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As many of our readers know, I decided, at age 18, that
I belonged in the advertising field. I chose jobs for the
training, education and experience, rather than amount of salary.
I worked hard, and studied late! Ten years later I was making far
above average income in my own business as a magazine advertising
publishers' representative in Chicago.
In 1926 I was provoked into a study of the Bible for the
first time in my life. I had been reared by sincere and upright
parents in one of the respected Protestant denominations. But at
the time I entered the advertising profession, that completely
absorbed my time and interest. Church attendance was almost
completely dropped--religion seldom entered my mind.
Like most nominal church members, I never really knew
what doctrines this church believed, or how they differed from
other denominations. Of course I had always heard, and taken for
granted as true, such BASIC teachings as the immortality of the
soul; the "saved" going to heaven when they die; the unsaved into
an eternally burning, torturing hell; the crucifixion of Christ on
"Good Friday" and the resurrection on "Easter Sunday." I had of
course been taught from babyhood to observe Christmas, New Years,
Easter, and to go to church every Sunday.
But in 1926 my wife shocked and angered me by embracing
a teaching diametrically contrary to one of these basic tenets.
She claimed she had seen this new teaching in the Bible. I was
aroused. Anything different from the universally accepted beliefs
and practices seemed strange--fanatical! It seemed she had gone
crazy.
"What would my friends and business associates think?"
was my first thought. My pride was wounded. An iron wall of
angered prejudice welled up in my emotions. But I was unable to
talk or argue her out of it.
"Look!" I said, "Do you know more about the Bible than
all these churches? They get their beliefs out of the Bible!"
"I'll give this up on one condition," Mrs. Armstrong
replied. "If you can find, and show me, IN THE BIBLE, this
commonly accepted teaching, or any BIBLE AUTHORITY for believing
and following it, then I'll gladly go back to it."
I was confident all these basic beliefs, universally
accepted by professing Christians, came from the Bible. I was
determined to prove my wife wrong and rescue her from this new
"fanaticism."
For the first time, I really studied the Bible. But six
months of almost night and day searching brought a humiliating blow
to my vanity. The supposed "Christian" teaching was not to be
found in the Bible--but diametrically the opposite! I began to
question even the Bible--even the existence of God! I was
bewildered, mixed up, shaken. Now I had to know the TRUTH!
So I delved into science--evolution--laws of radio-