One of the most prevalent errors espoused by traditional Christianity is that God is now trying to save the world. True, 1 Timothy 2:4 says God “will have all men to be saved.” But there is a time order to God’s plan of salvation. And today, God is definitely not trying to save humanity.

Those who think He is should stop to consider God’s “track record.” Think of the billions over the past 6,000 years who have lived and died never knowing Christ. Think of the billions whose lives have been tragically cut short by war, violence, disease epidemics, starvation and malnutrition. Think of the billions who have lived unfulfilled, unhappy lives.

If God is trying to save the world now, then He must be failing miserably. How could a just God allow so many to fall by the wayside, never having a chance for salvation? Yet, that is what mainstream religions would have you believe—that the billions who have died not knowing Christ will never have a chance for salvation.

That is simply not true.

In Galatians 1:4, the Apostle Paul refers to the age in which we live as “this present evil world.” The natural mind of man, Paul wrote in Romans 8:7, is hostile toward God. Elsewhere, Paul referred to Satan the devil as the “god of this world” (2 Corinthians 4:4). In Revelation 12:9, the Apostle John said that Satan has “deceived the whole world.” If God is struggling against Satan to save this world now, these many verses reveal God to be losing the battle.

God is not losing the battle against Satan—man is! But God is allowing it so that man might learn, by his own tragic experience, a lesson we will never forget.

The Two Trees

In his original created state, man was a perfect creation physically (Genesis 1:31), yet unfinished spiritually. God offered man His Holy Spirit, which, when combined with man’s human spirit, would have completed his spiritual creation (Romans 8:16; 1 Corinthians 2:9-11). But Adam rejected God’s Spirit when he followed his wife and partook of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

While most people are well familiar with the Genesis account of Adam and Eve, few have ever understood its true significance. It’s not about two fruit trees—it’s about two ways of life.

The tree of life represented living God’s way of life as led by His Holy Spirit. By obeying God’s commands, Adam could have partaken of the tree of life and received God’s Holy Spirit (Acts 5:32). This would have given Adam the power to think like God—to have a loving relationship with his Creator and with fellow man.

The tree of the knowledge of good and evil represented Satan’s way of life. In taking from this symbolic tree, Adam and his offspring willingly subjected themselves to the seductive and deceitful spirit of Satan (Ephesians 2:2).

More importantly, by taking from this wrong tree, Adam cut mankind off from having access to God and His Spirit. This is the path Adam chose. Genesis 3:22-24 explain the outcome of Adam’s rebellious decision: “And the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever …. So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.”

Eating from the tree of life would have given Adam eternal life. God was not offering eternal life to Adam through an actual fruit tree—He offered it by His Spirit, represented by the tree of life. Romans 8:10 even refers to God’s Spirit as life. This spirit-life comes only as a gift from God (Romans 6:23).

Adam rejected that incredible gift and instead ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil—the tree of human reasoning that leads to death. When Adam rejected God’s way of life, God pronounced a sentence on all of mankind in general.

The 6,000-Year Sentence

Herbert W. Armstrong described this “sentence” best in his book Mystery of the Ages. When Adam made his fateful decision, God said, in effect,

You have made the decision for yourself and the world that shall spring from you. You have rejected me as the basic source of knowledge—you have rejected power from me through my Spirit to live the righteous way—you have rebelled against my command and my government—you have chosen the “getting,” “taking” way of Satan. Therefore I sentence you and the world you shall beget to 6,000 years of being cut off from access to me and my Spirit—except for the exceedingly few I shall specially call. And that few shall be called for special service preparatory for the Kingdom of God. They shall be required to do what you have failed to do—reject, resist and overcome Satan and his ways, and follow the ways of my spiritual law. Go, therefore, Adam, and all your progeny that shall form the world, produce your own fund of knowledge. Decide for yourself what is good and what is evil. Produce your own educational systems and means of disseminating knowledge, as your god Satan shall mislead you. Form your own concepts of what is god, your own religions, your own governments, your own lifestyles and forms of society and civilization. In all this Satan will deceive your world with his attitude of self-centeredness—with vanity, lust and greed, jealousy and envy, competition and strife and violence and wars, rebellion against me and my law of love. After the world of your descendants has written the lesson in 6,000 years of human suffering, anguish, frustration, defeat and death—after the world that shall spring from you shall have been brought to confess the utter hopelessness of the way of life you have chosen—I will supernaturally intervene. By supernatural divine power I shall then take over the government of the whole world. With reeducation, I will produce a happy world of peace. And on repentance, I shall then offer eternal salvation to all. After a thousand years of that happy world to come, I will resurrect from death to mortal life all who have died uncalled during this present 6,000 years. Their judgment shall then come. And on repentance and faith, eternal life shall be offered them.During this 6,000 years, when I myself shall cut them off from me, they shall not be eternally judged. Only, as they sow during their lifetimes, they shall reap. But when I open eternal salvation to them, there shall be no Satan to hinder or deceive them—no Satan for them to overcome. Those few called during this first 6,000 years shall have to reject and resist Satan’s pulls and overcome. But those who overcome shall sit with me in my throne, and have power under me to rule all nations under my supreme rule.

Mr. Armstrong referred to this 6,000-year lesson man is recording by his own experience as aversion therapy. The dictionary defines aversion as “a strong feeling of dislike or repugnance.” God is bringing mankind to the point where we absolutely loathe and abhor this “present evil world.” He is allowing man to go his own way so that he might see the fruits of living according to his own rebellious ways.

Man’s Destination

God compares the evils of our present generation to the days of Noah. Genesis 6:5 says that every imagination of the thoughts of man “was only evil continually.”

The Bible prophesied of those same immoral conditions to be widespread in this end time: “But as the days of Noah were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be” (Matthew 24:37). In Noah’s day, the masses mocked God’s warnings until the floodwaters came and “took them all away” (verse 39).

In this end time, the majority of mankind will again ridicule God’s warning message. But that will not alter the prophesied outcome one iota: “For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be. And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect’s sake those days shall be shortened” (verses 21-22).

This will be the end result of man’s rebellion against God, which began in the Garden of Eden nearly 6,000 years ago. Once the Great Tribulation is upon us, mankind will have seen the results of his 6,000-year experiment. The fruits of going it alone, without God, will be painfully and obviously visible to all. This is what it will take for mankind to finally turn to God in humility and sincere repentance.

The lesson in aversion therapy will have served its purpose. Jesus will return to this Earth, remove Satan from his throne, and then rule all nations with God’s government of love. The few who were called out of Satan’s world in this age will have been prepared to personally assist Christ in God’s family government.

Then, finally, God will offer salvation to every human being who has ever lived.