Herbert W Armstrong

   I want to bring you now something never understood until this time, something of tremendous importance. I ask you, why? And I'm going to answer, why do we live in a world of such awesome progress, such remarkable advancement as we're having in this 20th century, and still at the same time, such appalling troubles and evils, so much suffering and fraught with the danger of extermination of every one of us on the face of the earth.

   Because even the great progress that we have had has developed the weapons of mass destruction that now, unless there is a power to stop it, will blast all human life off the face of this earth. Never before have such weapons existed as they do now. And humanity's one number one problem today is that of human survival. Why this paradox? Why such troubles, why such evils, men discontented, unhappy people all over the world, looking for excitement, looking for violence. And still unhappy and in the midst of such progress and such accomplishment. Did you ever ask yourself that? It's about time we wonder.

   Well, scientists say, give us sufficient knowledge, we'll solve all of human problems. We will rid the world of all of its evils. Now they want more knowledge in the decade of the sixties. Knowledge doubled in that decade. Dr. Clark Kerr was president of the University of California, and he said the modern university is a factory. What do they manufacture? They manufacture knowledge. Yes, more and more knowledge. Well, knowledge doubled in the decade of the sixties. But human troubles doubled also. Now the increased knowledge didn't cause the troubles, but it neither did it solve the evils. It simply did not. Human knowledge is not doing that. It seems today that no one has ever asked, how did it happen? What is wrong with knowledge production?

   Today, the world is filled with colleges. When I was a boy, only a small portion really ever graduated from high school, and those who graduated from high school only maybe 5% or so went on to college or university. Today, about 95% of high school, nearly all graduate from high school and about 95% want to go on to college or university. The dissemination of knowledge is very great. And yet you live in a world where half of the world are in extreme ignorance. They can't read or write total illiteracy. You live in a world of abject poverty where half of the world is living in filth and squalor and where thousands are literally starving to death. What a world we live in.

   I wish you would understand this, that human beings were not created with life. We don't have life in the true sense. We don't have life inherent; we don't have life within us. We have a temporary chemical, physio, chemical I might say existence. That's all. Now, the first law of biogenesis is that life can come only from life. Life cannot come from the not living, life cannot come from dead matter. It comes only from life.

   Now, the source of life is God. Evolution is the attempted explanation of the creation or the presence of a creation without the preexistence of a supreme mind who designed and created a creator. And so that has become, well, the basic concept of the production of all knowledge in the last couple of 100 years or so, but it has not brought us peace, it has not brought us happiness. It has not brought us anything really good.

   People today live on excitement on television, the one-eyed monsters it has been called, and you're looking at it now, and I thank God that there are times when something good can come on television, but there's so much that is not good. But you see mostly violence, illicit sex, and all that sort of thing. People want excitement of some kind today.

   But as I say, life has to come from life, and we don't have life, we have a temporary existence.

   Now, God, regardless of science, regardless of evolution, God is the source of all knowledge. And I can prove that. The earliest place in the Bible where you find God mentioned, I mean, as to time sequence, the earliest place in the life or in the existence of God is in the New Testament, in the book of John. John, the first chapter and the first verse (John 1:1): "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."

   Well, you know, you could say, "I saw a man, and the man's name was John, and John was with Smith, and John was Smith, but he's not the same man. He's a different man. You see, John was the son of Smith. Smith was the father of John. They're two different men."

   Now, this Word was made flesh and dwelt among us and revealed His glory, as the glory of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. In other words, Jesus Christ. But Jesus Christ had always existed, and originally, until He was born in human flesh, He was not the Son of God, but He was a personage that had always existed. And you read in the book of Hebrews that He was without father, without mother, without descent, having neither beginning of days nor end of life, having always existed. Of course, your mind won't accept that, neither will mine. But it had to happen. There has to have been life because all life has come from life.

   Now, verse two (John 1:2), "The same was in the beginning with God, and all things were made by Him." Well, in Ephesians 3 verse 9 (Ephesians 3:9), God created all things by Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the Word. One of the Psalms says, "He spoke, and it was done." Christ just spoke, and the Spirit of God moved and did whatever He said, and it was done. "In Him was life, life." Now there is life and the source of life, and His life was the light of men. So, there was the beginning of life.

   Let's go back now to Genesis one and verse one (Genesis 1:1). And we see the same thing in a little different category here: "In the beginning", once again, same words, "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." And all translations, except one that I know of, translated heavens in the plural. And there are three heavens mentioned in the Bible.

   "In the beginning, God, the word that Moses wrote for God in the Hebrew language was Elohim and Elohim is a uni plural. It is like the word family, more than one person, but only one family could be two persons and it could be 10 or 14 persons or whatever, it's like the word church, many members, but only the one church. And you'll find that in the Bible too.

   "In the beginning, God," more than one person. And that is the one who was the Word and the one who was God, created the heavens and the earth. We find in verse 26 that God Elohim said, "Let us make man in our image after our likeness and let them have dominion." "Let us," not "let me," more than one person. There was God, and there was the one who later became Jesus Christ, "let us," and the one who did the speaking was Christ. And He spoke what His Father told him to speak. As He said later, when He was Christ on the earth, He said, "I've spoken nothing of myself. The father that sent me, he told me what to speak and what to say. And he spoke as his father gave him a commandment to speak. And so, he created man in his own image."

   Now, prior to that, you're reading the two verses prior to that, that on the same day, God had created the land animals, and He created cattle after the cattle kind.

   Now, by the same token, he created dogs after the dog kind, camels after the camel kind, elephants after the elephant kind. But now He said, "Let us create man in our image after our likeness." In other words, "Let us create man after the God kind." Man was created after the God kind. But you also read in the very next chapter, the second chapter of Genesis and verse seven (Genesis 2:7), "The Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life", and man formed the dust of the ground, "man became a living soul", not an immortal soul, a living soul, not having eternal life, but having a temporary existence that comes through the breath of life. And another scripture in the Bible says, "the blood thereof is the life thereof." What gives you what life you have is the circulation of blood and the breath of air. And that's only temporary. You're like a clock wound up and running down. And when it runs down, if you can't wind it up again, it's stopped, it's dead, and when you run down, you're dead. And so, there is another scripture says, "it's appointed to all men once to die, but after this the judgment."

   It's appointed to all men once to die. And the most certain thing in this temporary existence we call life is the fact we shall all die. Man has temporary existence just like the animals. He breathes air like the animals; blood circulates in his veins just like the animals. But man was made after the image of God, after the God kind. Man has a mind like God; animals do not have a mind. They have a brain. Now, what's the difference?

   Well, a man has a brain too. And did you know that an animal brain is precisely like a human brain? Now the brain of an elephant is larger than that of a man, and it's just as good. But there is something present in the human brain that is not present in the animal brain. In Job chapter 32, in verse eight (Job 32:8), you will read, "there is a spirit in man," and that spirit in man imparts the power of intellect to the human brain.

   Anyway, Adam was created with a mind. He had a spirit, and that spirit was not a soul; it was merely spirit essence. You might say that imparted the power of intellect to the physical brain. But now Adam was created to need another spirit. Let me explain a little bit. Adam was made a male; he was a man, but he was not complete. He needed a female with him; he needed a wife. And so, God also created a wife for him.

   Now he was made with one spirit, but he was not complete. He needed another spirit. His brain was not complete. He had a spirit that enabled him to acquire and accumulate knowledge and to use the process of reasoning, research, and thought and reasoning, even creative reasoning, which animals cannot do, but he can only deal with things. He needed a mind to deal with other people, and he needed a mind to have a relationship with God.

   Now, man was made in the image of God. He was made after the God kind. He was made to become a son of God. He was made to be born of God, and he was made to have a relationship with God. But with that one spirit, he could not have a relationship with God. He needed the spirit of God to have a relationship with God. He needed the spirit of God to open his mind to the knowledge of how to deal with people and how to get along with God and to have a very intimate relationship and contact with his own maker.

   Some of you have seen a little calf born, have you? And you know when a little calf is born inside of two minutes, it's on its feet walking and it knows where to go, it goes for its dinner, and it knows how to suck milk. You ever see a child born, a human being, a human being born is utterly helpless. He doesn't want to walk for approximately a year. A human being is born with a mind, but it's unfilled with knowledge when he is first born. But it's a mind capable of receiving knowledge, capable of thinking with that knowledge and putting different pieces of knowledge together in the thinking process to come to conclusions, to make decisions, to think even creatively.

   And man has to direct his actions and everything he does with his hands, his feet, by his mind. An animal doesn't; an animal does what he does by instinct. There is a great difference. Man was made in the image of God. And yet man was made like the animals. He breathes the same breath as an animal. He has the same kind of life. He comes from the dust of the earth, and he dies the same death as an animal. And he has the same temporary life as an animal.

   Now, then, in the Garden of Eden, there were two symbolic trees in the center. There were many other trees, beautiful shrubs, beautiful flowers, plants, probably the most beautiful garden that ever existed on the face of the earth. We have some beautiful gardens on the Ambassador College campus from where I'm speaking right now, very beautiful, but I doubt very much if they will compare with the Garden of Eden.

   Now you hear somewhat about those two trees, and mostly you hear about an Adam's apple. Now, Adam did not eat an apple. That's just a bit of ridicule where people like to heap on something that is very, very serious and very important. But there also was the tree of life in the garden. Now, Adam did not have life. He only had a temporary existence, but God offered him life, life, inherent life within himself. God has life. I read you a while ago that in the one who became Christ was life, LIFE that is inherent life within himself. He doesn't have to have breath now.

   God does not have to have breath to live. He doesn't have to have blood circulating in His veins. God is composed of spirit. John 4:24, God is a spirit. He is composed of spirit. We're composed of matter of flesh, something altogether different. But we need a relationship with God. I'll tell you one reason a baby needs a relationship with its mother because a baby is utterly helpless when it's born. A little calf when it's born is not helpless. It gets up on its feet inside of two minutes and knows where to go. But the human baby is helpless when he's born, a human baby, when he grows up is still helpless, and humanity has been helpless before his problems.

   Look at the problems we're in today. Science is becoming the Frankenstein that has invented the weapons of mass destruction that can destroy us all. And we're helpless before these problems; we have needed a God to bring us out, and the mind of man and all the increase of knowledge has not helped. It's only made things worse. Evolution has not helped modern education. Modern science has not helped. Adam, the first man, was offered another spirit which would have opened his mind to spiritual knowledge. He needed spiritual knowledge to get along with his fellows with other people. And he had to have the spirit of God to have spiritual knowledge of spiritual things and to walk with God, to have a relationship with His God.

   Why do we need God? Well, even though we are righteous, even though we're living the best we can and very righteously, you'll find in the 34th Psalm, and verse 19 (Psalm 34:19), "many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivereth him out of them all." Well, many of the problems of a little baby just born, but his mother takes care of him, delivers him out of the troubles, takes care of his diapers, feeds him his milk, puts him to bed when he belongs there, everything. Well, when we grow up, many are our troubles, and we need a God to deliver us out of them.

   Right now, this world so badly needs God to deliver us out of the troubles that we're in right now, at this very moment. Now, I want you to consider man is absolutely, utterly helpless before his problems and his troubles. And we're staring human annihilation in the face today. I wonder, are you trusting that someone over in Russia or someone in some smaller nation where they have nuclear weapons will be so good that he'd be afraid to use nuclear power that could result in the war that would erase all humanity from the face of this earth?

   If you have that much faith in them, you have more faith in them than I do. You better begin to have some faith in God. Because unless God, that unseen hand from some place does exist and intervenes, I tell you this world won't exist and humanity won't exist upon it. Another generation from now, we're getting down to that very time.

   Now, the first man Adam needed God, and the first man Adam needed life. He only had a temporary existence, and he needed three kinds of knowledge. He needed knowledge to have a relationship with God, and he needed knowledge to get along with other people, and he needed knowledge to deal with things.

   I said at the beginning of this program that we have awesome progress today. Did you ever notice that all of that progress is in the physical and the material realm, and that all of our troubles are getting along with other people? And the fact that we have no relationship with God. We have on our, money in the United States the little saying, "In God, we trust," but do we? Oh, I'm afraid we don't, my friends.

   Now, dealing with things, we've had awesome progress, but all of our troubles come in the realm of dealing with people, and the fact we have no relationship with God. That's where our troubles come from. They are spiritual, and we don't know the difference.

   Adam did not take the tree of life. Today, the tree of life is offered to us through the second Adam, Jesus Christ. Now, God shut up the tree of life when Adam spurned, rejected, and took the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. God told him he would surely die if he took of that tree. He took of it. He did die, and humanity and his children have been dying ever since.

   Even Adam's children, one of them rose up and killed the other, killed his brother, and then lied about it. And humans have been doing wrong ever since and suffering and bringing suffering on themselves. Ever since, then Jesus Christ, the second Adam, came born as a human being, and he brought life and made it possible for us. The tree of life is open to humanity.

   Since Jesus Christ, you will read in the eighth chapter of Romans, and in verse 11 (Romans 8:11), "If the spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwells in you", if you have the Holy Spirit, and that's what Adam would have had had he taken of the tree of life, he would not have gotten immortality instantaneously. We don't today, we receive the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit then begins to give us spiritual knowledge.

   What's the natural mind? A man does not have it. A scientist does not have spiritual knowledge. A psychiatrist does not have spiritual knowledge. A psychologist doesn't even understand his mind, and he does not have spiritual knowledge. You can only have it. It's only revealed by the Holy Spirit of God.

   "But if the spirit of him that raised up Jesus dwells in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken." That's my resurrection, "your mortal bodies by his spirit that dwelleth within you."

   And so, Jesus came and He preached the gospel of the Kingdom of God, and the Kingdom of God is the family of God. God and the Word were two people, one of which was later born of God, and they started a family, Father and Son. Those who come and receive the spirit of God are later to be made immortal and to become children of God, to become the bride of Christ. And we become part of the family of God.

   And the only gospel that Jesus Christ ever preached was the good news, the gospel of the Kingdom of God, the gospel of the Kingdom of God, which is to be established in our time upon the earth. Because I want to tell you that unless Christ does come and save us from ourselves, humanity will be annihilated off the face of this earth within a generation. But He is going to come. That is the good news, the gospel, and that I wish I had time to go on. I just don't have it.

   I'm running out of time. Look, I want to give you a full account of what I've been saying. I can only give you a little of it in this program. There's an article in the September number of "The Plain Truth that did appear in the September number. And I'd like to have you read it in, The Plain Truth magazine. It's the lead article, "Never Before Understood Why Humanity Cannot Solve Its Evils". I would like to have you read it. There are many other wonderful articles in this magazine. There's just one I'll turn to, "This Physical Life Did It Begin By Chance?" I know that you will want to read it. Now, the same article is also to be published in a booklet. I have that booklet right here. And if you write for it, you can have this booklet "Never Before Understood", but it also appears in The Plain Truth magazine and we'll be happy to send you a copy of The Plain Truth magazine. And if you wish, you can then write and receive a full year's subscription. Gratis no charge. There's no charge for the booklet.

   We charge for nothing. We do not ask for money on the air and there's no follow up. There's no program like this. Now, to receive The Plain Truth to receive this booklet, "Never Before Understood", just send your request to me Herbert W Armstrong Pasadena, California 91123. That's Herbert W Armstrong Pasadena, California 91123. Or go to the telephone right now and call toll-free. It's a free call, 800-423-4444. That's area code 800-423-4444. Now, if the lines are busy, please call again or in California, Alaska and Hawaii call, collect 213 area code, then 577-5555. That's 577-5555. And so, this is Herbert W Armstrong saying goodbye until next time.

   For the free literature offered on this program, write Herbert W Armstrong Pasadena, California 91123 in Canada Box 44. Vancouver BC or in the Continental United States, you may call this toll-free number 800-423-4444 in California, Alaska and Hawaii call, collect 213-577-5555. If the lines are busy, please try again. The preceding program and all literature were produced by the Worldwide Church of God.