for the wrong reasons.

You see the need and fill it without even asking. It's what it's about. And those who weren't righteous said, Well, if we'd have seen you hungry, we'd have done it. We'd have fed you. What's his answer? You didn't do it to the least.

Everybody else think, Yeah, I'd do it. If they showed up, I'd get something for the leader or the king or whoever. And they would, but they're doing it because they're king and they can get rewarded for it. You can't get rewarded if I do it to the least. It's nothing they have to offer. So Christ showed us that example.

Meekness, lack of pride. It's more easy to see the wrong than the right. Wrong actions push themselves forward. All of us in college or different times in the church have seen people that always made sure they were seen serving with the right people. I saw when I was in college, different people who became leaders, and they got rewarded for it. Sadly, we have Samuels disease. We can't tell who the good people and the bad people are. A lot of people. I sat in meetings watching pick-offs and things of people based on surface, based on service. True, it was service, but the problem is the service off the tree of life looks the same as the service off the tree of knowledge of good and evil. You know, if you see someone with a flat tire out there and someone stops to help him, are they doing it to serve the person? Or is it a good-looking girl and he's changing the tire to get a date? What's the motive? He's done it off the tree of life, he's done it for service. He's done it off the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Hey, I'm a hit and honor. Now, if you see him over the next few years helping little old men, little ladies, and young people, and old people, and everybody else, then okay, it's service. But the action looks the same, and you drive by to the pure, all is pure. You assume the motive that you have probably, good or bad. Meekness. God puts people that are meek forward.

It's interesting. Moses didn't say, do you know who I am? He thought of other people. Even when Marian and Aaron turned against him and God was going to strike them, Moses said, no, no, no, please don't, please don't. He stood up for them because Moses was me. And he loved people. He loved others. What does he say to Marian? She says, please don't do it. Heal her now. God says, well, I will, but she's got to be outside the camp for at least a period of time. But Moses was always standing in for others and trying to help them. Christ always thought of others. Why did he love Moses? Why was David a man after God's own heart? Why did God hear Daniel's prayers? Why did God respond to Peter's silver and gold? Have I not? But what I have, I give you. Heal the man. Because it wasn't about the self. It's never about the self. It's about knowing what's right before God. God gave his Son. Christ gave his life. Ours must be a life of service to respect and honor them. A life of service, of character, and honor. We have to change our lives to be like His, to join Him as our older brother.

Always try to be fair to others. Never expect others to be fair to you. If they're not, don't worry about it. God can change it. Change the things that are in your control, but don't change the things that are His domain. I've seen a lot of people try to change things even the strong from that weren't in their domain. Show me your faith without patience. I'll show you faith by patience. Everybody wants it now, but that's not how it works.

If you do like Christ did, then you'll understand what Christ was about.

In Hebrews 5, 8, when it says, Though he were a son, he learned obedience by the things he suffered. I've always wondered about that Scripture for a long time because was there ever a question that Christ wasn't going to do it? And didn't He know everything? But I think it's different because when I look at it now, and my interpretation of it, because one of the detectives says that even though he knew he was going to suffer, he was still obedient, but I think it's more than that. When I look at it, I think that Christ came from a perfect world in the sense that God's everything was fair, and everything was right. And He came down to live in an imperfect world. And I think when you suffer in an imperfect world, I mean, when you do something wrong, you expect to get punished for it. You don't expect to get punished when you do things right.

Christ was able to learn obedience in an imperfect world, coming from a perfect world.

Isn't that the same thing we have to do? Learn obedience in an imperfect world? A world that beats us down, causes us problems? Again, Christ is returning soon. We celebrate that in the coming feast of earth that we are enjoying every year. It's pleasant, especially in this country, and a lot of countries it's not as pleasant or difficult. But we have a chance to have a front row seat at Christ's return, to see, to be kings, be queens, be priests, to rule with Him in humility and service now, and in humility and service then as well. But with spiritual bodies, without the suffering and the pains we have physically, to have eternal life in His kingdom.

So, Mr. Armstrong asked me to make a promise in January of 1986, before he died, grabbed my hand and he said to me, Please promise me that you'll rise to meet me when Christ returns.

Interesting promise, one that is hard to make. I made it as much as I can. I've tried to live up to it.

But I ask you to make that promise to yourself, that you'll be there to rise with those you've known before, those you know now. We may indeed be in our school uniforms, because we're called the weak of the world. We don't have the gallons and the fabulous things to go to the ball.

And maybe all you have is a pair of spiritual tennis shoes. You're not moving mountains and raising people from the dead. And maybe all you can afford is the bus. Will you get on the bus and do what Christ says? Will you make that trip, or will your pride keep you from getting on the bus and stop you? I pray not, because Jesus Christ made that very trip a Passover. And when He returns, you and I will be kings with Him. Not because of us, though we do have our small part to plight in yielding to Him, but because of Him. Christ is holding your hand. Please get on the bus. Become a king by first being a servant.