The Great Wall of China, the largest, longest, most extensive man-made structure on Earth. It stretches for thousands of miles over the hills of northern China. It was built over 2000 years ago to keep out foreign invaders and to preserve a unique civilization that reaches back to the dawn of recorded history.
To the communist revolution of 1949, the Chinese once again cut themselves off from the rest of the world and spent several decades in self-imposed seclusion. But in the last few years, the Chinese have come out from behind their wall. Great changes are now taking place in China. Today, under the leadership of Deng Xiaoping, China is welcoming tourism, inviting foreign investment, and encouraging its people to engage in a certain amount of free enterprise. The world's most populous nation has embarked on a great experiment in its search for a way of life that will bring lasting peace and prosperity to 1/4 of the human race.
The World Tomorrow. The Worldwide Church of God presents Herbert W Armstrong. Internationally recognized Ambassador for World Peace. Visiting prominent leaders around the globe. Discussing the cause of world problems. And proclaiming the good news of The World Tomorrow. Ladies and gentlemen, Herbert W Armstrong.
Yes, the Chinese are still experimenting. Recently, I was invited by the Chinese Government for a second visit for a meeting with the Supreme head of the Chinese government, Deng Xiaoping in Beijing. On this same trip, I also visited Shanghai, where I had a meeting with our own entourage that accompanied me on the trip and our television crew, and this meeting was televised for showing to you, our television audience at this time.
And here we find ourselves in the same guest house that was provided for the President of the United States when he was recently here and in fact, in the very apartment that was occupied by the president. And in the same room. As a reception room in the apartment. And it's really a momentous occasion for us to be here in this place. And some of us were discussing some of the events that have happened on this trip so far.
And I was so much impressed. And the meeting that I had with Mr. Deng Xiaoping, who is the now undisputed power back of all of the government in this greatest nation on the face of the Earth, this nation of China. With 1,200,000,000 people. And he admitted in that conversation that was recorded and televised all over this nation and it was reported in the newspapers all over the nation. That China had made some mistakes the government had made some mistakes and that they were correcting them. And you know, I was impressed by that.
The head of a government admitting and it was published and went out over the nation and admitting mistakes. You know, the most difficult thing. I find for anyone. Small or great to do is admit a mistake. Admit he is wrong. And to change, and to change from the wrong way to the right way. And I was rather heartened by that very thing.
Now here in China, they decided to experiment, and they decided to take up the Cultural Revolution. Now instead of cultural, it was just anti-cultural actually, because they began to burn up textbooks, histories. They began to discourage every kind of music and art and artistic things in life. Discourage everything of that sort and then they found that didn't work. And that's what Chairman Deng Xiaoping was referring to. And under his guidance now they're coming out of that and they're trying to westernize to some extent and bring a little more production. And a little more progress into China. But without bringing some of the evils that we have in the Western world in here, which I hope they will avoid those evils.
But here they are experimenting. But that shows something. Why do governments make mistakes? Why are so many mistakes made in the world, and why is it we're living in a world of such awesome progress in this 20th century? And yet, such appalling evils. I've mentioned that again and again and again on our television program. Why such a paradox? The same minds that can find a way to fly men to the moon and back, that can invent the computers, the technological things, and scientific things that we have today, and those same minds cannot solve their own personal problems within their own homes. And the problems collectively in any nation are greater than the head of any nation can solve. Why? Why are they experimenting? Why this paradox? Why all the evils along with such marvelous progress, and I give you the answer in two words: human nature.
But where did human nature come from? Where did human nature come from? You know, I think a lot of people seem to assume that we're born with it. We were not born with human nature. Believe it or not, none of us was born with human nature. The first man was created without human nature. He didn't have the divine nature either. He was created with a mind that could discern good or evil up to the human level. But no higher. But before him were a choice of where the two trees that were in actually amounted to a choice of a way of life. He could take the tree of life on the one hand, which would have given him immortal life. He would have been begotten as a very child of God. An end to him then would have come the very mind of God. But that would have meant he would have become God's child, and he would have become dependent on God. And he would have relied on God and the wisdom of the knowledge of God to guide him.
But also, in the tree in the Garden of Eden and that is where the other tree. The Tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And somehow mother Eve, after God had created her by taking out one of Adam's ribs and an operation and creating a woman out of it. And she said to the serpent, to Satan, the devil appeared to her in the form of a serpent. And she said, "Well, we may have of all of the trees of the Garden of Eden, except that one tree. But God has said we shall not touch it or eat of it or we shall die." Then he recorded the first lie. "You will not surely die," he said, "oh no, God knows better than that. God knows you're in your mortal soul, now that was a lie. She was not an immortal soul neither was Adam. They did not have immortal life because we're reading the second chapter of Genesis in verse seven that the eternal God formed Man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man made to the dust of the ground became a soul. And to that same soul God said if you eat of the forbidden fruit, you well die. An immortal soul can't die.
But you know, Eve must have been confronted here with two decisions. God said you will die, and Satan said you won't die. You're immortal, you take that fruit and you'll be God yourself. And you know, Mother Eve must have decided right then and there to make a scientific experiment. Now the tools of science and modern science today, that seems to be worshipped all over the world a great deal, consist of observation, length measurement, and human reason and experimentation. That is the process used by science today. And Eve decided to try an experiment. She would experiment, and she would try that tree. And maybe if it didn't work, you might try something else. So she tried the scientific experiment, and she took of that forbidden fruit, and the result is she died. And what God had said was true and what Satan had said was a lie.
But now, Adam took with her and what did Adam take? He took to himself the knowledge of good and evil. In other words, he would decide for himself what is good and what is evil. He would decide on human values. Now, just consider a minute. If he had taken the Tree of life, that also would have been the tree of knowledge, because he would receive knowledge from God. It is like we read in the New Testament in the Bible, the Apostle Paul wrote, "Let this mind be in you which was in Christ Jesus," and that is the same mind as God. And he would have had the mind of God within him, but he would have had with reliance on God. He would have been dependent on God and the wisdom of God would have guided him without experimentation and to the right way.
Now there are just two broad ways of life, broad philosophies of life. And I said this before a group in Beijing the other evening. One is the way of outflowing love, or I call it the way of give, of cooperation, of sharing, of serving, of helping, of concern and consideration for the good of others, the welfare of others, and being concerned for their happiness too, as well as your own. The other way is selfishness, self-centeredness, the way of vanity and the way of getting and wanting to take away from other people, a way of competition and strife. The way of envy and jealousy of hostility against others, competition that leads to strife and destruction. That is the way that Adam took. But if he had taken the Tree of life, the very mind of God would have come into him, and God would have instructed him in right knowledge and the right way of life. And it would have been a way of life in which he would have relied on God. If we rely only on ourselves, we get into trouble, look at the world.
Look at the trouble in the world, half of the world is illiterate and uneducated, half is poverty-stricken, living in filth and squalor. Children are dying in some countries every day around this world by starvation. Many die before they're a year old. And there's so much helplessness and so much degradation. And even in the affluent countries, the developed countries, we have material things. They have their automobiles, their nice homes, and everything, they have luxurious physical, material things. But the young people are taking up with drugs and illicit sex and excessive alcohol. And everything that is ruining bodies and minds, destroying human minds and human bodies. Since man decided to take that course and rely on himself, not rely on God, that's the whole thing, remember now that all humanity has been a matter of each relying on himself or humans relying on humans. They do not rely on God. In the western world where people know more about God than they may in the Orient. You mentioned God in the average society today and people are embarrassed. They want to change the subject very quickly. God is not part of their lives. They don't want to hear about God, they don't want to think about God? Man without God is all mixed up, and he cannot solve his problems. He can think of material things he can get along with, matter. But when it comes together with other minds, that's where the trouble comes. One mind does not get along with other minds, and so we have troubles in the world. And that is the source and the foundation of all of our troubles in this world.
That's why the Apostle Paul wrote, 'Let this mind be in you, which was in Christ Jesus.' Adam rejected that mind. He rejected the mind of God, he rejected reliance on God, said he would rely on himself, and mankind has been doing that ever since. Nations have trouble, individuals have troubles, they can't solve their troubles or their evils. So God closed up the Tree of Life. And he closed it until the second Adam, Jesus Christ, would come.
And he is coming again, he said, 'If I go I will come again, when he comes again', he is coming as the Lord of Lords and the King of Kings, and he's going to rule over every nation. And God said then he said it, that it is appointed for men once to die, and after this the judgment, and Jesus came, and all judgment has been given over to Jesus, and he is coming again, and he's going to rule all nations. And then the Great White Throne judgment will come 1,000 years later. And all whoever lived are going to be resurrected and come back to life. And then they're going to see the mistakes they made.
People will experiment and experiment that they, they still want to do it themselves, they want God to keep his nose out of their affairs. And so God does. God hasn't been forcing himself on anyone. In fact, God has shut the world off. And the world is still shut off. The Tree of life was open when Christ said, 'I will build my church' and only to those that God the Father began to draw and that Christ chose. And that began to come into the church. But Jesus said, 'No man can come to me except the Father, who sent me draws him.' Jesus said to his own disciples, 'You have not chosen me. You didn't volunteer, you didn't decide you just wanted to come and follow me, I chose you. Peter and Andrew, you wanted to be fishermen. You didn't want to follow me. I decided I wanted you to follow me and I found you out there in a boat fishing, I said come here. I want you to follow me.' And you forsook everything and came and followed me.
Now the door to God and the Tree of life is still closed to the world. But it won't be closed long. God allocated 6,000 years for mankind to experiment, relying on himself and not relying on God. And then Christ is going to come and rule. And then for the first time he will have the firstfruits, the church having been trained. To be changed from human to divine, from man and to God. And to rule with him and under him. And ruling over all nations and teaching them. God's ways and reliance on God instead of reliance on human ingenuity and human experimentation. And human goodness, which is only good up to a certain self-centered level.
Mankind has been experimenting. Nations have been experimenting. Science, as we call it, has been experimenting. We've had many kinds of governments in the world. Humans are always making mistakes, but they never will learn and they never will, and they can't, it's like a little child trying to run its own way, a child six months old, without the guidance of its parents, it's helpless and without the guidance of God, we are helpless. Humanity is helpless.
God help us to understand and realize how helpless we humans are without God. Humans do not rely on God, they rely on themselves. And where there are troubles, we try to solve things by dealing with the affecting and never with the cause. We should find out the cause of everything and the cause of everything is that human nature revolted because man sold out to Satan. He was kidnapped by Satan and he has adopted Satan's philosophy and Satan's way of self-centeredness in life. It's a false way, and God is going to wait until his whole civilization crashes down.
Nuclear war is coming. Man is going to have to learn his better lesson. Millions upon millions are going to die in the Great Tribulation that is just ahead of us, some little distance now, very little distance. And God is not going to force himself on us, God is not going to intervene until we find we're so helpless that we have to call on God. And when we begin to realize that we must rely on God. And not on ourselves. Then perhaps we can begin to have the mind of God receive the spirit of God. Turn to God's way away from the ways we've been living and will come to have eternal life forever.
Now back in Pasadena, we have just recently come out with a new booklet, A World Held Captive, this booklet explains one of the things I've just been talking about on this program, why humanity cannot solve its own problems. Why humans are continually experimenting and experimenting, and still they cannot solve their problems. Half of the world is illiterate, half of the world is in abject poverty, living in filth and squalor. The other half of the world is affluent. We have modern conveniences. This half of the world has made marvelous progress, especially in this 20th century. We send men to the moon and back all the had mentions of science, the many things that we have to enjoy today, and still we're beset with problems that we can't solve the drug problem, the crime problem, the alcoholism. 1001 things and problems and we still can't solve our problems, the same minds that can devise all of these modern accomplishments of the 20th century cannot solve their own problems either their problems of their own families in their own homes, the problems with their neighbors, their problems of different organizations like capital and labor, or problems between nations, problems between various races of people on the Earth. We have nothing but problems.
And it seems that we're even in more trouble than the people living in abject poverty and in ignorance and other parts of the world. You may have a copy of this book free. There's no charge whatsoever, and we don't ask for contributions. I would like to send you a copy, A World Held Captive. You've never read anything quite like it. And it will give you an understanding of the very problems that I discussed with Deng Xiaoping in China that I have discovered discussed with leaders and heads of governments and many nations over the world.
Now at the same time. If you're not already a subscriber, as many millions of you are. I'd like to send you a year subscription to the most wonderful magazine, if I may use that expression. On the earth today and one of the largest in circulation. The Plain Truth, a magazine of understanding. It is a News magazine. It discusses World News, what is happening in the world, it explains what is happening and gives you the meaning behind the news, and it looks into the future. What is going to happen? Where is today's World News leading? What lies just ahead for us, and what are the problems? Facing families, family problems, individual problems. Problems of every kind and dealing with other people. A human interest magazine, a World News magazine. And yet it has a larger circulation than any News magazine published in the United States.
The Plain Truth, there's no subscription price. Circulation is now close to 8,000,000 copies monthly. You may have a subscription just by going to the telephone or by sending your request to me, Herbert W. Armstrong at Pasadena, CA. Herbert W. Armstrong, Pasadena, CA. The ZIP code is 91123 or go to the telephone and make a toll-free call. There's no charge for this either. It's toll-free and you call 1-800-423-4444. Call right now there are hundreds of people waiting to take the various calls that are flooding our lines. Dial 1-800-423-4444, so until next time Herbert W. Armstrong goodbye friends.
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