and now . . .
OUR OWN NEW COLLEGE!
(Excerpts from the January-February 1947 Plain Truth Magazine)
The time has come when we must lay definite PLANS for carrying the true Gospel of the Kingdom of God into all nations, in many languages! Never, until now, could we foresee just how this was to be done. But the time has come. God has given the answer and moved miraculously to open the way before us!
The only answer was a COLLEGE of our own!
Yet, the active ministry is different from every other profession in one very important respect. No man ever should enter it of his own volition -- by his own choice or selection by MEN. A true minister of Jesus Christ must be specially called of GOD. And how can we know whether one is really called? Experience has shown human nature to be such that most who think they are called are mistaken, and those who really are called invariably try to run from the calling! Jesus gave us the only test -- "By their fruits," He said, "ye shall KNOW."
But "the fruits" are worked out by experience, and that requires time. For this very reason our college cannot be a ministerial college -- though it is being designed so that, should we be fortunate enough to find one out of twenty really and truly called to the ministry, that one will have been prepared and properly trained.
But our commission also is to "feed the flock" -- to teach Christian young men and women how to live! And true Christian living is, in a sense few have ever realized, a matter of EDUCATION! Where, when one knows the facts of this world’s education, is such a young man and young woman to acquire a right education?
These considerations led naturally to the policy of making AMBASSADOR a general liberal arts institution for ALL young men and women, regardless of future vocation, occupation or profession.
The PLAIN TRUTH About Modern Education
Now let us explain the real WHY of Ambassador College -- its purpose, goals, and policy -- its urgent NEED as a general educational institution.
God’s purpose in placing humans on earth, explained in the preceding number of the PLAIN TRUTH, is the creation of God’s supreme MASTERPIECE -- righteous, holy, spiritual characters! Redemption is merely the working out -- the completing -- of that creation.
God’s great design, then, is to mold, fashion, change us from what we have made of ourselves into the noble characters He purposes to make of us. To "convert" a soul is to change that person into something different altogether. The true Christian is a new creation, created in Christ Jesus in true righteousness and holiness unto good works (Eph. 2:10).
And while it is a spiritual matter, involving God’s Holy Spirit, this change takes place in the MIND -- and that faculty of mind we call "the heart." The first step is repentance, and repentance literally means "a change of MIND." The second step, acceptance of and faith in Jesus Christ as personal Savior, takes place also in the mind and heart. The third step is something God does -- placing within us the gift of His Holy Spirit. And the receiving of the Holy Spirit is the renewing of the MIND (Rom. 12:2; Eph. 4:23, etc.); and the Spirit of God is the Spirit of a sound mind (2 Tim. 1:7). Conversion is putting on "the new man, which is renewed in knowledge" (Col. 3:10). Only the "overcomers" shall be saved and overcoming is directed by the mind! True Christians must grow in grace and in Christ’s KNOWLEDGE (2 Pet. 3:18). True Christianity is spiritual MIND-edness!
Salvation IS Education!
In other words, though we perhaps never have thought of it in this light, real conversion is EDUCATION! Not the purely mental, materialistic, largely erroneous education of this world -- no, not that kind at all! -- but real TRUE education, which is the renewing and enlightening of the mind, the feeding of the soul, the development of self-discipline and CHARACTER in true spiritual values! That is true EDUCATION!
That is the type of education to be taught at AMBASSADOR COLLEGE! Truly, it is something different in a materialistic world that has forgotten GOD!
Man is the highest mortal being God has created on earth. The MIND is the highest part of man -- the faculty which, above all else, elevates man above dumb animals. Did not God intend our minds then, to be developed, trained, used to His honor and glory?
Can’t we see that none glorifies God by ignorance, by neglecting this most precious heritage God has entrusted to man -- the MIND? To fulfill God’s purpose in our existence, our minds need enlightening through the revelation of God’s Word; they need to be trained, developed, cultivated, used!
What’s WRONG with American Education!
Today we live in a confused, misguided, deceived, chaotic world. We find ourselves in a civilization started thousands of years ago by a God-rejecting man named Nimrod. Every phase of this babylonish civilization is established on principles diametrically contrary to the revealed principles and laws of God. This world is not happy. It’s filled with strife, fear, ignorance, deception, injustice, crime, poverty, suffering, anguish, woe and DEATH!
And this whole worldly civilization is BASED on a system of false education!
And surveys have shown that even though 95% of freshmen entering college still believe there is a God, by the time they have absorbed four years of this world’s "higher education" 95% of graduating seniors have become agnostics or atheists!
Modern education is almost wholly materialistic. It rejects the basic revelations of God. It gropes in the dark amid its vain speculations, in the hopeless search for the acquisition of knowledge that can come only through the very revelation it rejects! It wastes precious hours and years in the minute study of nonconsequential details and impractical theories, instead of teaching young men and women the BASIC KNOWLEDGE OF LIFE -- what life is, why we are here, where we are going, and how to live successfully, usefully, happily, joyfully! Its proponents look wise and dignified, and speak learnedly of unimportant nothings. And they fill students’ minds with much chaff, while their souls starve for the TRUE educational food!
Yes, something’s WRONG with this world’s education, as well as with its religion, its politics, its economics, and its society! And wrong education is a basic cause of ALL the world’s wrongs today!
How it All Started
Where, when, and how did the present educational system start? How has it developed?
It all started at the very beginning. Let’s trace it, just briefly.
Our first parents rejected the revealed KNOWLEDGE of God. To Adam and Eve God revealed certain definite facts, principles, laws. This knowledge they rejected. They spurned and disobeyed God’s laws -- four of the Ten Commandments were broken in the "original sin." They departed from God’s revealed way of life.
Down through the centuries man has continued to reject God’s revealed KNOWLEDGE. Contrary to God’s ways, mankind soon was organized into competitive units of society, started by Nimrod at Babel, Nineveh, and the original city-states.
Ancient nations developed -- all straying from the revealed knowledge, the laws, and ways of God. Groping in the dark, seeking to learn about "the UNKNOWN," the ancients speculated their way into the pagan philosophies that have come on down to us -- the very philosophies which form the BASIS of modern education -- the teachings of Aristotle, Socrates, Plato, Epictetus, Virgil, and finally in the middle ages, Dante Alighieri.
And today modern education still gropes in the darkness of "the UNKNOWN!" Rejecting the true God and His basic revelation, the world worships a false messiah it calls SCIENCE. Science may be defined as "organized knowledge." But there has been so much knowledge that was missing! So much of "the UNKNOWN!" And so science has become largely an attempt, through observation, measurement, and REASON, to add by the natural processes and methods and speculations of man, to man's fund of basic knowledge.
Seeking to Know "the UNKNOWN"
You’ll grasp the whole picture of modern science and modern education better, as it is so aptly illustrated by the exclamations of a man highly educated in this world’s universities. The subject of religion, as related to the college curriculum, came up.
"Religion?" the learned doctor exclaimed. "Yes, religion should be on the college curriculum. It’s purely a speculative philosophy, of course -- purely a speculative philosophy. Who can KNOW? -- who can KNOW? We can know nothing of God -- nothing of the hereafter. Yet every student should look into these matters for himself -- he should think about them -- he should speculate, and form a philosophy of his own that is satisfactory and acceptable to him."
"Science" is delving into the UNKNOWN, groping around in the dark with the wrong methods and tools, seeking to KNOW "the UNKNOWN."
As this general system of pagan philosophy came down through the centuries to us it was realized there was a serious "missing link" in the chain of man-devised "knowledge." How was CREATION to be accounted for without a CREATOR? The world’s science, education and philosophy was leaving GOD out of the picture. And CREATION is the PROOF -- the very EVIDENCE of the existence of GOD!
This led eventually to a man-devised theory which has become today the BASIC CONCEPT upon which the entire structure of modern science, philosophy, and education is founded -- the theory of EVOLUTION! But "Science" the false messiah finds itself in the ridiculous and embarrassing dilemma of still having to search for a "missing link."
What Evolution Really Is
Evolution, in plain language, is the atheist’s explanation of creation without a Creator! Many attempts have been made, especially in religious colleges, to accept the popular doctrine of evolution and at the same time profess a belief in the Bible, by a futile effort to harmonize the two. Some therefore profess a belief in what they call "theistic evolution." But this requires a distortion and alteration of the plain revelations of the Bible, as well as a certain compromise with pure "evolution." The real fathers of evolution were atheists, every one. The real thorough-going dyed-in-the-wool evolutionists admit frankly it is impossible to believe in both evolution and the Bible.
"Evolution," says one frank exponent, "throws the Bible out of doors." "Evolution," says another, "makes it impossible to believe in God."
Then, too, the popular acceptance of this theory has led to the "modernist" school of religionists and churchmen. These reject the Bible as the inspired Word of a personal God. They reject, with "scientists," all Biblical miracles, such as the flood, a special creation in six days, the virgin birth, the resurrection, the ascension. They accept some of the teachings of Jesus, while dismissing other parts of His teachings as idealistic but impractical platitudes. They, human men, take it upon themselves to decide what portions of the Bible they shall accept, and which portions to reject.
And so it is that "Science" gropes in the dark, produces speculations out of human imagination, and teaches as fact its adopted theories! And, in modern education, unless the student accepts the current fad in "scientific belief" he is ridiculed out of school! It’s a mark of intellectual distinction to believe in these accepted theories. And most students have too much intellectual pride in their human nature to want to be made a laughing-stock! So, like sheep the students fall in line and are inoculated with this educational POISON!
This, we know, is plain talk! But it’s also PLAIN TRUTH. And it shows the need for AMBASSADOR COLLEGE!
CAN We, Then, KNOW?
Now see where all this leads us! Here is bewildered, deceived, unhappy suffering humanity groping in the dark, seeking by human speculation to come to a knowledge of the UNKNOWN!
WHO can KNOW? Yes, who?
If there be a GOD, would He have left mankind so hopelessly in the dark? WHY must man be in the dark about such vital, basic knowledge as creation -- the very accounting for the presence of things that exist; of what life is, whence it came, why it is, where we are going, what is the purpose of our existence, what of the hereafter?
Almost no one, it seems, has been able to learn what the Holy BIBLE really is!
The Bible is GOD’S REVELATION TO MAN!
It is God’s means of communicating to man the BASIC KNOWLEDGE man needs! Through it as His vehicle of information, God reveals to man KNOWLEDGE of facts, of laws, of purposes, of events both past and future -- all of which man has no other way to know!
In it God reveals "the UNKNOWN!" BASIC knowledge man is unable otherwise to discover. Now, to illustrate: Man is able, of himself, to build laboratories, to experiment through test tubes. Man is able to invent and build telescopes and learn about the stars; microscopes and learn about infinitesimal particles of matter. Therefore God did not reveal in the Bible the laws of physics and chemistry, the distance of the sun, the moon, and various stars from the earth. God left it for Newton to discover and reveal to us the law of gravity. MANY things man is able to discover for himself. Those things God has left for man himself to find out.
But "the UNKNOWN," which man needs to know, God has revealed through the Bible as a foundation for knowledge. That is the BEGINNING! And from there God has left it for man to go on and explore, examine, observe, and measure -- and ADD to the basic store of knowledge with which God started him out! It is RIGHT for man to ADD all he can to this basic revealed knowledge. God gave us eyes to see with, ears to hear with, hands to work with, minds to think and to reason with.
Not All Worldly Knowledge is False
THINK what a wonderful fund of knowledge man might have had today, had he proceeded from the beginning as God intended!
We do not say everything taught in this world’s educational institutions is erroneous and false. On the contrary, MUCH of it is true, accurate knowledge. Insofar as scientific men have stuck to pure observation, measurement, laboratory tests and definite practical experiments, they have been most cautious, conscientious and accurate. It is where they have mixed human speculation of "the UNKNOWN" in with observed and known facts -- rejecting the revelation of God -- that they have gone into gross and ridiculous error.
Such exact sciences as mathematics, much of chemistry, astronomy, anatomy, physics, etc., are merely what man has been able to discover, and God has left him to learn for himself. These will be taught at Ambassador just as anywhere else. But in the realm of religion, philosophy, much of biology, geology, and kindred "sciences," so called, man has groped in the dark, rejecting true revelation.
The True BEGINNING of Knowledge
Therefore the BIBLE is the very FOUNDATION of TRUE KNOWLEDGE!
And so "The fear of The Eternal is the beginning of wisdom; a good understanding have all they that do His Commandments" (Ps. 111:10). And Jesus said, "Ye shall know the TRUTH, and the TRUTH shall make YOU FREE." Notice -- "Ye shall KNOW" -- knowing is KNOWLEDGE -- EDUCATION!
Ignorance, and a false education in error has enslaved the human race in poverty, fear, inequality, discontent, unhappiness, sickness, suffering and DEATH! It is only the TRUTH, that can now set men FREE!
And what is TRUTH? "Thy Word," Jesus said, "is TRUTH." The BIBLE is God’s Word! It reveals the way to WORLD PEACE. It leads men out of fear into FAITH; out of the bondage of sin into the freedom of GRACE; out of sickness into HEALTH; out of suffering and death into LIFE! It reveals the LAWS OF LIFE which alone can lead to peace, prosperity, happiness, joy and eternal life!
But this precious fund of KNOWLEDGE the wise of this world REJECT! God‘s laws and ways they flout and disobey!
Instead, the learned of this world have become so steeped in the fables of a God-rejecting materialism masquerading falsely under the attractive names of "rationalism," "modern science," "higher education," etc., that it has become impossible to UNlearn these deceptions and come to a knowledge of the TRUTH!
That’s why so many of the highly educated are agnostics or atheists!
That’s why so FEW of those educated in this world become converted, truly "born again," living truly spiritual Christian lives!
Today the TRUTH appears mere FOOLISHNESS to the highly educated of this world! "Howbeit . . . we speak not the wisdom of this world . . . but we speak the wisdom of God . . . which none of the princes of this world knew . . . For the wisdom of this world is FOOLISHNESS with GOD!" (I Cor. 2:6-7; 3:19).