Herbert W Armstrong

   As founder and Editor-in-Chief of The PLAIN TRUTH, I try to write a personal letter to our subscribers about twice a year.

   Let me give you the world news BIG headlines of the moment, and tell you WHAT THEY MEAN, as revealed in biblical prophecy:

   THREAT OF IMMINENT NUCLEAR WORLD WAR!

   WORLDWIDE VIOLENCE MOUNTS RAPIDLY!

   HIGHEST UNEMPLOYMENT SINCE GREAT DEPRESSION!

   SUPERNATURAL INTERVENTION BY GOD ALMIGHTY WITH WORLD PEACE ALSO IMMINENT!

   Those are the headlines of the hour, in summation. Now the details and REAL MEANING!

   These things vitally CONCERN YOU and YOURS! — no matter who you are or where.

   News embodied in those first three headlines fill your newspapers and newscasts. They are all BAD NEWS. The GOOD NEWS is in the fourth headline above, reported in The PLAIN TRUTH!

   The next issue of The PLAIN TRUTH will carry an eye-opening article on the imminency of nuclear World War III. The very nearness of this frightful UNTHINKABLE world holocaust only signals also the imminency of WORLD PEACE AT LAST — a totally new and happy WORLD TOMORROW.

   ONLY The PLAIN TRUTH keeps you informed on what it means, and what is the absolutely SURE prophesied outcome.

   Let me give you a brief preview of the world YOU live in today, and what the next very few years are going to bring into YOUR life and mine.

   For the first time in human existence the weapons of mass destruction are developed and stockpiled that can ERASE every man, woman and child on earth.

   This coming cover article in The PLAIN TRUTH will give you a description of what just ONE hydrogen bomb would do to one great city. In a fraction of a second, gamma radiation would kill everything within six miles. In 10 seconds the fireball would consume everything within 280 square miles. The following blast wave would flatten remaining structures within four and a half miles. Radiation fallout would render drinking water unfit in streams and lakes. In a word, civilization as we know it would disappear over areas covered. Imagine one such H-bomb dropping on each of the following cities: New York, Washington, D.C., Boston, Miami, Chicago, Philadelphia, Houston, Dallas-Fort Worth, Kansas City, Denver, Phoenix, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland, Seattle. The United States would be DEVASTATED!

   Bible prophecies say it will happen! Listen: Most religious leaders do not understand these prophecies. Speaking of OUR PEOPLES — the United States, Britain, Canada, Australia, "In all your dwellingplaces the cities shall be laid waste" (Ezekiel 6:6). "And the cities that are inhabited shall be laid waste, and the land shall be desolate; and ye shall know that I am the Eternal" (Ezekiel 12:20) — and the latter part of that verse speaks of a time immediately prior to the second coming of Christ.

   Jesus spoke of this same time, as recorded in Matthew 24, Mark 13 and Luke 21. "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 [alive]: but for the elect's sake those days shall be shortened" (Matthew 24:21-22).

   Not only will that unthinkable time be cut short, there is a promise to God's own people — his Church — "Because thou hast kept the word of my patience, I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world, to try [the Great Tribulation] them that dwell upon the earth" (Revelation 3:10). Also (Revelation 12:14), "And to the woman [God's true Church] were given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness, into her place, where she is nourished for a time, and times, and half a time [3 l/2 years] from the face of the serpent" [Satan the devil].

   Also the promise: "A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee" (Psalm 91:7).

   We are living in the most tremendous days of world history — the very END TIME, the END of this present evil, unhappy, violent world — just prior to the second coming of Jesus Christ in supreme almighty POWER and GREAT GLORY, as KING of kings to take over RULE OVER ALL NATIONS in a new ONE-WORLD GOVERNMENT establishing PEACE, righteous living, with eternal salvation offered to ALL!

   God inspired a prophecy in Malachi 3:1-5, saying he would send a human messenger to prepare the way before Christ's coming: Verses 3 to 5 show the prophecy speaks of one preparing the way before his SECOND coming — our time now — although the four gospel books in the New Testament speak of John the Baptist as being in the power and spirit of Elijah, preparing the way before Jesus' FIRST coming. But God uses the DUALITY principle throughout the Bible. John the Baptist was the type, or forerunner, of the one preparing the way before Christ's SECOND coming. As John was a voice crying out in the PHYSICAL wilderness of the Jordan River, preparing the way for the HUMAN Jesus to come to his MATERIAL temple in Jerusalem, to his PHYSICAL human people Judah, with the gospel message about the FUTURE Kingdom of God, SO Malachi 3:1-5 and 4:5-6 foretell one in the power and spirit of Elijah to come in OUR TIME, NOW — a voice crying out in the SPIRITUAL wilderness of modern religious confusion, preparing the way for the DIVINE Christ to come to his SPIRITUAL TEMPLE (his Church [Ephesians 2:21]) to ESTABLISH the KINGDOM OF GOD as a ONE-WORLD GOVERNMENT ushering in the happy, peaceful WORLD TOMORROW!

   The PLAIN TRUTH is one of the main spearheads of this Work shouting forth that final MESSAGE to a dying world, just before the END of this violent and evil world, the coming of CHRIST, the expulsion of Satan the devil, and a world of PEACE and VIGOROUS HAPPY ACCOMPLISHMENT!

   The great Creator GOD raised up this Work, now powerful worldwide, in 1933 — now in its 50th year. He showed me, in 1927 — 55 years ago, that GOD'S way of life is GIVING — not GETTING. God's way is that of outflowing LOVE — giving, serving, cooperating. This world has always lived the way of GET — coveting, competition and strife with violence and war. I personally began living the way of "GIVE" 55 years ago. The PLAIN TRUTH and the entire Work behind it has been built on that PRINCIPLE. I found others also saw the RIGHTNESS and practicality of that way. Jesus said, "IT is more blessed to GIVE than to receive." Not many in the world believe that.

   A very few, 19 in number, started out on that way with me in August, 1933. Their unselfish GIVING, with me, started The PLAIN TRUTH and this Work. The first issue of The PLAIN TRUTH, February, 1934, was only 350 copies. Today the PLAIN TRUTH circulation is over 4,500,000 copies, with prospects of passing five million by this year's end. It started WITHOUT SUBSCRIPTION PRICE REVENUE or advertising. We sell nothing. We never solicit the public for money or contributions. The number who chipped in and GAVE with me was very small in 1933-34. But it grew very gradually, and those who have joined me in giving, that we may give, have found GOD BLESSES AND PROSPERS THE GIVER. God himself is the greatest GIVER of all. He GAVE his Son Jesus. HE GIVES eternal life to those who turn to HIS WAY OF LIFE. He blesses the giver.

   Now finally, I want to offer to you who did not receive my last semiannual letter, and also to those who neglected to ask for it, an astounding book — an eye-opening, surprising, interesting book, telling you WHERE the United States and the British people are mentioned in the Bible, and what PROPHECY says about us specifically. Churches, theologians, evangelists never seemed to see this remarkable TRUTH so PLAINLY revealed throughout the Bible. It's a 250-page book, well illustrated in full color, titled The United States and Britain in Prophecy. It reveals specifically what prophecy says is in store for our English-speaking peoples in the coming few years.

   Also I offer now another full-color 112-page book, The Wonderful World Tomorrow — What It Will Be Like. Based on Bible prophecy, it pictures the world as it will be, soon, for the next thousand years.

   You have never read anything like either of these books. NO CHARGE! They are free to subscribers of The PLAIN TRUTH.

   THANK YOU SINCERELY for being one of our great family of PLAIN TRUTH subscribers.