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They Didtit BelieveWhat He Said
T
he more I travel around the
earth, the more I see the
sickening conditions in the world
today, and the more I glean from
his tory, the more conv inced I become
that the real root
cause
of a l! of
huma nity's troubles and evils may be
summed
up
in six words: " They didn' t
be lieve what he said." And they still
don 't believe what he says today!
S uppose you had sudde nly come into
consciousness- j ust now having been suddenly
created the first human being. Your Maker
is s itt ing beside you, revealing to you
vi tal
knowledge
so d irely necessary for you to
know.
He tells you that he has made you and the
wife he has created beside you so that you can
reproduce your kind. l n due time you will
populatc the earth with mi llions of your offspring.
He reveals to you that he has provided for you
a
WAY
OF LJFE
that will
CAUSE
a nd produce
PEACE
bctween individuals, groups and nations
that shall ar ise. T his way of life is an inexorable
spiritual law as automatic and relentless in
continua) action as the law of gravity, which he
demonstrates to you.
lt
is the basic law of his
government by which he rules the vast universe
he has created.
It
is the law of love.
lt
will
produce peace, happiness, joy, abundance,
universal prosperity, and if you and you r children
choose it as your way o f life, he will give you
also the gift of eterna! life, which he has not yet
given you.
This way of life is symbolized by a tree in t he
midst of the beautiful garden where he has
placed you, called the "tree of life." But also, in
case you decide to reason out you r own way of
life- taki ng to yourself the decision and
knowledge of what is good and what is evil, then
Aprll 1983
there is a second very special symbolic tree that
also prod uces fruit. The tree is the "tree of the
knowledge of good and evi l. " But your Maker
FORBIDS
you to take of this tree, which means
disobedience to his law, and if you c hoose to
disobey and take of that tree, you shall die, since
t he penal ty of
SIN
( the transgression of his
LA
w)
ÍS DEATH.
Would you
BELI EVE
what your M aker said?
Would you?
Adam and Eve didn't.
God their Creator had given them his way of
life. l f they rejected it , turning to their own way,
it would bring sorrow, curses, unhappiness,
suffering- and death!
But Satan, in the symbolic form of a serpent,
carne along and said God lied. They would not
surely die. They were immortal souls. He
reminded them of the superior human minds they
had. They could work out their own way of
life- and after all, could t hey be lieve God ? They
only had his word for it.
They must have said, " Yes, t hat 's right! After
a ll , how can we be sure? All we have is God's
word for it. We'd better
make an experiment,
and be sure! Let's put it to the test. Let's
take
to ourselves
t he decision- the knowledge of what
is good and what is evil."
They made the first scientific experiment. Even
today, the scientific method rejects revelation as a
source of knowledge and understanding.
Adam and Eve rejected d ivine revelation, as
does modern science today. They d idn' t believe
what their C reator said! And it was "when the
woma n saw [observation] t hat the tree [of the
forbidden frui t] was good for food , and that it
was pleasant to the
~eyes,
and a tree to be desired
to make one wise [human reason], she took of
the fru it thereof [she made t he experiment], and
did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her;
and he did eat" (Gen. 3:6).
Sorne 4,000 years later, God sent J esus Christ,
his Son, into the world
(Continued on page 40)