Herbert W Armstrong

   And greetings, friends around the world. This is Garner Ted Armstrong with the good news of the World Tomorrow. Will we survive our age of science without being destroyed by it? Well, according to the answers of 16 out of 25 Nobel Prize-winning scientists, yes, we will. But then the rest of them said they weren't quite sure, and they cited not only the danger of nuclear disaster but also the dangers of exploding populations and the threats to man's spirit.

   Now, my friends, here's the problem. Nearly everything we say, think, and do today is colored by the fact that if we enter into a World War III, it's going to be the last war that man ever experiences. We hear about it all the time. The biggest question in the world today is: will we ever have peace? And why is it nations won't go to the conference table or before a court of law to settle their disputes instead of trying to settle them over the gun sights of a rifle? And why is it we don't seem to make very much progress toward a world of peace, a world of absolute law and order, a world of tranquility, the world that is finally going to give all mankind the real fulfillment of his hopes, dreams, and desires?

   Now, by the way, this is not the concern of just someone who is totally out of touch with all of reality. This is not the concern of villagers high on the slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro. But it is the concern of Nobel Prize-winning scientists of the large and respected universities in all nations. It is the concern of the top government leaders, the top legalistic minds. It is the concern, in short, of the educated people, the intelligentsia, the political and military leaders, the scientists who deal with the various trends in this modern complexity, this society we call culture today. And they're asking, will we survive it? Are we going to be alive in the next couple of generations? Will we find this tremendous Disneyland, this utopian era of glamour and productivity, or are we going to blast ourselves off the face of the earth?

   Now, when asked to seriously consider such a question, the answers are pretty varied. For example, when these scientists who were attending a meeting were asked, will we survive this age of science? These Nobel Prize winners, well, 16 out of 25 said yes, they thought maybe we would. But now let's look at what the others said, because one noted Mayo Clinic scientist said this: "I'm very optimistic. That's my nature. I believe in self-preservation, if nothing else, and that will bring the two great sides together." Then an 80-year-old World War II atomic scientist said: "I am convinced we will come through. We'll do it, we'll avoid war." And another one, Dr. Edward Tatum of New York City's Rockefeller Institute, who was the leader in the new biology that probes into the genes and molecules—you may have been hearing some of the reports about it—he said: "I'm optimistic. But if we can't survive biologically, something better will come along and take our place. That doesn't mean we shouldn't fight to survive, but this is the way of evolution."

   So, you say, oh hum, or oh well, tough luck. We tried it, a good effort there. But then of course, if we don't survive, maybe some other type of life will gradually evolve. This is what he thought. A Dutch chemist said, "Well, how can we predict whether man will survive?" Dr. Andre Cournand, who was a heart researcher in France, said: "I don't predict. I just say we must try to understand and imagine." And a doctor Sirgrady of the University of California said, "Man's fate, well, I don't know. If it were really true that man were a rational being, there wouldn't be any danger. But how much man is rational, I don't know."

   So when you get right down to it, regardless of the label we wear, whether a person is a scientist, an educator, a military leader, a world-leading political figure, it seems that his ideas, his opinions, or his approach to the big problems of our age today are just about as varied and put in just about the same language that you may use to describe it. And it seems like you can find opinions at every end of the poles. So, the question is, just where does that leave you? Upon whom do you depend? What is the real authority to which you go to find out whether or not your children are going to grow up and get married and find a nice place for themselves in society, and their children are going to grow up and get married, and you're going to dandy the grandchildren and kind of bounce them on your knee and buy them a nice gift at the birthday party or something? Is life going to go on?

   Now, you know, people like to escape from the realities of the questions themselves. They like to turn on the one-eyed monster and forget the world outside and try to ignore conditions the way they really are instead of trying to find solutions to them. But my friend, it's time you ask some very serious questions of yourself. Can you, by looking at all you know about the world outside, at the way other human beings are acting, can you safely, sanely, and completely, with confidence, predict we're going to be living in a peaceful world of productivity and happiness in another decade or so? Or are you really sure? And isn't there any way to become sure? Isn't there any source to which you can go to get the answers?

   Now, who is it who is striving for peace? Certainly not wild mobs, certainly not youths, not the teenagers. Who is striving for peace? Just who is it who gathers in the conference rooms? I visited not long ago the very rooms in which some of the world leaders were gathering, the United Nations Building in Geneva, Switzerland. And visiting these giant chambers with gold paint all over the place and sometimes solid gold, these beautiful large fixed-seat auditoriums in which men such as Castro and others have gathered to try to find world peace, seeing the very rostrum where the highest officials of the United States, the Soviet Union, and all the other powers of the world had gathered to seriously consider how can we disarm.

   You know, I walk through these great large chambers, and I asked myself, what is the sum total product? What is the actual value? What has actually been produced as a result of, let's say, just what it costs to build this one building all by itself? What tangible earthly good has mankind derived from this giant complex of huge, beautiful auditoriums where there are balconies for the press and there are worldwide, of course, communications with all the various press and the media of communication around the world to tell what these men are considering as they meet in these chambers? Well, I look at the wars of the day, North and South Vietnam, the trouble, of course, between nationalist China and red China. I look at a divided Germany, the Berlin Wall, the Jewish-Arab strife, and racial hatred and tension at all of the race riots, which either have occurred or will occur or are about to occur. And I ask myself, just how near are we to achieving world peace? Do these leaders, do these intelligent people, do these educated people, these elected officials or these officials who gather together to represent their constituents in many a nation, do they know the way to peace? Do we find them just really solving the problems and really showing us the way to peace? Or do we find endless words, a lot of quotations, many slogans, a lot of ideals, lofty thoughts, and even sometimes some promises? And then next month, another war or next year, another war. And in the meantime, of course, liberally spiced with all the internal problems that each nation experiences of its own economy, its own racial prejudices, its own national crime, its decaying family structure, its mounting divorce rates, and of course, liberally sprinkled as well with all the sickness and disease and the usual run of upset weather conditions breaking records here and there, saying where this, where that in history, which is happening in the United States right now. Worst fires in California's history, worst snowstorms in the history of the west, worst hurricane. On and on and on it goes. The headlines seem to get worse and worse and worse every year, don't they?

   Now, are you afraid of the question, will we have peace? Are you afraid of the question, what is the outcome? Are you afraid of the question, what is ahead for you? There is a place you can go to get the answer because there is a book about human nature. Why we are the way we are. Why people tend to hate each other instead of love each other? Why it's more natural to cheat than to be honest, why people tend to lie instead of tell the truth, why it is more natural to be immoral than moral, and why it is that people are trying to dress it up in a tuxedo and call it moral today and just go by the label new morality, which is total immorality and then claim that it is moral. Because there is a definite answer as to why man is the kind of creature he is. There's a book about human nature, about how it is man ends up in such abysmal problems by simply living the way that comes naturally to him. We just naturally end up having wars because it's in the make-up of man to go to war. It's a part of his nature.

   Now, there's a book about human nature, but you need to ask the question, can you believe what that book says? Is there a God? Can you prove it? Is there a great creator being who made mankind, who designed his mind, who put into him that nature that he has and then revealed to him a great purpose in his very being, a great future that lies ahead and told him how to get busy and fulfill that purpose and define what is that future? Can you even satisfactorily answer those questions for yourself? Can you prove there is a God, or must you forever be plagued and besieged with the beginning paragraphs of many a history book which tell you, and since we have a giant universe here and since we have all these galaxies and all these tremendous suns in the universe and our own solar system. Now, since there's so little known about the origin of the universe, why don't we just write quickly, begin with the universe and get right down to our earth? So usually always, since our earth now in proportion, remember it would just be about what, what would it be, 110 millionth of 1/1000 of 1/10 of 1%? No, it isn't anywhere near that big of the universe. I don't know how you would define it. But they say now very quickly, let's ignore all of this. It's like you've got 10,000 facts, and you say now let's ignore, let's ignore 9,999 of these facts and about 99% of this other fact. And let's get down to this one little point of this one fact and let's concentrate on it. So, you're besieged with the history books, the books in the humanities, the books in the sciences of biology, or astronomy, or any of the sciences that try to explain about the origin of the universe, the origin of the earth, the origin of life upon it as we know it. And right quickly in a few real quick paragraphs, all of that is answered. Well, it's not answered, but I mean dismissed or ignored or sort of glossed over. Then, right quickly, you see this monster sort of rearing out of warm ocean slime, and you're dazzled with the statements about how he gradually evolved. Where all of us and you're talking about the Sumerians or the people in the Tigris-Euphrates Valley of long ago or the Ancient Egyptian culture. And almost before you know it, in less time than it takes to tell it, in fewer pages than you would use in the index of the book, you have come from the beginning of an entire complex, interdependent, fantastic, and intricately and delicately balanced universe of fathomless, limitless proportions down to the question as to how the first civilizations began on this one earth, which is only a little speck of dust in a limitless seashore by comparison to the Milky Way itself.

   Well, so be it. That's the way the textbooks of the colleges and universities approach it today. Can you really swallow that kind of an answer? Or can you prove to yourself there is a God and that everything that is made had to have a maker, that design originates from a designer? You don't see a building, a fantastic building, a beautiful building, a building that functions and works, a building that looks beautiful architecturally, that is very beautifully adapted to its environment, that exactly fits in the terrain and its surroundings. One that is interesting architecturally, you walk into it and it's a very, very well-designed and laid-out building, has a big thick beautiful foundation, very, very permanent and every function that it was designed to produce or to use, to utilize is working very smoothly in it. It's just a joy to be in it. Now, you don't see a home that is well laid out and beautiful in design that just happened by accident. You don't know of buildings that happened by accident. They take architects and designers. You look at an automobile, an airplane, an atomic submarine, they had designers, inventors, beginners. And yet, you know that in nearly every textbook on the subject of evolution, they will bring in these very things. They'll talk about the evolution of the automobile, the evolution of buildings, the evolution of art, of literature, of music, of science. But these things don't evolve. Every one of these things is a matter of gradual development by a superior mind that has a definite design in mind and then creates or originates ideas and then is able, with the careful selection of materials at his disposal, to bring about the development of his ideas, to bring them to fruition to completion. Now, did the universe also have a maker? The great laws that act upon you, do they have someone who made them, who put them in effect and who sustains them? Fantastic laws and they act upon you all the time, several of them acting upon you. Well, all of them right now, your involuntary muscles to keep you breathing and going, your heart, you don't have any control over that. Some people find it all of a sudden wildly pulsating or just skipping about a dozen beats and then seizing a couple of times and stopping in a few more moments of sort of deep gradual darkness and they're gone. That muscle, you have no control over. How did you get it? Where did it come from? Did you evolve? Really? Now, what about the laws that act upon you all the time? Can you, with your own mind, can you, with your own intelligence, safely and with great satisfaction, claim to believe those laws just happened? They do exist, you know, but did they just happen? Don't you know that for every cause there has to be an effect and for an effective cause and that you have to have an explanation for things the way they are? Well enough of that. You ought to ask yourself a few questions. You ought to write for these booklets that I've announced time and again, "Does God Exist?" and "The Proof of the Bible" and get it cleared up for yourself. And you can prove it. It's tangible. It makes sense and it's absolutely accurate. And when you find in that book that entitled "The Proof of the Bible" that you can believe this book, the Bible, then maybe it will begin to make sense to you when you look into the Bible and you find that it is natural to degenerate, that it's natural to hate and to lie and cheat and to fight and to go to war. But it's not natural to do the opposite. It's not natural to tell the truth. It's not natural to have patience, wisdom, equality, justice, mercy, long-suffering. It's not natural to honor and to respect other people. It's natural to carp and gripe and to bicker and to gossip about them and to hate them, to belittle them. It's not natural to abase yourself and to esteem every man a little bit better than you and to look at him as being a person of certain ability and talent and to respect him because of it. Rather, it is natural to decide you don't like him because of the way he combs his hair or the way he wears his shoes or the color of his eyes or the color of his skin or because he's a member of a group or a race. That's natural. It's natural to go to war, in short. It's human nature, and human nature is defined in the Bible. It's called a nature which is contrary, which is against or hostile to law. Now, God is the great lawgiver. God gave these laws, not only the laws that act upon you but the laws that he has laid down that are revealed to man by which we ought to live. Laws that regulate our conduct to our God and our conduct toward our fellow man. God Almighty made those laws. He set them in motion and he laid them down and he showed exactly why we ought to obey them. He said in Deuteronomy 5:29 in the Bible: "Oh, that there were such a heart in them that they would fear me and keep my commandments always that it might be well with them and with their seed or their children forever." Because he is acting like any loving parent in our best interests. If you've got children in your home, unless you're a complete abysmal flop as a parent, which of course many people are, and unless you're like one of those who couldn't care less—and what a pity—you see them around the world today. They don't give a hang if their child is out in the sun getting a sunburn, they don't care if their baby's crawling around, hasn't been changed the last three times around, they don't care if they feed or clothe their children. You see a lot of people treating their own children like little animals. But if you are a loving parent, do you think for one minute you agree with your child when your kid wants to do something, he wants to go out, he wants to go into the street, he wants to play with so-and-so down the block, and you know from your position of higher wisdom that he shouldn't. Are you doing it in his best interests for his good? And do you know that you know that it's for his good? You bet you do. Does he know this? No, he doesn't.

   Do you think humankind knows it any more about the God of man, the God who made us, the God who made the laws that are good for us, that are best for us? Do you think we logically and naturally know or come to know of ourselves that the way of God is better for us than the way that we would naturally go? No, we don't. Now, what do you provide your child as a substitute for his lack of wisdom? Well, some people would get so angry with me for suggesting they ought to ever punish a child in love, not in anger, judiciously, carefully, never to injure, never to over-punish, never in any way to bruise or to cut. Because whenever you see a case of child beating, it just about breaks your heart and makes you sick and angry all at the same time. But believe it or not, your Bible talks about the right way to rear children. And so, you provide, if you're a loving parent, if you're a wise parent, if you're an unnatural parent, one that doesn't go according to your own human nature, but looks into the word of God to find how you should rear your children. Then what you do is to provide that child with a substitute for his lack of wisdom. And that substitute is discipline, that substitute for his lack of decision-making apparatus, for his inability to choose the way that it is best for him because he doesn't have the equipment to make the right choice yet. So, you provide a substitute, you make that choice for him. You say you do this or else, and the "or else" is usually sufficient that he simply decides, "Well, I don't want that or else, so I'll do this." Now, you in your superior wisdom know that when he does that, that is better for him. He doesn't know that. He wouldn't agree with you on that line of reasoning in 10 million years if you were to stay that same age, perennially like little orphan Annie does and never grow any older. He wouldn't know that and he wouldn't agree with it. But it makes sense.

   Now, do you think that doesn't make sense? Do you think this is illogical talking? Well, kid yourself if you do, but it isn't. And you know it, especially if you're a parent and you've had the opportunity to realize that. James, in James the fourth chapter, in the first few verses, explains about human nature as I have talked about on the program constantly here recently. He says, "From whence come wars and fightings among you? Come they not hence, even from your lusts that war in your members?" He said, "You fight and kill, and you have not because you ask not." And he said, "You ask amiss that you may consume it upon your lust." So, it's natural to lust. It's natural to have vanity. It's natural to have wild drunken brawls. It's natural to degenerate. But it is unnatural, it's abnormal, it's unusual, it's contrary to human nature, to have mercy, justice, equity, equality.

   Now, let's just look at a real unnatural chapter of the Bible first to show you in contrast. You ought to turn over to I Corinthians the 13th chapter or to Galatians 5. We can take a look at those right quickly and find out what it says. You see if this is normal or natural. Here, the Apostle Paul is talking about an unnatural way to act for a human being to act as if he had a certain kind of love, not mother love, not father love, not love of children toward pets, but a love of God, which is defined in the Bible as being something beyond the capacity of normal man. And it comes in a different way, by the way. He said in verse four of the 13th chapter of I Corinthians (I Corinthians 13:4): "Charity"—now this word is love actually. It doesn't mean charitable organizations or just charity in the sense of giving clothes to poor people or canned goods to people in Vietnam. This means love. It means an outgoing concern and it is so rendered in some of the more modern versions. So, it says, "Love suffers long and is kind." Do you suffer long? You know the average person? He's sitting in a theater and someone sits in front of him with a high piled hairdo of some type and he's mad. A man is in a line of traffic and somebody cuts in on the right and he's mad. A man is in a supermarket and a woman happens to get in front of him with her basket of groceries and he's mad. Suffer long? You know anybody who does that? You don't know anybody who suffers long. You know very few. And if you know any, well, you're a rare person to even be able to know such a person. Love suffers long and is kind. How many kind people do you know? How many kind organizations? There are a few, oh yes, there are, but very few. Love envies not. Now how many people do you know who just absolutely have no envy in them, not one little bit of envy? You don't know any. You don't know any envy or the vanity of a human being that makes him feel that he ought to be better than most other people if he isn't and just hates to admit it. Just jealously desires and has a great gnawing aching desire to have the things of, whether it's the possessions of, the wife of, the automobile of, or even the talents and abilities of another person. So, there is envy. We even color it. We use colors in the English language to define various human moods. We get blue or we get green with envy and jealousy. So, it says, love vaunts not itself. Now you look at people with their military badges and buttons and caps and hats that add height and shape to the thing, and maybe some gold on their shoulders and fruit salad and so on. Does that vaunt a person's self? Is not puffed up, that means swelled up like a toad with vanity.

   Verse five of I Corinthians 13 (I Corinthians 13:5), that love does not behave itself unseemly, seeks not its own, is not easily provoked, thinks no evil. Now you'd call a person like that stupid. You would call a person who doesn't think evil naive. You would call a person who likes to see the best side of everything and just doesn't even like to look or hear about evil things when it has to do with another person's nature and would rather look on the bright side. You'd say, boy, what a naive dope this is. It says, rejoices not in iniquity. Doesn't love a scandal, doesn't love a dirty rotten, filthy triangle, doesn't just love a murder story, doesn't love to look at a lot of violence, doesn't really love to just rush into the scene of an automobile accident, get in the way of the emergency rescue vehicles and sort of look at the blood and gore. Now, what do you think human beings do? Do they rejoice in iniquity? Why, nearly every novel, every TV series, every book, every magazine, nearly everything you pick up is rejoicing in iniquity. If it's weird, if it's mixed up, if it's perverse, if it's bigoted, if it's hostile, if it's degenerate, if it's on fire, people love it. They love a good bonfire. They love a good riot, a good fight. They love to get the inside dope on the latest scandal of a government official, to dig under the rug, to open the old closet, to pull out the drawers, the forgotten sins. People just love to do this, like to sort of bathe in it. It's like sort of swimming in the sewer system. It's a proclivity of mankind. They love a good scandal. Nothing will set the tongues wagging quicker than a good scandal. And you know it, and I know it, and it's natural. But I say that this love that the Apostle Paul is defining is the kind of love you wish everybody had. Sure, you do. You might think this is just religious sounding, this is for religious people. Oh, it is, is it? You'd like to dismiss the whole thing as sort of religious argument or a religious doctrine that you would not like to expect from your neighbors: discretion, justice, patience, understanding, wisdom, fairness. How about you need roads when you're hunting for a job? How would you always like every time you went to a personnel manager or rang a doorbell, you'd like to see understanding, patience, wisdom, judgment, justice, a sense of equality, a sense of respecting you for exactly what you are, your own personal character. And if you're a person who likes to riot and you're filled with bigotry and hatred, then expect to get the kind of treatment that is going to create in somebody. But on the other hand, if you're ready to take your place in society and you're ready to stand and to act like any other law-abiding person in any community, would you like to get that kind of treatment? You bet you would. You always find it? No, you don't. Neither does anybody else for that matter. But there's still too much racial prejudice and bigotry in the world, and it's time we begin to admit it. So, people want that kind of a world. You're asking for remuneration for work. You want to buy a car? You want some advice on your marriage, do you? What kind of advice would you like? What kind of treatment from the salesman would you like? Fairness, justice, long-suffering, equality, understanding, great integrity. You would. Well, where are you going to get it in the world? You're not, are you? So, expecting? You're not gonna get it. People say, well, he's a liar. Why shouldn't I? Oh, well, he cheats. Why shouldn't I? Sure, I would steal. People say, doesn't everybody? So, I'm telling you, you'll have to agree with me that it's unnatural, abnormal. It's not just according to human nature to have these qualities that the Apostle Paul is talking about. He says, does not behave itself unseemly, thinks no evil, rejoices not in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth. What is the truth? Well, Jesus said in John 17:17, thy word is truth, beareth all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Look for the best, willing to really endure. That's not very natural.

   You can turn to a natural chapter if you like, over in Romans the first chapter in verse 29 (Romans 1:29-30) and find what it says. The philosophers of yesteryear were filled with unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness, full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity, whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, despite, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents. I'm reading in the Bible, verse 29 and 30 out of the first chapter of Romans. That is natural. That's according to human nature. That's the line of least resistance. And that is the way most people and most nations are living today. Human nature has got to be changed, and there is a way to change it. If you want to find out how, then write for the two articles on how to change human nature. They're entitled "What is Real Repentance?" and "What is a Real Christian?" And they tell you how it is going to be changed, and it's the only solution for our problems. Unless or until it is changed, our problems won't be solved. You can get those articles. They are free, and the books I've announced by sending your letter to Herbert W. Armstrong, Box 111, Pasadena, California. That's Herbert W. Armstrong, Box 111, Pasadena, California. They're free of charge. There is no price. Be sure to tell us the call letters of your station. The address again in just a moment.

   Until next time, this is Garner Ted Armstrong saying goodbye, friends.

   You have heard The World Tomorrow with Garner Ted Armstrong. For literature offered on this program, send your request along with the call letters of this station to Herbert W. Armstrong, Post Office Box 111, Pasadena, California, 91123. Or you may dial this toll-free number: 800-423-4444.