Personal
from Herbert W. Armstrong
THE BOILING CALDRON in the Middle East continues to boil over. Even the Polish crisis has not taken world attention off the Middle East.
Right now we are in the recess between World War II and World War III – the nuclear war that would blast all humanity off this planet except for the supernatural intervention of God Almighty. And the final massing of the world’s armies at ARMAGEDDON will occur on a battlefield north of Jerusalem.
We should be tremendously interested, therefore, in the Middle East.
Somewhat more than a year ago, in October, I had personal visits with both Prime Minister Menachem Begin of Israel and President Anwar Sadat of Egypt. Last October 6, on the eighth anniversary of the Yom Kippur war initiated by Mr. Sadat, the whole world was shocked by the assassination of Anwar Sadat. He was in the reviewing stand watching the anniversary military parade. I had expected to have another private meeting with the Egyptian president this past November.
I did have the private meeting with the Egyptian president on November 21 last – but with the new president, Hosni Mubarak, in his palace in Cairo.
President Mubarak has received little publicity in the United States, and is not known by the public in the Western world as was Anwar Sadat. Yet he is now a very important world leader in the explosive Middle East, and I think the Western world needs to know more about him. I therefore devoted an entire telecast to my meeting with him, and we are devoting the cover article of this issue of The Plain Truth, and this “Personal,” to him and Egypt’s role in the peace process started in the Camp David meetings with former U.S. president, Jimmy Carter.
As I said plainly to President Mubarak, the peace negotiations are not going to bring peace. Only the intervention of God Almighty himself, and establishment of the Kingdom of God – a ONE-NATION RULE over all nations – can bring us peace. Hosni Mubarak agreed. But we both agreed that efforts of national leaders toward peace should be carried on. We should do what we can. But it will require the supernatural power of the Great God to do what we humans cannot do for ourselves.
As long as humans are ruled by human nature there can be no peace. We humans cannot achieve peace by ourselves – it will have to be done TO us! Jesus Christ, soon to come in the supreme POWER and GLORY of God Almighty will have to compel the people of earth to live GOD’S WAY of life – to compel humans to enjoy peace, contentment, happiness, prosperity and eternal life.
I repeat again and again, there is of necessity a cause for every effect. The effect is appalling troubles, evils and sufferings worldwide, paradoxically simultaneous with awesome human progress and achievement in material and mechanical progress.
The insolvable problems, troubles and sufferings are caused by a wrong way of life. But humanity has never learned the only way of life that can CAUSE happiness, peace and the rich blessings that are spiritual in nature. That way of life is GOD’S WAY OF LIFE.
Humanity has never come to the KNOWLEDGE of that way of life. It is the spiritual way of life, and knowledge of that way is indiscoverable by man on his own. It must be revealed. It can be revealed only through the Holy Spirit of God. And there are two major conditions to receiving God’s Spirit and the begettal of eternal LIFE. Those two conditions seem to be the most difficult for a human to perform.
The first is admit you are WRONG. That seems to be the most difficult for any person to do. It means submit to confessing you are wrong – not only in what you have believed, what you have done, but in what you ARE! It means submission. The biblical term for it is “repent,” but few – even theologians – know what it really means. It means the kind of change of mind and heart that almost no one is willing to make. And second, almost as rare, is to BELIEVE GOD.
Many still will say they believe in God – that is, such a Being exists. But they do not believe HIM – they do not believe what he says. The first created human, Adam, did not believe him, even though God spoke to him in person, face to face. God came in the person of Jesus Christ. Jesus proclaimed his Message to multiple thousands of people for three and a half years. Yet only 120 believed what he said.
So the world does not know, or live, God’s way of life. What is God’s way of life? It’s the way God lives.
God has lived eternally. You read of the beginnings of all things in the Bible in John 1:1-4, 14. God was eternally DUAL – two spirit Personages forming one God. One was “the Word” or Spokesman, the other was God; yet “the Word” also was God. And the Word was born as a human, Jesus Christ, God With Us, in human flesh. In him was LIFE. He lived. God, who became the Father of Jesus, also lived – had LIFE inherent. But HOW did they live?
Ah – that, the way they lived and do live, is GOD’S WAY OF LIFE. They lived the way of mutual LOVE, cooperation, teamwork, concern each for the other, loyalty. Two cannot walk together except they be agreed. They have never changed, but have remained the same yesterday, today and forever. So Jesus reflected their attitude toward each other. He was the Word, yet he said he had spoken only what the Father had commanded him. So God was Head. But there was mutual loyalty, agreement and LOVE. God said, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased,” when Jesus was about 30 years old.
Love is always outflowing. It is giving, not getting. Cooperating, not competing. Helping, not hindering.
God made that way of life his divine eternal spiritual Law. Sin is the transgression of that Law. And all humans have sinned. The penalty of sin is DEATH – the second death – eternal death. But Jesus loved us all enough to pay that supreme penalty for us in our stead. He had not sinned or come under its penalty – yet he paid the penalty – for YOU and for ME – IF we repent and believe, and live GOD’S WAY OF LIFE.
No, as I said to President Mubarak in Cairo, we humans cannot bring peace by our own efforts. But God will intervene, send Christ in all the supreme POWER and GLORY of the Creator GOD, to set up the KINGDOM OF GOD, the super divine nation to rule all nations with GOD’S WAY OF LIFE. And that will CAUSE world peace, contentment, happiness, joy, and bring us ETERNAL LIFE!
