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WORLDWIDE CHURCH OF GOD
PASADENA, CALIFORNIA 91123
HERBERT W. ARMSTRONG
PRESIDENT and PASTOR
December 16, 1984
Dear Brethren and Co-Workers with Christ:
It is Sunday morning. I was especially impressed by two TV programs this
morning. One showed a television evangelist in a camp of emaciated, starving and
dying children and adults in Ethiopia. The evangelist and a doctor were working
over dying people. Victims were dying almost by the minute. Many were without
any clothing. The doctor was telling of the need for blankets to spread over the
starving people. It was a sickening, revolting scene, almost turning the
viewers'
stomachs inside out. The purpose was an emotional appeal for donations.
The other TV program also began with pictures of starving children,
living
in many parts of Asia and Africa, illiterate, living in abject poverty, filth
and
squalor. But then the program switched to the rich countries, civilized,
educated,
with large middle classes. But there it showed spiritual sickness, starvation
and
depravity, victims of excess alcohol, drugs, illicit sex and rampant crime and
violence. It explained the CAUSE of all this physical and moral and spiritual
sickness and the universal unhappiness and hopelessness in SATAN'S world.
It was all caused by THE WAY humanity has been living these 6,000 years
since Adam's creation.
The program first mentioned above sought to deal with the effect. Just
physically feeding the illiterate, poor and hungry does not eliminate the
wretched
condition, but rather perpetuates it. As Jesus said, the poor you always have
with
you. And always will if we do not correct the CAUSE of the evil.
It all started 6,000 years ago with the first created human. Adam chose
the
tree of taking to himself the knowledge of good and evil. There is good as well
as
evil in Satan's world. But the good is only on the human, selfish level. Mother
love
for her child is GOOD--yet it is selfish, for she does not love other children
as
her own. Adam rejected reliance on God, and chose reliance on human self.
Human self is always selfish, and under Satan's influence has led to EVIL--evil
in
poverty and starvation--evils in spiritual relations of people with people. Man
cannot discern true good from evil.
All this world's evil begins when human life begins--with CHILDREN.
Influences of the world around them, plus the invisible sway of Satan, causes
varying degrees of selfishness and evil to develop as children grow into adults.