Personal
from Herbert W. Armstrong
I am writing this “Personal” from the very shadow of the Great Pyramid in Egypt – on the outskirts of Cairo.
I was the principal speaker at a large banquet held in my honor in Cairo night before last. About 300 of the top-echelon people of Egypt were present, and I am waiting now for another private meeting, accompanied by Mr. Stanley R. Rader, as usual, with President Anwar el-Sadat.
At the speaker’s table at the banquet, on my left was Dr. M. Abdel-Kader Hatem, chief assistant and adviser to President Sadat. Dr. Hatem was the prime minister when I first met him, some six years ago. He ranks higher than that now, and above cabinet members. It was nice to see him and his family again. We became quite well acquainted on former visits, and Mr. Rader and I visited Dr. and Mrs. Hatem in their seaside vacation home on the outskirts of Alexandria – where top officials from Cairo usually spend the summers. Mrs. Hatem sat on my right at the banquet, Mr. Rader on Dr. Hatem’s left, and Mrs. Rader on Mrs. Hatem’s right, with Mrs. Armstrong on Mr. Rader’s left.
What I said to these leaders of this nation was timely, and I will try to relay it on to you now. l don’t have the recorded version to give it verbatim, but I do have my notes before me, and this is approximately what I said after being introduced by Dr. Hatem and Mr. Rader:
“Ladies and gentlemen, good evening: Many events have happened in this fast-moving world since I last spoke in this same ballroom, some five or more years ago.
“Despite efforts for peace in the Middle East by your President Sadat, Prime Minister [Menachem] Begin and President Carter, there is a war on now between Iran and Iraq. In the past five years governments of many nations have been overthrown. The Soviet Union has made inroads in Africa, and more recently in Afghanistan. Poverty, illiteracy, crime are growing – not diminishing. World troubles and evils have escalated. Weapons of mass destruction exist by which MAN CAN BLAST MANKIND FROM OFF THIS EARTH! The whole world tonight stands on the brink of human extinction.
“But WHY? There has to be a CAUSE for every effect. While humanity has been supposing we have been ADVANCING – IMPROVING – we’ve been bringing more and more evils upon ourselves – more and more suffering and agony on PEOPLE!
“The whole world went along on a fairly even keel, with little agricultural, mechanical and industrial progress for almost 6,000 years. Transportation was by foot, mule, camel back, rowboat or sailboat. Communication was by written letter carried the same way.
“Then, just over 500 years ago, the printing press with movable type was invented. About 300 short years ago came the first beginnings of modern science. This advancement of modern science and technology is so recent that more than 90 percent of all the world’s scientists WHO EVER LIVED are alive today! I have lived just a little longer than most of you, but I have seen most of the world’s supposedly wonderful advancements. In the brief span of my lifetime, this world has passed with lightning speed past the age of invention, the machine age, the major developments in science and technology, the nuclear age and the space age!
“The world thinks of it as wonderful PROGRESS – ADVANCEMENT! The world’s fund of KNOWLEDGE doubled in the decade of the ’60s, and again in the ’70s – but in each decade the world’s troubles and evils doubled also!
“WHY? Even if the increased knowledge did not CAUSE the increased evils, neither did it solve the world’s problems or rid the world of evils!
“What the world does not know, and refuses to learn, is that peace, happiness, contentment, joy, abundant and universal well-being are spiritual values – the ONLY TRUE VALUES IN LIFE.
“People have been seeking only MATERIAL GAIN!
“There is a SPIRITUAL LAW – a law of out-flowing LOVE – the way of life of helping, serving, cooperating, sharing. I simplify it by calling it the way of ‘give’. Its transgression is the way of ‘GET’ – of vanity, coveting, envy and jealousy, hostile competition, strife, violence.
“That basic spiritual LAW is as ACTIVELY in motion as the law of gravity – as inexorable, as relentless, as certain! Its punishment for transgression is the suffering and anguish humanity is suffering now – for every trouble, every evil, has been caused by the way of ‘GET.’
“For 6,000 years the world has lived the way of ‘GET.’ We measure SUCCESS in life by the amount one has been able to ‘GET’ – to accumulate – to TAKE from others – to HAVE and POSSESS!
“The way of life of ‘GIVE’ is the basic spiritual LAW set in motion by our Maker. But our first parents spurned it and turned to ‘GET.’ For 6,000 years the world has continued on the way of ‘GET’ – of material possession!
“The world’s religions have tried to set up religions justifying the materialistic way of ‘GET.’ Yet that way of ‘GET’ is the CAUSE of all of mankind’s troubles.
“If we all lived the way of outflowing LOVE – toward our Maker and toward each other, in helping, serving, sharing, GIVING! – we would have world UTOPIA! There can never be SALVATION, peace, contentment, happiness, joy, universal well-being and eternal salvation from trouble and evils until we TURN FROM the philosophy of ‘GET’ – repent of that way – turn to our Maker and His way of out-flowing love. Yet 6,000 years have PROVED MANKIND SIMPLY WON’T!
“And so now, just before MAN utterly DESTROYS mankind, that ‘Unseen Strong Hand from Someplace’ is going to intervene dynamically in human world affairs and save mankind from itself! I am merely a voice crying out in the spiritual wilderness of this 20th century, calling on people to repent of their false ways, and turn to the God who gives us the breath we breathe, and saying, that whether you believe it or not, that ‘Strong Hand’ will intervene to prevent man from utterly destroying mankind and usher in a world living the way of outflowing LOVE – a soon-coming world of PEACE, contentment, happiness, joy, universal well-being, and eternal salvation offered to ALL!”
