The Bible Story Vol 2_w.pdf - Herbert W. Armstrong

the newborn infan t knows nothing at bir th. Humans must learn and be
ta ught . Born in a predominatel y pagan ized world, the infant is ta ught
from birt h in the customs and ways of society. It would never occur to
him to question them. T hey are simply absorbed-taken for gra ntedaccepted.
In school the child is not graded on ability to pr ove whet her the
teaching is true or false . He is graded on willingness to accept without
question, memo rize and absorb whatever is taught. Educators have, as
Pau l wrote, been reluctant to retain God in the knowledge they disseminate
(Romans 1:28).
Today's children are born into a confused, mixed-up, divided religious
baby lon. T he hundreds of organized religious de nominations and
sects cannot agree on what the Gospel is; on who or what God is; on
whether Christ was human , divine, or both; whether there is a devil; what
salvation is; what or where the reward of the "saved" shall be; or how one
may obtain it. Each one seems to ta ke for granted whatever brand of
religious belief has been ta ught him from childhood .
It is ten ti mes more difficult to unl earn erro r than to learn T RU T H .
Th is, then, is th e dilemm a that challenged me: children, st ill today, are
being reared in th e same old secular pagan ph ilosophies and customs,
with the addition of the so-called scientific ap proac h that has arri ved
with th e accepta nce of the theory of evolutio n. This atheists' attempt to
explain th e presence of a creation with out the existe nce of a Creato r has
become th e basic concept by which all causes , origins and purposes are
explained. By the tim e these inn ocent children have been inoculated with
this ant i-God poison and reached maturity, most of them have too much
to UNlearn before their minds can accept origina l truth. An inbo rn pr eju ­
dice has been set up . And prejudice is an absolute barrier to the entrance
of TRUTH into the mind.
But what could I do about it?
Children need, as they need life itself, an awareness of t he basic
TRUTHS of the Bible while th ey are growing up! If only we could get to
them the knowledge of God-of the Creator and His vast creation-of
His authority and rulership over the creation He brought into being and
now sustains-of the invisible yet inexorable spiritual laws He set in
motion to regulate relationships and produ ce happiness, peace and everything
good-of the knowledge that the Bible definition of sin is sim ply
the transgression of these laws operating for our good-of the basic
knowledge of God's purpose being worked out here below, an d of His plan
for working it out-of the biblical revelation of Christ and what He
means to us today-of the vita l connection of case histories, incidents,
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