The Booklet, 1975 In Prophecy, written by Mr. Armstrong has been much maligned. It is true that 1975 has come and gone without the horrible events talked about in the booklet coming to pass. Nonetheless, does that make them any less certain? Mr. Amrstrong was a man ahead of his time. Here is an excerpt from the book outlining some of what we, who understand the outline of prophecy, know is sure to be visited on our nation and the nations associated with Great Britain, and then the rest of the world. Though the timing may have been off, as the book's title shows, the message bares much more import today for those who are now watching decadence oversweep our great nations. We are about, as Mr. Armstrong stated, to receive the much needed correction from God that will bring all nations to worship Him in truth and in righteousness.

From 1975 In Prophecy:

Yes, WAKE UP! America and Britain! You have grown calloused and indifferent to world revolution, world wars and cold wars and the threat of hydrogen-bomb war.

You Americans and British! You smug, proud, stiff-necked complacent people! You enjoy a prosperity God never lavished on any other people -- you heedlessly permit yourselves to became soft and decadent, setting your foolish hearts on a lush, push-button, prosperity of leisure. You ignore that entire prophetic THIRD of GOD'S WORD, warning you of impending disaster and offering you divine protection from it!

Will any one of you who now read this warning awaken to the stern reality?

GOD ALMIGHTY now reveals, in time to prevent it, that one third of all our people will soon die of starvation and disease -- that our day of reckoning is upon us! -- that we are to be stripped of our wealth and prosperity on which we set our hearts -- that a second third of our people -- of your personal friends, relatives, acquaintances -- will be killed by the awesome hydrogen-bomb invasion -- that our proud United States and British Commonwealth are now destined to be suddenly crushed in defeat! -- that the remaining third left alive are to be carried as captives, scattered over the land of our enemies and their allies AS ABJECT SLAVES! -- and that even millions of them shall then be tortured inhumanly in organized religious persecution, until their breath expires in martyrdom!

Jesus Christ said, "Ye shall be HATED of ALL NATIONS ... Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall KILL YOU."

Do you foolishly and carelessly assume He meant somebody else? Our booklet "U.S. and Britain in PROPHECY" proves He meant US. We are the nations that are HATED by all other nations today -- or hadn't you realized that alarming fact?

Jesus Christ meant US -- and His words are as certain and sure as the rising and setting of the sun!

Luke's inspired account of Jesus' words makes it even more specific: "For these be the days of vengeance, that all things which are written may be fulfilled" -- that is, when the prophetic things of your Bible come to their CLIMAX, and all prophecies are suddenly and rapidly fulfilled at this END-TIME! "And they" -- speaking of our nations, "shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be led away captive into all nations." (Luke 21:22, 24). This prophecy refers only typically to the Jewish captivity of 70 A.D. It refers primarily to OUR future.

Jeremiah was inspired by the Almighty to picture this invasion, defeat and captivity and to explain WHY it's coming!

In the 30th chapter, God reveals to Jeremiah that the TIME of the prophecy is the time of world WAR, climaxing in the coming EXODUS of both our peoples and the Jews back to Palestine at the second coming of Christ. It is the most terrible time of trouble and war of all history (verses 3-4), the time of OUR NATIONAL TROUBLE (verse 5).

We are to get into it -- the most terrible national trouble ever to befall any nation -- but God will deliver us out of it, and will finally break the YOKE of slavery from off our necks (verses 5-6)

But WHY? Are we not Christian countries?

So we vainly assure ourselves -- but the prophecies of Jesus and of Paul reveal that we are DECEIVED into a counterfeit "Christianity" -- our lands filled with MANY false ministers, coming IN THE NAME OF CHRIST, calling their religion "Christian." Jesus warned that when we worship Him by following traditions inherited from the pagans (such as Christmas, Easter, "faith without works," etc.) that we worship Him IN VAIN!

Jeremiah gives the REASON: "I have wounded thee," says God, "with the wound of an enemy, ... for the multitude of thine iniquity: BECAUSE THY SINS WERE INCREASED." And, "I will correct thee in measure" (by this famine, disease, war, captivity and slavery) "and will not leave thee altogether unpunished."

WHY? Because God revealed to Adam that He had set LAWS IN motion that produce happiness, joy, health and prosperity IF we obey them; but which bring on us curses and separation from God and His blessings, if we transgress.

God made man a free moral agent, and commanded him to CHOOSE. Adam chose a WAY of living opposite to the way of God's inexorable LAWS. God sent Jesus Christ to reveal THE WAY of God, and to set us a living example in that way. But men crucified Him, then later appropriated His NAME, began proclaiming His deity, exalting His PERSON, while they DECEIVED the world and kept it in darkness estranged from God by rejecting His Gospel, and instead, adopting the pagan philosophies, beliefs, customs and ways that have characterized this (Satan's) world from the beginning.

Today what is called organized "Christianity" appropriates the NAME of Christ -- exalts His PERSON -- worships Him -- but continues to DENY HIS MESSAGE, and to rebel against God's laws!

Can't you see what this has brought upon humanity? Sickness and disease; fear and worry; inequality and injustice; war and fear of war; heartache, anguish, emptiness!

Man's inhumanity to man!

It's all the result of the ways of vanity, pride, selfishness, greed! Man's horizons have shrivelled and shrunken and become centered on his SELF. Life becomes a bore, so he invents pleasures, amusements to pass the time away! He organizes for wars of conquest. He invents engines of destruction that soon would blast all life from off this planet, if God would not prevent it.

Would God show LOVE to this world by permitting this tragic state of affairs to continue? God allotted 6,000 years for HUMAN NATURE, automatically hostile to God and God's laws, to write the lesson of the vain, self-centered, getting way of life -- the WAY that appears so alluring and attractive to fallible human minds! But God does LOVE this suffering world! God informed Adam -- He sent His prophets to reveal HIS ways -- He sent His Son -- He has been sending His true ministers. God has pleaded with humanity for nearly 6,000 long years -- with WORDS! But man persists in rejecting preachings and warnings.

And now, at last, man has arrived at a period where he is learning the secrets of the forces of the universe! Thru science, technology and machine-industry, man is now harnessing the very forces and energies of nature! But he puts atomic energy to the work of mass DESTRUCTION. He now works feverishly, fanatically, concentrating the world's most scientific minds on developing hydrogen bombs, guided missiles, cobalt bombs, and other means of mass destruction.

AT LAST man approaches not only a luxury, push-button, LEISURE age-but also the age of push-button mass DESTRUCTION. World renowned scientists who know, warn us that it is now possible to annihilate human life from off this planet!

Can a God who LOVES THIS WORLD stand idly by, and permit man not only to destroy his health and happiness, but now also to destroy all earthly LIFE?

GOD FORBID! God is a God of LOVE, and also a God of wisdom and justice, who says He punishes every son He LOVES! (Hebrews 12:6).

The PUNISHMENT is to teach us the lessons of life. Man has written the lesson thru 6,000 unhappy years of emptiness, sickness, suffering and DEATH -- written it in human blood and anguish! But he has never yet learned the lesson. Man still clings desperately to the notion that somehow he can yet solve all his problems and reach out and TAKE happiness HIS OWN WAY!

Man refuses to learn the truth! He will not listen to God's preaching! He would persist to the bitter end to the annihilation of all human life, if God did not step in and intervene!

There is only ONE LANGUAGE that rebellious mankind will heed -- physical punishment, and being deprived of physical assets. Very few individuals ever came to God thru Jesus Christ in unconditional surrender until God had punished them by physical adversity. Neither will OUR NATIONS -- and neither will the world as a whole come to God in any other way.

And so now God is about to punish! First, He will punish our nations -- professing Christians -- His own chosen people, chosen for a service they have refused to perform! Then, after WE have learned our lesson and turned to our God, He will punish the nations He shall have used in punishing us.

God says, "The Eternal hath a controversy with the nations, He will PLEAD with all flesh;" -- HOW? -- "He will give them that are wicked to the sword ... evil shall go forth from nation to nation, and a great whirlwind (of war) shall be raised up from the coasts of the earth. And the slain of the Eternal shall be at that day from one end of the earth even unto the other end of the earth." (Jer. 25:31-33).

Yes, paradoxical though it may seem, THIS TERRIFYING NEWS ACTUALLY IS GOOD NEWS! -- for this impending punishment is the only way a mankind of free choice can ever be brought to LEARN the lesson -- to acknowledge that GOD'S LAWS were set in motion for OUR GOOD -- to be brought voluntarily to CHOOSE the ways of God which at last will bring undreamed of UTOPIA!

Yes, THE KINGDOM OF GOD is now NEAR AT HAND! And that is the best news since the first man drew the first breath!

by Herbert W. Armstrong