Herbert W Armstrong

   Personal from Herbert W Armstrong - WHAT A WORLD WE live In! There are two ways of looking at it. They are totally opposite views. Each presents a true picture.
   Most people think this is a WONDERFUL world — a progressive world far advanced. They look at the THINGS the world has produced in the past century, and they see only marvelous progress, breathtaking productions, amazing advancement. All the way from the sewing machine and the steamboat to nuclear power and space flight.
   But they make the mistake of measuring HUMAN progress by mechanical production.
   Then we may look at the picture another way — and this, too, is a TRUE picture. And this part of the WHOLE picture more accurately portrays what is happening to MAN.
   I suppose most of our readers know that Ambassador College, on its Pasadena campus, maintains its own News Bureau. Trained news men in this Bureau devote full time to culling out the significant news for the benefit of our broadcasters on The WORLD TOMORROW — in four languages — and our editors and writers on The PLAIN TRUTH. We have our own special wire service teletype, UPI, clicking off the very latest news 24 hours a day — just like daily newspapers, and the radio and TV News Bureaus. News magazines and private news reporting services from around the world are received and carefully checked here. Our News Bureau has at its fingertips the news sources of the whole world.
   Looking over a few recent news releases from our News Bureau, we see the horrifying TREND. Let me give you a brief summary — and then let me explain the CAUSE, and the CURE which most certainly is coming — soon!
   In the private News Report printed solely for our own staff writers and broadcasters, dated June 24, is this headline: "DISARMAMENT CHIEF WARNS OF 'UNKNOWN ATTACKER.' " The chief disarmament negotiator for the United States is William C. Foster. In Brussels, he warned that if many more countries develop nuclear power, "a country could be attacked without knowing who the attacker was." Already, he said, so many nuclear weapons are in possession of major powers that the whole population of the world can be wiped out "many times over."
   Man produced swords and spears. He used them. Even in ancient times, hundreds of thousands of soldiers were killed in a single day's battle. Then man developed the bow and arrow — shooting farther than a sword could strike. Then came the gun, then the cannon, then the airplane dropping bombs. World War II ended with two Japanese cities destroyed by two atom bombs. But since, has come the Hydrogen Bomb, a thousand times more destructive. Every weapon so far invented has been used! Is there any reason to suppose the H-bomb will not be used?
   The next news item reports that in a Message to Congress, President Johnson said, "... the fact of crime, and the fear of crime, mark the life of every American." Further, "In the past decade, we have seen crimes of violence increase 40 percent, and crimes against property rise 61 percent, although our population growth was only 10 percent.
   "There is a forcible rape every 26 minutes — "A robbery every five minutes — "An aggravated assault every three minutes — "A car theft every single minute — "A burglary every 28 seconds — "With increasing frequency we hear apologists excuse lawlessness on the grounds of poverty, poor housing, unemployment, or alleged social injustices."
   Next headline: "RAPE, ASSAULT, MURDER CASES ON SHARP RISE. CRIME WAVE NOW SPREADS TO RURAL AREAS. The first quarter of 1966, rape rose 14 percent over the same period last year, reported J. Edgar Hoover, Chief of the F.B.I.
   Now come headlines showing how morals are fast sinking all the way down into the cesspool. It's nauseating, but our readers need to know which way humanity is drifting — and how fast!
   HEADLINE: "MASTURBATION DESCRIBED AS AN 'ESSENTIAL' PROCESS."
   The dispatch comes from Toronto, in Canada. A woman doctor — yes, believe it or not — a WOMAN DOCTOR told the second North American Conference on the Church and Family Life, "Masturbation may be one of the essential processes of growing up." Also, this doctor said, a homosexual relationship, for many persons, may be more creative and fulfilling than marriage. Attending this international Conference were 625 clergymen, theologians, psychiatrists, sociologists and laymen — under auspices of the Canadian Council of Churches and the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States.
   HEADLINE: "SEXUAL FREEDOM CITED AS BASIS FOR TRUE LOVE." This is a second dispatch from the same Conference. Another woman doctor — a psychologist and churchwoman, told the Conference: "Increased sexual freedom may lead to deeper love within marriage." Further: "Today's youth, aided by the pill and antibiotics so that the old fears of pregnancy and venereal disease are gone, may at last be able to find more of the real meaning of marriage."
   Perhaps some of our readers may begin to understand what I mean when I say that the colleges and universities are stuffing plastic student minds with warped psychology and perverted concepts. Today's educational system, and today's false religions are completely decadent, and are soon to be wiped off of God's earth!
   Still another headline: "LET YOUNG WRITE OWN SEX RULES: THEOLOGIAN." This is a third report from this same religious (???) Conference. Says this dispatch: "A leading theologian said young people should be able to write their own rules about premarital sex {fornication) — and get the blessing of the Church for what they decide."
   No wonder the LIVING GOD says of today's world, and of its religious leaders: "For the land is full of adulteries... For both prophet and priest are profane; yea, in my house [the churches] have I found their wickedness, saith the ETERNAL.... I have seen also in the prophets... a horrible thing: they commit adultery, and walk in lies: they strengthen also the hands of evildoers, that none doth return from his wickedness: they are all of them unto me as Sodom" — that is, homosexuals! "... Therefore thus saith the ETERNAL concerning the prophets; Behold, I will feed them with wormwood, and make them drink the water of gall:... They say still unto them that despise me, The ETERNAL hath said, Ye shall have peace; and they say unto everyone that walketh after the imagination [reasoning] of his own heart, No evil shall come upon you.... in the latter days ye shall consider it perfectly." (Jeremiah 23:10-20)
   This is a prophecy for NOW!
   The religious leaders say to the people: "Go ahead and BREAK God's inexorable Laws — and NO PUNISHMENT will follow." Go the way of LUST, of lies, of unfaithfulness — the way that is the CAUSE of pain and suffering and disease, and broken lives — and then we will prevent God's Laws from exacting their penalties, by using antibiotic DRUGS to prevent the penalty of disease; and "the pill," to prevent the consequence of unmarried and illegitimate pregnancy!
   These people POSE as the ministers of the LIVING Jesus Christ. Then they try to show that they can mock Him with impunity!
   On the authority of the living and soon reappearing Jesus Christ I say that their PUNISHMENT shall now come speedily!
   Same week's News Report, headline: "THE NEW BANNER — 'BLACK POWER.' " In a rally at Greenwood, Mississippi, on the Meredith Memphis-to-Jackson march, the most outspoken leader, 24 years old, shouted, "Today's the 27th time I've been arrested... an' I ain't goin' to jail no more... The only way we gonna stop them white men from whuppin' us is to take over. We been sayin' freedom' for six years and we ain't got nuthin.' What we gonna start sayin' now is 'black power'!"
   "Black Power!" the crowd shouted. "Black Power! Black Power!"
   Next headline: "WHITES MUST GO!"
   This was a UPI dispatch from Belzoni, Mississippi: "More than 2,000 Negroes, most of them teenagers, marched into this little Delta town Sunday chanting 'white folks must go.'
   "'We're gonna get some white blood! a militant Negro told them."
   Next headline: "NEGRO AUTHOR DEBUNKS NONVIOLENCE, CALLS FOR A FIGHT NOW." The story was taken from the "Speaking Out" column in the July 2nd Saturday Evening Post. It showed that extremist Negro leaders are trying to stir up violence by saying the Negro is "spoiling for a fight in affirmation of his selfhood."
   An article in the July 16 Post is captioned: "THE UGLY MOOD OF WATTS." It shows that extremist militant Negro leaders are attempting to gain power by threatening whites with violence. The article shows that the attitude of many in Watts in regard to last year's riot is one of PRIDE. Many are being made to feel, listening to and reading the propaganda of militant self-appointed leaders, that rioting, and killing white people gives them a sense of POWER. "There is no sense of shame," the article reports. "No feeling that far more was lost than gained" for the cause of civil rights.
   What few writers seem to realize — or else are reluctant to state — is that perhaps most of the violence is actually planned and engineered from Moscow, Russia. Communists, university-trained in propaganda, sabotage, mob psychology, and stirring up hatreds, worm their way into various nonviolent organizations, without the knowledge of the leaders of those organizations.
   Extreme radicals are organizing and drilling teenage Negroes for battle. Here in southern California, rifle, shotgun and revolver sales have mounted to an unprecedented high. Next time — which may explode any minute — perhaps before we can mail this copy of The PLAIN TRUTH to you — these radicals say the Negroes are going to start shooting down and killing every white person they can see — on the streets, even in their homes. Several years ago, I predicted that the blood is going to run like a river, before the world reaches the end of the racial hatred.
   So, as I said in beginning, we have two viewpoints, from which we look at this world. The one reveals a world of mechanical and inventive and engineering progress — of glittering, dazzling gadgets, ways of pleasure. Some view that side of the picture, and believe this is a WONDERFUL and a fine world.
   Then there is the other picture — the degeneration of the MAN who has developed the THINGS he has worked with.
   Education has FAILED, terribly, criminally! It has failed to teach man HOW TO USE, AND PROPERLY ENJOY, these fruits of his own labor.
   We need to ask, How can all these inventions and productions of science, technology and industry be TRULY beneficial — HOW can they indicate REAL progress and advancement? The answer is, ONLY IF man himself advances with the THINGS he produces — morally, spiritually, culturally, socially, as well as intellectually. But THAT — man has failed to do.
   What, then, is the CAUSE of this world plight — of this degeneration of MAN — of this world situation where it is now possible for MAN to blast all human life from the earth? There is a CAUSE for every EFFECT!
   There is just the ONE cause of all human ills.
   It may be stated in more ways than one, but it is all the SAME CAUSE.
   It may be stated as HUMAN NATURE. It may be stated as THE CARNAL MIND. It may be stated as lust and greed. It may be stated as rejection of and universal transgression of Gm's LAW. It may be stated as rebellion against GOD and HIS GOVERNMENT. It may be stated as HUMAN GOVERNMENT — or, MAN'S INABILITY TO GOVERN HIMSELF. Actually, all these ways of stating the CAUSE of every human wail of woe, all human suffering, all unhappiness, all poverty and degeneration — all these ways of stating the CAUSE amount to one and the same thing.
   Human nature Is vanity plus lust of the flesh. Human nature is carnal mindedness. The carnal mind is SELF centered — it is vanity — it is the attitude of rebellion against any authority over it, hostility toward God, jealousy, envy, resentment, hatred toward fellow man. It seeks to please self. It seeks pleasures, comforts, and enjoyments for self.
   The Eternal God is the Creator. He thought out, designed, brought into being, all that is. He created man, but for His PURPOSE, endowed man with an independent MIND, and made him a free moral agent. God forces man to CHOOSE.
   God has set before man His LAWS, by which He governs. His Law is LOVE — and love is out-going concern, not in-flowing vanity and lust. God created in man a MIND such as no other physical creature possesses — a mind swayed by the pull of human nature, YET a mind capable of recognizing and resisting this pull — a mind capable of comprehending and sitting as arbiter over it — a mind with power of WILL to enforce either self-discipline in obedience to God's Way, or stubbornness in rebelling against it — whichever way the mind decides. The MIND must make the decision.
   Thus God allows man to either be ruled by God and His Laws — His Government — or to rebel, and try to govern himself.
   Either WAY man chooses is a CAUSE of a definite RESULT.
   God's LAW IS simply THE WAY to peace, happiness, well-being in abundance — and eternal life.
   Rejection of THAT WAY IS, simply, THE WAY to strife, violence, war, unhappiness, ignorance, poverty, pain, suffering, fears and worries, frustration — and finally, eternal DEATH!
   God's Law is THE WAY to everything everyone wants. Violation of it carries a PENALTY.
   Man has chosen to try to govern himself. He has chosen THE WAY which is the CAUSE of all his ills, his troubles, his suffering. Then what does man DO? He ignores the CAUSE of all his troubles. He treats with the EFFECT — he tries to outwit God by nullifying, removing, alleviating THE PENALTIES he is suffering.
   This is inexcusable IGNORANCE. Yet this is the WAY of Science, of Education, of Government. Man has built up a complex civilization. The leaders put their minds to great activity, treating the ill EFFECTS. They follow this way of IGNORANCE, yet they deceive themselves and the world by labeling it KNOWLEDGE, RATIONALISM, INTELLECTUALITY, EDUCATION, SCIENCE.
   So man long ago CHOSE to set up his own government. Man has tried to rule man — to rule his fellows. Look at all the GOVERNMENTS in the world today — all those that have come and gone — and the WARS fought over them!
   WHY all this?
   WHY all the troubles in the world? It may be easy to say: "Human Nature."
   But WHY? How has human nature worked to bring such a result? 'Well, perhaps a motion picture of several years ago might illustrate how it has worked. It was a Charlie Chaplin picture. He acted the part of Adolf Hitler. Jack Oakie acted the part of Mussolini. One of them was paying a "State Visit" to the other. He had a private barber shop with two chairs. The two Dictators went together to the barber shop for haircuts. Before the barber arrived, Mussolini reached down the side, grasped the lever, jacked it up a notch, elevating himself an inch or two above Hitler. Immediately Hitler elevated his seat two notches, lifting himself one or two inches above Mussolini. Then Mussolini jacked his seat up a couple additional notches — and so on and on, until they both crashed into the ceiling — each trying to elevate himself above the other. It made human nature appear not only funny, but foolish. Viewers rolled with laughter, but probably nobody seeing it repented of the foolishness of his own human nature.
   Do you suppose that the heads of Governments in this world are more interested in the welfare of their peoples than in their own personal vanity and lust for power? You are a little naïve if you do.
   What is the CURE, then, of all the world's ills?
   To CHANGE human nature!
   But that, MAN is unwilling, of himself, to do — and also UNABLE!
   But there IS the living Almighty GOD who is, very soon now, GOING to intervene in world affairs directly. He is going to send the living Jesus Christ once again to earth! This time Christ is coming in all the POWER and GLORY and SPLENDOR of the Creator-Ruler, GOD! He is coming to establish His Government over all nations.
   Men won't welcome it. The nations will be angry. They will fight! That will be nothing new. Men have been fighting their Maker since Adam!
   But Jesus Christ is coming in full control of ALL THE POWER — ALL THE FORCE that exists. He is going to use divine POWER to FORCE a rebellious mankind to have PEACE — to be HAPPY — to experience WELL-BEING, with universal prosperity. What a paradox! Men are going to be FORCED, against their wills, to have and enjoy everything THEY WANT!
   Of course, for those who have the good sense to be willing to confess the foolishness of their own carnal minds — to become really disgusted with their own human natures — to recognize how evil, how wrong, how sinful, their own lives have been — and to become so genuinely sorry that they really REPENT, and SURRENDER to God and His WAYS, and seek to come to Him through Jesus Christ — well, God will grant them repentance, give them personal contact with Him, and put within them His HOLY SPIRIT. And that means that they become partakers of His very DIVINE NATURE (II Peter 1:4).
   That won't, during this life, remove the human nature — but God will give power, to those who want and seek it, to overrule the carnal mind, and BE LED BY His Holy Spirit. Of course it means traveling henceforth in the very OPPOSITE direction from the past.
   It's A WAY that makes sense. I became sick and disgusted with THE WAY I had been traveling — as well as with my own rotten self — nearly 40 years ago. Otherwise you wouldn't be reading these words, now. But it has "paid off," beyond words to describe — and perhaps the happiest part of it all is that God allows me the privilege of SHARING the blessed RESULTS Of this right CAUSE with so many thousand others!

Plain Truth Magazine

July 1966

Vol XXXI, No.7