THE

INCREDIBLE HUMAN POTENTIAL
Chapter 1

by Herbert W. Armstrong
1978 edition

This is the eye-opening story of the real gospel message of Jesus Christ -- of how this missing dimension was withheld, and the whole world deceived.

It's positively astounding! It has remained undiscovered by science! No religion has revealed it! Higher education has never taught it! Is it possible the whole world has been deceived -- regarding the awesome purpose of human life -- about the WAY to world peace and how it will come? And could it be true that the real gospel message Christ brought from heaven revealed this missing dimension -- but was suppressed? This is the eye -- opening story of the real gospel message of Jesus Christ -- of how this missing dimension was withheld, and the whole world deceived.


Table of Contents

Chapter 1 ..... CHRIST'S GOSPEL WAS SUPPRESSED -- NOT HEARD FROM THE FIRST CENTURY UNTIL NOW
 Chapter 2 ..... THE STARTLING REVELATION OF WHAT WAS CHRIST'S GOSPEL
 Chapter 3 ..... THE INCREDIBLE HUMAN POTENTIAL AT LAST REVEALED
 Chapter 4 ..... PRE-EXISTENCE BEFORE THE MATERIAL UNIVERSE
 Chapter 5 ..... WHAT LED TO THE CREATION OF
 Chapter 6 ..... HOW GOD PLANNED TO REPRODUCE HIMSELF
 Chapter 7 ..... BRIDGING THE GAP BETWEEN HUMAN MAN AND THE ULTIMATE SPIRIT -- COMPOSED SONS OF GOD
 Chapter 8 ..... WHY TODAY'S WORLD EVILS?
Chapter 9 ..... WHY THE CHURCH?
Chapter 10 ..... JUST WHAT DO YOU MEAN -- CONVERSION?
Chapter 11 ..... HUMAN NATURE -- AND HOW A WHOLE WORLD IS DECEIVED ABOUT ITS ORIGIN
 Chapter 12 ..... IS THERE LIFE AFTER DEATH?
Chapter 13 ..... WORLD PEACE -- HOW IT WILL COME


 Chapter I

CHRIST'S GOSPEL WAS SUPPRESSED -- NOT HEARD FROM FIRST CENTURY UNTIL NOW!

PREPARE YOURSELF for the most shocking revelation of your life. Does it come as an astonishing shock to learn that the most important dimension in all knowledge was sent from God to this earth by Jesus Christ -- but that message was suppressed in the very first century? That Jesus Himself was put to death for revealing it? That His apostles, with one possible exception, were also martyred for proclaiming it?

Yet this message from the living God, if humanity had received and heeded it, would have saved this world from nearly all of its troubles, sufferings and evils.

The very word "gospel" means "good news." That message, when fully understood, reveals a human potential so stupendous -- so awesome -- it appears at first to be totally beyond belief, yet it has been suppressed from the world until now.

That message reveals the most necessary facts about humanity: what man is, the purpose for which mankind was put on earth, where we are going, what is the way to world peace, happiness and universal prosperity, what are the true values, what is the awesome human potential, and how it may be achieved.

Answers to these questions form the most important knowledge ever made accessible to man. Yet it was spurned and rejected, and soon suppressed.

Christ's gospel message, when fully grasped, reveals what science has been utterly unable to discover. It reveals what religion in this world knows nothing of. It reveals what this world's higher education has never known or taught.

It reveals the most wonderful TRUTH a human mind could ever come to know! It reveals the missing dimension in knowledge, the knowledge most vitally necessary to know.

It was the most monumental good news ever revealed by our Maker to mankind! Why would men have wanted to reject it -- put to death the messenger who brought it?

Yes, why?

The answer is that men were DECEIVED. And all nations are deceived today!

The purpose of this book is to reveal HOW men were deceived and to make plain WHAT that good news really was. And is.

Nevertheless, it was suppressed. And that all-important revelation from the living God was not again proclaimed to the world until our present generation.

Even today, most of humanity has never heard the glorious true gospel. And those millions who do hear it have been so drugged and stupefied by false religions and counterfeit "gospels" that they only become confused. The TRUTH, indeed, is stranger than any fiction! Prepare yourself to read astounding truth -- hard to believe, yet TRUE!

The Arch-Deceiver!

It is not intellectually fashionable today to believe in the actual existence of a devil, but biblical revelation says differently.

Biblical prophecies say plainly that in our time, today, the WHOLE WORLD would be deceived. Notice one such prophecy in the book of Revelation, chapter 12, verse 9: "And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world."

This Satan is revealed as the arch-deceiver who has deceived the whole world. But how did he manage to deceive the human race?

In the third chapter of Genesis he is shown as the deceiver of mother Eve. Through her, he caused the first man, Adam, to commit the first sin by a human.

When Jesus was born in Bethlehem, Satan was still here on earth as the god of this world (II Cor. 4:4). He is also the "prince of the power of the air" today (Eph. 2:2), holding sway over the whole of mankind.

Christ's message revealed the advance news of the total abolition of Satan's power over the world and his banishment from the earth. It revealed that Christ was coming as his successor to take over the RULE of all nations. In Satan's mind, it was necessary for him to go all out to prevent that message from going to the world.

But how could he do it?

First, he moved to destroy the Christ child and thus prevent His growing up to proclaim that message. He influenced King Herod, the Roman provincial ruler over the land of Israel, and Herod caused all infants in Bethlehem and surrounding areas two years old or under to be put to death. But God warned Joseph and Mary about this, moving them to flee to Egypt with the infant Jesus until Herod was dead.

Again, when Jesus was about thirty years old, Satan sought to destroy Him spiritually before He qualified to preach a word of His message. But the supreme temptation with which Satan planned to ensnare Jesus became the very test which qualified Christ to depose Satan and to become ruler over all nations. Jesus thus qualified to restore the government of God on the earth and to set up the Kingdom of God. However, it was not in God's master plan for Christ to be inducted into that office until the end of mankind's first 6,000 years on earth.

Nevertheless, Jesus proceeded with the mission for which He had come to earth at that time. He proclaimed His message and taught it to His disciples.

Satan, however, still was the invisible power that swayed the world. Even though many of the Jews to whom Jesus preached believed on Him as the promised Messiah, they were swayed against believing His message -- His gospel.

How did, and does, Satan deceive, move, and sway humanity? The amazing answer will be given later.

Christ's Gospel Rejected

Notice why and how the rejection of Christ's gospel happened.

In the eighth chapter of John, verses 30 through 46, you will read: "As he spake these words, many believed on him. Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word [His message], then are ye my disciples indeed; ... but ye seek to kill me, because my word [His gospel message] hath no place in you.... But now ye seek to kill me, a man that hath told you the truth, which I have heard of God ... for I proceeded forth and came from God; neither came I of myself, but he sent me.... And because I tell you the truth, ye believe me not.... And if I say the truth, why do ye not believe me?"

In due time, the Romans crucified Jesus. But He rose from the dead and ascended into heaven. From there, He sent God's Holy Spirit for His disciples.

Christ's apostles went out, as He commissioned them, to proclaim His message to the world. God's Church was raised up (A.D. 31) to back the proclaiming of the message. The Church began to grow, then "caught fire," and multiplied.

But Satan connived to set up a powerful Gentile religious leader with a counterfeit religion -- the ancient Babylonian mystery religion. He hatched a counterfeit "gospel." He even appropriated the name of Christ, calling that religion "Christianity."

That, I know, is a breathtaking revelation, difficult today, 1900 years later, to believe. But nonetheless, it is true!

The Counterfeit "Gospel" Is Set Up

In Samaria, north of Jerusalem, lived a Gentile people whom the Jews of Christ's day spurned, calling them "dogs." They had been moved there from areas of the Babylonian Empire about 700 B.C. by various kings, including Shalmaneser of Assyria (II Kings 17:18, 21-24, etc.). They had brought with them into the land of Samaria their own Babylonian mystery religion. In the eighth chapter of Acts you'll read of their religious leader in the time of Christ, Simon Magus the Sorcerer.

Christ raised up the Church of God to stand back of the proclaiming of His gospel message by His apostles in A.D. 31. By A.D. 33, after a most amazing initial growth, a great persecution set in against God's Church (Acts 8:1). At that time, AD. 33, this Simon the Sorcerer was himself baptized along with multitudes of others. He then tried to buy an apostleship in God's Church from the apostles Peter and John -- but of course was refused and rebuked.

Thereupon this Simon appropriated the NAME of Christ, calling his Babylonian mystery religion "Christianity." Satan moved this man and used him as his instrument to persecute and all but destroy the true Church of God. Before the end of the first century -- probably by A.D. 70 -- he managed to suppress the message Christ had brought from God.

There ensued "the lost century" in the history of the true Church of God. There was a well-organized conspiracy to blot out all record of Church history during that period. A hundred years later, history reveals a "Christianity" utterly unlike the Church Christ founded.

It had taken the NAME of Christ and applied it to the Babylonian mystery religion. It had replaced the MESSAGE Jesus brought from God with a "gospel" about the person of Christ -- proclaiming the Messenger but suppressing the entire missing dimension from His message.

And for at least eighteen and one-half centuries the true gospel was not proclaimed to the world.

"Another Gospel" Gains Acceptance

By about A.D. 58, when the apostle Paul wrote his letter to the Galatians, many already were turning to this now new counterfeit "gospel."

Paul wrote: "I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel: which is not another [it was not good news]; but there be some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ" (Gal. 1:6-7).

To the Thessalonians, about A.D. 54, Paul wrote, "For the mystery of iniquity doth already work ..." (II Thes. 2:7). It was the Babylonian mystery religion, started by Simon the Sorcerer (Acts 8), a religion of iniquity -- lawlessness -- a religion rejecting the law of God. Much more of this later.

The True and the False Church

In the book of Revelation are pictured two churches, each of which go under the NAME of Christ. One, pictured in the twelfth chapter, portrays the true Church of God, small in number, reduced through persecution and martyrdom, but obedient to God's law, and hated by Satan. The other, in the seventeenth chapter, called "Mystery, Babylon the Great, the Mother of Harlots and Abominations of the Earth" (verse 5). In other words, the Babylonian mystery religion steeped in "iniquity" -- abolishing God's law.

During the time of Paul's ministry, these same Simon Magus ministers were troubling the Corinthians. Paul wrote to the Corinthians: "I am jealous over you with godly jealousy: for I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ [the true Church, in the resurrection, is to be married to Christ, spiritually]. But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ. For if he [a minister of Simon Magus] that cometh preacheth another Jesus, whom we have not preached, or if ye receive another spirit [of rebellion and disobedience] which ye have not received, or another gospel ..." (II Cor. 11:2-4). (More, later, about the connection with the deception of the first woman, Eve.)

But notice, they were proclaiming another Jesus -- as well as another gospel -- and they followed another spirit -- of rebellion and not obedience. That deception has continued through the centuries and is the state today. They took the name of Christ. They called their Babylonian religion "Christianity." But they not only presented a counterfeit gospel but a counterfeit spirit of self-centeredness and a counterfeit Jesus, completely different to the Jesus of the Bible.

Of these false ministers, Paul wrote further to the Corinthians: "For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness ..." (II Cor. 11:13-15).

Peter, John and Jude Expose False Ministers

Peter wrote of these deceivers: "But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies.... And many shall follow their pernicious ways; by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of. And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you ..." (II Peter 2:1-3).

John wrote of these same perverters of the true gospel, denying obedience to the way of God. "He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him" (I John 2:4). "They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us ..." (I John 2:19).

Jude warned us that we should "earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints. For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness [license to disobey] .... Likewise also these filthy dreamers defile the flesh, despise dominion [government], and speak evil of dignities.... Woe unto them! for they have gone in the way of Cain, and ran greedily after the error of Balaam for reward, and perished in the gainsaying of Core. These are spots in your feasts of charity... clouds they are without water, carried about of winds... twice dead, plucked up by the roots; raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame; wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever" (Jude 3-4, 8, 11-13).

The Word "Gospel" Misleading Today

Even the very word "gospel" is misleading today, especially as used by evangelical Protestants, their missionaries, their evangelists and their literature. The world has been, and is, full of "gospel programs" on television, on radio, in print, in personal evangelism.

Say to almost any person, "The gospel has not been proclaimed to the world for eighteen and one-half centuries," and he will think you are crazy, because it is the counterfeit "gospel" that has been vociferously proclaimed. But it is a "gospel" about the person of the messenger, while IGNORING His message.

That gospel is based on the assumption that this is the time, and the ONLY time, when God is trying to "get the whole world saved." But those preaching such a message do not know even what salvation is, or how it is obtained.

How could the whole world be deceived? What did Christ's gospel MESSAGE contain that a powerful, invisible devil was so determined to suppress and to counterfeit?

Expect some sensational surprises!