(NB Headings are not part of original, but are added for clarity)

The World Tomorrow

The Two Ways - Part 2

by Herbert W Armstrong

(PLAY FROM START)

Well ladies and gentlemen, greetings. You live in a world, in a twentieth century world, that is plunging to absolute extinction. The weapons now exist of mass destruction that can erase all human life from this planet.

Now we’ve been having on television, and even in some newspapers, daily reminders – there were for many, many months, daily reminders – of the hostage crisis. But we don’t have any reminders of the fact that there are four billion of us that are being held hostage – four billion of us that are facing extinction. The weapons exist now that can absolutely annihilate human life off this planet.

One hydrogen bomb today is as powerful and will be as destructive as all of the bombs that were exploded by both sides in World War II. Now just think of that. Think of how many cities in Germany were destroyed, how much of London I’ve seen that was destroyed. Yes and even in Germany and I’ve seen that, too. It’s all been rebuilt now. But one hydrogen bomb alone will destroy more than all of those bombs put together.

And we try to put it out of mind. Is it absolutely so frightening that we’re afraid to think about it? I think we need to think about that. Do we think it’s just going to go away if we forget it? Do we think that it’s so frightening that no one will dare set it off?

Let me remind you that no weapon of mass destruction has ever yet been produced that has not been used. And nuclear warfare is not only possible of the United States and the Soviet Union, but there are now a number of smaller nations that also have nuclear weapons. And other nations can have nuclear weapons, and perhaps do, and we don’t know it – and they can have it on very short notice. It is now possible for a number of nations to produce nuclear weapons. And a small nation can set off a war that can spread until it does engulf both the Soviet Union and the United States and until there wouldn’t be a human being left alive on this earth.

Now there are madmen; there are people who want to commit suicide; there are suicides practically - well I guess there are everyday somewhere in the world. And it could be some man that could start such a thing in a smaller nation and it could spread.

I want you to think about two things and it’s time that we begin to think about it. First, I want you to think about why we face extinction; what has brought us to this place? This was not true when I was a young man; it was not true until I was even past middle age – if I ever was and, incidentally, I can’t remember ever having reached middle age. If I ever did, I never knew it. But now, the calendar at least tells me that I’m past it.

But I never thought of things like that. And such a possibility had not arrived yet – not until the hydrogen bomb, not even with the atomic bomb which destroyed, what was it, very close to a hundred thousand people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki – each one of those an atomic bomb. But an atomic bomb is merely the trigger that sets off a hydrogen bomb.

And then think of the chemical warfare and the many other things that we have. It is now possible to annihilate all human life, to erase all human life, from this earth fifty times over! Now just to erase all mankind once would be quite enough! There wouldn’t be anybody left to erase any longer.

What has brought us to this place? What really is going to happen?

The second thing I want you to think about is that – what is going to happen; how is it going to come out? Are we going to escape; will humanity escape this terrible thing – and, if we are going to, how – and why?

Cause and Effect (PLAY FROM 04:59)

Now what has brought us to the very brink of - I like to call it, 'cosmocide.' Cosmos, I know, relates to the whole universe, but about all the life we know of in the whole universe is right here on this earth. So it is a matter of cosmocide.

Well the cause is simply the way we have lived. The way we have lived has brought us to this place.

There are two ways of life. And humanity has been living one of those two ways. There are only two philosophies of life, only two ways that we could be living.

One really is the way of out flowing love – away from self – outflowing. And that is, of course, that is the way of love first to God and secondly to neighbor. That is the way of love which is out flowing, not incoming, which would be, not love, but lust.

Now the opposite of that way and the transgression of that way of life I like to call, 'get.' So I like to simplify these terms – the two ways of life: one I like to call, 'give,' just four letters, a little four-letter word that is a very good word – 'give,' and the other is, 'get.'

The one is love, as I say, it’s cooperation; it is humility; it is wanting to help your neighbor as yourself; it is sharing and giving and helping and cooperating.

Now the world has chosen the opposite way which I like to term, 'get,' just the little three-letter word: G-E-T, get. And that is the way of, 'I love me; I don’t care about the other fella.'

I’ve said before it’s like the old song that came out about 1924 I remember. It was quite popular and it was called, 'I Love Me.' "Oh, I love me; I’m wild about myself. I put my arms around myself and I give myself a squeeze. I love me." But I don’t care a thing about you. I don’t care what happens to you. If you suffer all the agonies you suffer. You can wail and scream. It doesn’t worry me. I’m not suffering. Why should I worry about what happens to you? You have worked; you have produced; you have gotten something. If I can take it away from you, if I can get it from you, well then that’s what I want to do.

That’s the way this world has been living. It is the way of coveting; it is the way of vanity. "I love me; I want to exalt myself." And I tell you the great men of the world are self-exalted men. They think of their great accomplishments.

Is This Progress? (PLAY FROM 07:57)

Now let me just show you. We’re living in a world of great accomplishments in this twentieth century. And the greatest accomplishments that have ever happened in the world have happened in the twentieth century. I would say that somewhere around ninety percent of the great accomplishments that mankind has ever accomplished on the face of this earth has been during this twentieth century because science has only come on in the last - well, the last two, three hundred years. But most of the growth has been in this century – until more than ninety percent of all of the scientists who ever lived are still alive today. Think of that! Science and technology are new things. And the progress that we’ve made is phenomenal; it’s mind-boggling.

As a matter of fact, recently, when the photographs came back from Saturn, after we had had close-up photographs from Jupiter and then we came to Saturn and our astronomers said it was absolutely mind-boggling!

Now they had sent unmanned spacecraft who were able to go within - they call that approximately close…about within one million miles or so, but that’s approximately close compared to what the telescopes can show us from the earth here. We’re a great many millions of miles away here. And they sent back details that our astronomers had never seen. And oh it was so great!

Think of the things that we have done. We have been able to send spacecraft to the very surface of Mars and send back photographs on the surface of Mars until we can have close-up photographs of the very surface of Mars sent right back here to the earth. And yet it’ll all come from the earth – the things that men had invented. Think of sending men to the moon and back. And men up there playing around on the moon and sending us the photographs of it while they were doing it. And we could watch them doing it in our own living rooms here on this earth.

Think of the computer. Think of the marvelous machines and the things that technology has invented. Why the progress that we have made is phenomenal; it’s mind-boggling. But all of those things are in the physical and the material realm. Now just think about this a moment. All of the great things we have done, all of the accomplishments are in the physical and the material realm. And yet our troubles and our problems and our evils are spiritual in nature. And we can’t solve them.

A man goes up and trapes around on the moon and comes back safely – and he can’t get along with his own wife, can’t get along with his children, and there is a divorce and his home breaks up.

Oh we can do great things, but we can’t get along with one another. We can’t get along within the home and the family. We can’t get along with group. Nation can’t get along with nation. And so we have wars and we have destruction. So that way of life - get - is the way of getting. It is the way of taking; it is the way of competition and strife and rebellion against authority. It’s the way of 'me.' "I love me and I don’t care about you."

And generally we don’t have much love for the other fellow. If he suffers, you think, "Well I don’t suffer. I’m not feeling it. Why do I care if he feels it? What if I care if he’s suffering and having pain? I’m not feeling it. Why should I worry about him?" That is the general attitude today. We have no love for other people. We have only concern about our selfish selves. In other words, it is self-centeredness.

And that is the way that we have been living. That is the cause of every trouble we have. Our troubles, in other words, are spiritual and we can’t solve spiritual problems. But our great accomplishments are all in the materialistic realm. And there we have done some wonderful things.

Human Intellect (PLAY FROM 12:18)

Now the human mind is able to accomplish - well it seems like there is no limit to what the human mind can accomplish.

You know, God Almighty looked down on the earth one time, at the Tower of Babel, as we read in the historic portion of the Bible. And He said, "Now this they have begun to do and if we don’t stop them, there is no limit to what man will be able to do." (Genesis 11:6 paraphrased)

And that is right, but they were building something physical and material. And there seems to be no limit to what man can do in the physical, material realm. But our problems, our troubles and evils are spiritual in nature and we don’t know how to deal with them. You need to think about that. That’s where the trouble is. We think of twentieth century progress, but it’s all in one direction.

Now how did it all start; how did we get this way?

Let’s go back just real quickly. I want to show you how it all started. You can believe evolution all you want to, but it isn’t going to get you anywhere. And evolution is not taking us any closer to peace and a happiness and universal prosperity and well-being.

Here we are in a world that is more than half illiterate, uneducated – minds with nothing in them; minds that are so great - and the illiterate minds may be just as great, and could be as great, as those of the captains of industry and the scientists and the technologists and the people that have produced these mind-boggling things. But they just have not been developed, that’s all.

And we have a wrong system of education in this world. But there had to be a beginning. And there had to be a reason why it’s gone that way. You go back in the very, very beginning and you read of the first man and where human life started on this earth.

So begin, if you will, with the twenty-fifth verse in the very first chapter of the book of Genesis in the Bible.

"And God made the beasts of the earth after its kind, and cattle after their kind, and everything that creepeth upon the earth after its kind: and God saw that it was [very] good [now cattle after the cattle kind, dogs after the dog kind, elephants after the elephant kind and so it is. Then read on the next verse]. And God said, Let us [not me] let us [that’s something I won’t have time to discuss now, but I have on other programs], Let us make man in our image, after our likeness." (Genesis 1:25-26)

Let us make man after the God kind – after our kind. God said that. "Let’s make man after the GOD kind." We’re not made after the animal kind; we’re made after the God kind.

Now take the human brain and then look at it, examine it. And that has been done. They’ve examined the human brain in every way. I saw on television just the other day where now they can explore and look through the brain of a living person. They don’t have to take a dead corpse. But they can see everything in the brain while the person is still living.

Now I don’t know how damaging that’s going to be. And I don’t think the scientists know either. They’re experimenting with things clear beyond their control today. But nevertheless, we understand the human brain. We know what it’s like. We can see it. And it’s something that’s physical that our eyes can see. We can take hold of it and feel it.

But do you know that the brain of an elephant is just as good, but larger? The brain of a chimp, a chimpanzee, is just as good, but a little smaller? But the brain of a dolphin and of a whale are larger than a human brain. And yet they are stupid compared to a human. We think of them as having certain intelligence. You know that if they have any intelligence whatever, well we think it’s something terrific for an animal because they are the 'dumb brutes,' after all.

The output of the human brain is thousands, or millions, of times greater than that of an animal brain. And the reason is we are made after the God kind.

In other words there is a spirit in man that enters man with his first breath. {1} Man himself is not that spirit. As man is born he is nothing but human flesh. But with the very first breath the spirit enters into him with that breath. It’s a portion of spirit – a little particle of spirit. And that particle of spirit imparts the power of intellect to the human brain.

However it does not think; it does not see. And it can deal only with material things. Man was made with a spirit, but he was made to need another spirit – the spirit that comes from God.

And he cannot understand spiritual equations and spiritual problems and things that are spiritual in nature until he has a second Spirit that only God can impart. And there are certain conditions by which God will impart it.

Now then let’s go back where the man was created. And we read now, next, in the second chapter of Genesis, beginning with verse seven:

"And the [Eternal]{2} God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul." (Genesis 2:7)

Now animals also became living souls. And in the Hebrew language in which this was written the word, 'nephesh,' is the word that was translated, 'soul.' And the word, nephesh, is applied to animals just the same as men – a living soul, not an immortal soul.

The spirit in man is not a soul. It’s nothing. It’s just like a man swallows a little tiny marble. And it is not part of the man; it’s just something that is now in him and that has been put in him after the man was a man. And that’s the way with this spirit. {3}

The Two Trees (PLAY FROM 18:37)

Now let’s read on. Man was made out of matter. But he does have this spirit that came with the first breath.

"And the [Eternal] God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground made the [Eternal] God to grow every tree that was pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil." (Genesis 2:8-9)

Now there was one tree that was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The other tree was the tree of life. Those were symbolic trees. The tree of life simply symbolized the spirit – the second spirit that man needs to add to the spirit already within him – the Spirit of God! And that is the impregnation of the very life of God until we become actually, eventually shall become God beings.

But nevertheless man, naturally, just has this one spirit and it cannot think; it cannot see. It is the physical brain that sees and hears and smells and tastes through the eye and the ear and the nose and the mouth and so on – and does all the thinking. The spirit doesn’t do the thinking; it empowers the brain to do it! But the animals don’t have any such spirit to empower their brains; they just don’t have it.

Now I would like to go on a little farther over here in the fifteenth verse on to the seventeenth.

"And the [Eternal] God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden [he was created outside of the Garden of Eden, but God took him and put him in the Garden of Eden] to dress it and to keep it [for a purpose – he was supposed to dress it and keep it. We should take care of what we have.] And the [Eternal] God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." (Genesis 2:15-17)

You eat of it today you are going to die. That doesn’t mean you’ll die today, but you are going to die.

Way of Give Rejected (PLAY FROM 21:00)

And, now, what did happen? Let’s go a little bit further. Turn over to the third chapter of Genesis and verse six. Satan was around. And Satan got to Adam through his wife, Eve. And Eve was the beginning of this movement for women to dominate over men that we have going around the world today. And now pardon me; some of you aren’t going to like that, but maybe you don’t like the truth of God which I give you.

Verse six, the second - or the third chapter of Genesis. "And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes [that’s all physical – it was good to taste and to sight – the physical senses] and a tree to be desired to make one wise [that is vanity – and so intellectual vanity entered her], she took of the fruit thereof and did eat, and gave also to her husband; and he did eat." (Genesis 3:6)

In other words what they did, my friends, they took to themselves the knowledge of what is good and what is evil. They decided for themselves what is the way to go – what is the right way to live.

Now God had shown them the way to live. The way of the tree of life - the Spirit of God - will give us spiritual knowledge so we can solve spiritual problems and troubles and evils. But they rejected that. And that is why men ever since have been unable to solve their problems.

Now let me go just a little further - the last part of this third chapter of Genesis where: "The [Eternal] God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: now lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat and live forever" (Genesis 3:22). Lest he gain immortal life going the wrong way – the way of get. That’s the way - they took to themselves! That was the way of taking; that is the way of getting! And they started out on the way of get instead of the way of give.

God wanted to give them the Spirit of God – the Holy Spirit. But they took the other way of life.

"Therefore the [Eternal] God sent them forth from the garden...and so he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life." (Genesis 3:23-24)

And mankind has not been able to get back and get the Spirit of God – so he can solve his spiritual problems – ever since! And mankind - our first parents - cut mankind off from God! And mankind in general has been cut off from God ever since and going the way of get instead of the way of give.

Now let’s just go a little bit further. There is a spiritual law and it was typified and it was symbolized by those two trees. And that is the law of love – outflowing love – and its transgression, as I say, is the way of get.

I call one the way of give, the other the way of get. It is a spiritual law! It is as inexorable as the law of gravity. It’s inflexible; it’s inexorable. You break it and it will break you. And humanity has been breaking it ever since clear down to this time for 6,000 years! We’ve lived the way of materialism and the way of get!

Second Adam Needed (PLAY FROM 24:39)

Now then the second part of this question, or of the knowledge that I want to impart to you right now: what’s going to happen; how can we escape extinction? How can we escape this; what is going to happen?

Alright, there was then, Jesus Christ. There was the first Adam. He was physical and material. And he started the way of physical, material living. Then came Jesus Christ who was a spirit. That is He was born of the Spirit of God. He was filled with the Spirit of God and with spiritual knowledge.

Jesus came proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom of God. He called a few – and it was a comparative few. He preached, during His three-and-a-half years, He preached to many, many thousands. Twice there were over 5,000 men, not even counting women and children, that were listening to Him. And there might have been several hundred thousand who heard Him.

And yet of all of those out of three and one-half years of His ministry only 120 really believed Him and still followed Him at the end, as you read in the first chapter of Acts in verse fifteen.

But Jesus was the second Adam and He came with the Spirit and Spirit knowledge. He started a few living the way of give instead of get. And those were His Church. The Church was started out that way.

You will read in Mark the first chapter that Jesus... "The [very] beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ [He] came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God." (Mark 1:1,14)

Jesus was born to be a king; He was born to be a king. But you also will read in the nineteenth chapter of Luke of how He explained to His apostles that He was going away to the Throne of God in heaven to receive a kingdom and then to return and establish that kingdom on the earth (verses 11-27). He has been there ever since as the High Priest of His Church. And the Church has had to live in this world, persecuted, ever since. But mankind still is stumbling around.

Now I’m not going to have time, I see, to really finish in this program. And I would like to finish this. How it’s going to all finally come out. So you be listening there.

Now I, in closing, I want to tell you this. It all has to do with the fact that Christ was born to be a king. The gospel of Christ was about a government – the kingdom of God. It hasn’t been preached. No one seems to know it. You won’t believe it.

Alright read it in this little booklet; I want you to read this booklet: 'What Do You Mean The Kingdom of God?' That is the gospel that Jesus preached – the Kingdom of God. 'What Do You Mean The Kingdom of God?' This little booklet - well it’s what, about thirty, forty-some pages. You can read it in one sitting. It has not been preached; it has not been understood. Read it and look in your Bible and see what the Word of God really says about it. Write in for this booklet 'What Is The Kingdom of God?' What do you mean the Kingdom of God? Now there is no cost at all, no charge at all, we have nothing to sell.

So until next time, when I will finish this – Herbert W Armstrong, goodbye friends.

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