Most of you “old timers” in the Church will remember that, back in the 1950s and 1960s, Mr. Herbert Armstrong taught us that true Christianity is an entire “way of life.” It is not just a belief in the Person of Jesus. It is also sincerely and consciously following Jesus’ instruction: “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God” (Luke 4:4). In principle—though not always in the letter—we should follow even the Old Testament instructions given in the “statutes” of God. For we know that, as magnified by Christ’s personal teachings and the entire New Testament, the entire Bible reveals the “mind of God.”
The Old Testament gives instruction about washing regularly, about burying human refuse under the ground so that it would not spread disease, about putting a railing around the flat roof of your house so that people would not fall off, about not eating animal fat and eating only the animals the Bible designates “clean.” All of this—and much more—is part of a way of life which acknowledges that “God knows best” even in the smallest details of life. Following carefully this entire way of life certainly does not “earn” salvation, but it demonstrates that we are truly trying to “live by every word of God.” As we grow in understanding, and in our humble yieldedness to God’s Word, this certainly helps us qualify for greater responsibility in the coming Kingdom of God. For God can see that we are earnestly putting into practice His way in our lives, and that we will therefore be far more yielded and experienced in implementing this “way” in the five or ten cities we may be put in charge of in Christ’s soon-coming world government (Luke 19:19; Revelation 2:26–27).
God’s inspired Word indicates that we are “fearfully and wonderfully made” (Psalm 139:14). It instructs us to “glorify God in your body” (1 Corinthians 6:20). So, if we really believe these and other clear scriptures, we should assume that every part of our body is put there for a purpose. We should assume that every organ of our body is there for a good reason and should not be cut out and thrown away without a very good reason!
As a corollary, we should carefully acquaint ourselves with the fact that the very top doctors and medical researchers now realize that many of the operations and procedures doctors have traditionally practiced are often completely unnecessary and sometimes even dangerous! For instance, in a recent New York Times article, Lisa Sanders, MD, relates her own apparent disillusionment with the almost worshipful approach that millions take toward medicine. Dr. Sanders describes that at the very beginning of her training in medical school, the dean said: “Half of what we teach you here is wrong, unfortunately, we don’t know which half!” (emphasis ours).
Dr. Sanders goes on to describe how drastic changes are sometimes made every five or ten years in treating certain conditions. The doctors themselves tell us that they are “practicing” medicine.
Does this mean that we should completely avoid doctors? Of course not! If you are hit by a truck, you had probably better get to a hospital and see a trained physician immediately! Medical doctors, dentists, osteopaths, chiropractors and other health professionals often render an invaluable service to their fellow man. They are often deeply sincere and dedicated men and women doing “the best they can” with their present knowledge and with the resources available to them. So this should be deeply appreciated!
On the other hand, if you read their own writings, you will find warning after warning about the dangers of using too many drugs, and about carelessness and even malpractice in certain hospitals. So this should help us think very carefully before submitting to any medical procedure. And it should encourage us to be conscientious in doing all we can to prevent sickness and injury to our bodies. I subscribe to a few health newsletters written by top health professionals. These letters all warn, in principle, that we should remember the old adage: “There is a cause for every effect!” These health care experts, many of them doctors, all encourage their readers to follow more carefully the laws of health and therefore not get sick in the first place! They are simply describing, from their professional perspective, the principle that we should glorify God in our bodies. This is a vital part of the “way of life” of a true Christian.
God tells us: “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it” (Proverbs 22:6). Our professing-Christian nations used to have millions of respectful and obedient youth. But, several decades ago, along came the “child psychologists.” As a whole, they were trained by God-rejecting, secular humanist professors who paid no attention whatever to the teachings of the Bible. Then came Dr. Benjamin Spock, and others like him, who gave us a totally different approach to teaching, training and disciplining our children. As many have observed, this led to an entire generation of selfish, undisciplined and unruly children who grew up with “Spock marks” all over them!
Within a decade or so after the Americans and the British began to allow these “educated fools” to tell us how to raise our children, the statistics for juvenile delinquency began to skyrocket, young people started turning to illegal drugs, and other social ills began to multiply. As they say: “You know the rest of the story.”
In the realm of marriage and family, God’s Word very clearly tells us: “Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is head of the wife, as also Christ is head of the church; and He is the Savior of the body. Therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her, that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word, that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish. So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies; he who loves his wife loves himself” (Ephesians 5:22–28).
But along came “feminism” and the modern “pick and choose” approach to the Bible—even adopted by many professing Christians. The leaders of these movements either totally reject the Bible as a genuine authority, or reinterpret even plain and clear scriptures to suit themselves. Because of the entirely wrong approach to marriage and family taken by most of today’s so-called experts, marriages in our western, professing “Christian” nations have been breaking up with increasing frequency, and young people by the millions just decide to “live together” without benefit of marriage!
Many of you have read—as I have—the horrifying results of people not following God’s teaching regarding marriage and the home. The real picture of life for the millions of miserable married couples—and those just cohabiting—is indeed very sad. Young people today have not been taught how to establish a stable and happy home. They have not been taught to totally commit themselves to each other, before God, to establish a home and family “till death do us part.” They have not been taught to give and give, and to forgive each other continually in the marriage relationship. So they become absolutely miserable, and live lives of untold agony and sorrow. Then their children—by the millions—become confused, disoriented and resentful because their parents “split.” In self-pity and anger, many of these children turn to drugs, to crime and often even to violence in their frustration. It is well documented that children from broken homes have a far higher rate of suicide. They simply try to “solve” the problem by killing themselves.
“The wages of sin is death,” says your Bible (Romans 6:23). Even physical death is often the result for those who break God’s laws of health, of marriage or of child rearing.
There is a cause for every effect. Even though we live in a confused and increasingly God-rejecting society, we as the Church of God need to get back to the right way of life taught and practiced by the early Christians.
In the late 1940s, and for many years afterward, Mr. Herbert W. Armstrong tried to recapture and impart this way of life to God’s people—and especially to the students of Ambassador College. In fact, he set the motto of Ambassador College as: “Recapture True Values.” Through much study, prayer and God’s guidance, he tried to teach the early Ambassador College students how to properly date and conduct a truly Christian courtship, how to love and serve our mate in marriage and how to “train up a child in the way he should go” (Proverbs 22:6).
Of course, we were not “perfect” by any means. We were all learning as we went along. But to the degree that we followed this way of life, our marriages were blessed, we were in better health, and our families as a whole were in better shape than most families in the society around us. Even the neighbors often remarked about how the Ambassador students “radiated” an inner joy and expressed unusual kindness and courtesy.
In fact, in the early years of Ambassador College, not a single divorce occurred! And when the first one happened, many of us were in shock because we had never experienced such a thing in our midst. Also, significantly, to the best of my knowledge even after investigating and checking up for years, I know of not one single rape perpetrated by a student attending Ambassador College—even though, over time, thousands of young people attended.
We were also taught: “Get your happiness from your work!” We were constantly encouraged to live lives of productivity and accomplishment. We were often reminded of Ecclesiastes 9:10: “Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might; for there is no work or device or knowledge or wisdom in the grave where you are going.”
Mr. Armstrong regularly exhorted us to set high standards and seek for genuine quality in things we read, the music we listened to, the food we ate and the way we treated one another. We were taught that God always does things “right” and that we should seek for the proper type of culture and quality in every area of life.
So I would like to encourage all of you brethren—young and old alike—to think again about the “way of life” of a true Christian. Like Mr. Armstrong, we will not be able to perfectly restore every phase and facet of this way in the Living Church of God. But we can try. We can make substantial progress if we zealously seek to honor God in all these ways—and if we start now, today!
When our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ returns to this earth, we will joyfully experience “the times of the restoration of all things, which God has spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the world began” (Acts 3:21). The fullness of this way of life will permeate the entire world under Christ’s rulership. But as “pioneers”—as participants in the first resurrection with the wonderful opportunity to teach this “way”—we need to learn and to practice this way in our lives now. May God guide and inspire all of us to do just that.