Proclaim to the World the GOOD NEWS OF THE WORLD TOMORROW
BOX 111, Pasadena, California
Publishing: The PLAIN TRUTH a Magazine of UNDERSTANDING
November 29th, 1957
Dear Co-Workers with Christ:
As you probably know, once a year I send a letter to all our NEW radio listeners who are also readers of The PLAIN TRUTH — but who are NOT, at least as yet, Co-Workers. Again this year I thought you, too, might like to read this special annual letter — so here it is:
You may have wondered, as many others have, about this work — WHO sponsors and pays for the broadcasting and publishing — and the question so often asked: "WHAT DENOMINATION are we?"
And perhaps you've wondered WHY you never hear us ask for money over the air — WHY there is no subscription price to The PLAIN TRUTH — WHY all our booklets and important literature are FREE.
In past years, at this season, I have given our listeners and readers a condensed sketch of my own life and background — early business experience, how God struck me down and brought about my conversion, how I was put into His ministry, and the start and progress of this work. This year, however, this entire account is running serially in The PLAIN TRUTH, in considerable detail. If you are interested in knowing this background — how I was called, and how God put me in His work, and how it has developed from virtually NOTHING — one small once-a-week broadcast on a tiny station at a total cost of $2.50 per week — you may read the entire story in all its details in The PLAIN TRUTH.
But before I answer these questions, let me ask, WHAT IS THE REAL SIGNIFICANCE OF ALL THIS NEW DEVELOPMENT IN SPACE FLIGHT?
It means we'd better WAKE UP!!! — and FAST! It means we are now entering the SPACE AGE! We have passed from the Machine Age into the Atomic Age, and now into the Space Age, all within the past 12 years! It used to take a thousand years or more to pass from one "age" into another.
It means things are speeding up — faster and faster! The Russians have put a dog into SPACE. The United States has sent a model of an atomic war-head into outer space and brought it back, unharmed! The United States has fired an H-Bomb missile straight on the target 5,000 miles away — meaning the U.S. could fire an H-bomb from American or Canadian soil and DESTROY MOSCOW. And NOW THEY ARE TALKING ABOUT PUTTING MAN INTO SPACE — space-travel to the moon — to Mars, and other planets!
WHAT DOES "SPUTNIK" mean? It means Soviet prestige has soared — U.S. prestige has sunk! It means that in this scientific and technological age of SPACE the Russians have caught up with the U.S., and in some important phases, passed us! Today KNOWLEDGE is POWER! Scientific, technological knowledge! Today, RUSSIA graduates more than twice as many scientists and engineers per year as the U.S.!!
The TOP SECRET WEAPON of the U.S.S.R. is their UNIVERSITIES. We have thought of Russia as a great backward poverty-stricken, uneducated nation. And so it is, for its masses of people! But we have not realized that the Soviet has established great and tremendous universities. Some of these are schools for FOREIGN students. One whole great university in Moscow is for AMERICAN and other North American students! — teaching them the arts of PSYCHOLOGICAL WARFARE — propaganda — how to DEMORALIZE our people — the arts of sabotage, of revolution — training them to take over our government and run it the COMMUNIST WAY, AND WE HAVE NOT KNOWN THIS UNIVERSITY EXISTED! Two years ago, I located the man in Detroit, an original charter member of the Communist Party in the U.S. — now an active ANTI-Communist and loyal American — who had actually graduated from that university. He came to Hollywood, where he was my guest on The WORLD TOMORROW TV program, and told the nation the FACTS!
And now the Soviet, in universities of science and technology, is turning out SCIENTISTS and TECHNOLOGISTS for the RACE to CONQUER SPACE, more than twice as fast as all American colleges! Yes, KNOWLEDGE is POWER! And the Kremlin is speeding ahead, WHILE AMERICA HAS BEEN ASLEEP!
But, as you read in YOUR BIBLE — they have not retained GOD in their knowledge! Knowledge wrongly directed becomes a frightening DANGER! All this increase in knowledge is being bent toward DESTRUCTION. The U.S. is today FALLING BEHIND in this RACE to blast human life from off this planet!
WHAT DOES IT MEAN? I say, WAKE UP, AMERICA! It means the fast-approaching END of civilization! It means AMERICA will soon be WIPED OFF THE FACE OF THE EARTH — yes, YOU and your children — unless — GET THIS — UNLESS THERE IS A LIVING, ACTING, SUPERNATURAL GOD WHO WILL NOW INTERVENE IN WORLD AFFAIRS! World famous scientists know this — but refuse to recognize the existence of GOD, and proceed madly toward the EXTINCTION of mankind!
HERE'S WHAT IT MEANS! It means that we are, faster and faster, being hurtled into the swift-approaching END OF THIS WORLD! It means, as God Almighty reveals, that HE is now VERY SOON going to step in and STOP all this hellishness of man! It means Jesus Christ is soon going to return to earth VISIBLY — IN PERSON — to put down man's rebellion against God — to set up the SUPERNATURAL GOVERNMENT OF GOD on this earth!
IT MEANS THE GLORIOUS KINGDOM OF GOD is so near at hand, it is coming in our time! It means the days of WORLD PEACE — universal good health, prosperity, happiness and joy! It means the WORLD TOMORROW!
But now to answer the questions.
You'll read the detailed story in the autobiography now appearing in The PLAIN TRUTH — of how GOD ALMIGHTY did call me, and set me in HIS SERVICE, and opened the mighty doors of RADIO — world- wide — and television — and the printing press — to proclaim GOD'S LAST WARNING MESSAGE — Christ's OWN GOSPEL of the soon-coming END of this world, and the fast-approaching KINGDOM OF GOD.
And LISTEN! Read this TWICE! Realize this! NO ONE ELSE ON EARTH, EXCEPT THIS VERY WORK OF GOD, IS PROCLAIMING THIS TRUE GOSPEL OF CHRIST TO THE WHOLE WORLD, PRECISELY AS JESUS SAID IT WAS TO BE PROCLAIMED IN MAT 24:14 and MARK 13:10!!!
This is the most important activity on earth today!
It is NON-denominational! It is GOD'S OWN WORK — not ours! HOW IS IT FINANCED? Way back in the fall of 1933, God made it plain to me that if any denomination or organized church sponsored me or paid my salary, I would be muzzled — forced to preach as commanded by MEN, not the plain TRUTH of Christ's original Gospel, and the Word of God! Men ordered me to baptize contrary to the Bible instruction. Those men paid me my salary. I told them to keep their salary — that henceforth my wife and I would SERVE GOD, and look to GOD ALONE as Employer — trusting Him IN SHEER FAITH for all financial support.
We had no automobile. I hitch-hiked to get to meetings to preach. My wife climbed cherry-trees to pick cherries to help earn enough to keep our children from starving. BUT WE DID NOT DENY GOD'S WORD! I was offered a good salary to team up with a nationally known evangelist — provided I would quit preaching certain vital TRUTHS of the Bible, and preach what MEN wanted preached. I ordered the men who brought the proposition out of my home. I preached in a one-room country school house — walking all over the countryside inviting neighbors to attend.
Later that fall opportunity came to take over the "Morning Devotional" program for 15 minutes Monday thru Saturday on a little 100-watt radio station, KORE, in Eugene, Oregon. Listeners began to send in letters. The radio station manager called me to his office.
"You have a radio voice," he informed me, "and have evoked quite a public interest. Why don't you work out a half-hour program for every Sunday morning?" He agreed to sell me the time at bare cost of operating the station — $2.50 per program.
I wrote to friends. They pledged half of it — $1.25 per week. I took the rest of it on faith, and the program started the first Sunday in 1934 — and has never missed a week on the air since. I always paid Sunday morning in advance. Several times we did not have the money an hour before broadcast time — but always the GOD we trusted SENT IT within that hour, believe it or not! We found we could RELY ON GOD!
From that humble beginning, this work has grown steadily. February 1st, 1934, the first issue of The PLAIN TRUTH came out — printed on a borrowed mimeograph, stencils cut on a borrowed type- writer — total cost, only stencils, ink and paper and postage — total circulation, about 250 copies!
As the radio program grew, expanding onto more and more stations, the largest advertising agency on the Pacific Coast urged me to drop the ministry and accept a $100,000 per year salary for a 15-minute daily prophetic newscast sponsored by one of the large breakfast-food companies. My wife scolded me for even telling her of the incident! And the promise was that the salary would be boosted to $200,000 annually when the program attained a high rating.
We have made every personal sacrifice for this work. But it has grown, until today we purchase more watts of radio power per week than any program on earth, so far as I know — more than FOUR MILLION WATTS per week! The WORLD TOMORROW is now heard daily in every part of the United States. It is heard weekly all over Europe, the British Isles, South Africa, India, China, over a national Network in the Philippines, and is the DOMINANT religious program on TWO Australian national Networks — one the Big-City Network, reaching more than 85% of Australia's population. January 1st it is to start in South America.
Now, as always, this work is FINANCED by sheer FAITH IN GOD. We refuse to ask for money over the air. None of God's Gospel literature published by us is for sale — it's FREE, and no request for money with it. Now of course God does not rain down money thru the air. GOD WORKS THRU HUMAN AGENCIES in His Gospel work on earth. God's work is financed GOD'S OWN WAY — thru the TITHES and free-will OFFERINGS of His people on whose hearts He has laid it to HAVE A PART IN HIS WORK. We do not ask for money over the air or in our FREE literature. WE ASK GOD, IN BELIEVING PRAYER! God's whole LAW is the PRINCIPLE OF GIVING. We GIVE the precious GOSPEL God has revealed to us, FREELY. No one is ever solicited, directly or indirectly, unless and until offerings or tithes have been sent in, VOLUNTARILY, at least twice within six months — or unless the giver of a first offering states in the letter he or she wishes to be a regular Co-Worker with us, making regular contributions.
So many, never hearing any request for money on the broadcast, write in to ask, "Would you be offended if we sent a contribution?" Once a year I try to answer this question for all our PLAIN TRUTH readers, as I have answered it here. You have a right to know!
But finally, WHAT DOES THIS NEW WORLD WAR OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY MEAN? It means it's LATER than we think!! — and that now, more than ever, the MOST IMPORTANT ACTIVITY ON EARTH is this very WORK OF GOD of broadcasting, publishing, and preaching by personal evangelism, as our evangelists trained in Ambassador College NOW are starting to do — this LAST WARNING MESSAGE from GOD to a world SOON TO END! You, and your children, will not be living here in America 25 years from now!! Your only HOPE of protection from frightful catastrophies coming on the world is THE PROTECTION OF ALMIGHTY GOD! I call on you to give not only your heart — but your WHOLE LIFE — to Jesus Christ NOW before it's too late! I call on you to PRAY, and pray earnestly and continually, not only for yourself, your family and children — but also FOR THIS WORK OF GOD, which now must be MULTIPLIED IN POWER AND SCOPE IN THESE VERY LAST DAYS OF THIS WORLD!! I do NOT request or solicit financial help except from those who have voluntarily become regular Co-Workers — but to the question so many ask: "Would you be offended if we sent a contribution — or became a regular Co-Worker?" — WELL, DEAR FRIEND, LISTEN!! — wouldn't it be absurd to become offended because one more precious life wanted to BE A PART of the VERY WORK OF GOD — and to HELP warn this world — and to get CHRIST'S GOSPEL OUT TO A DYING WORLD? I'm sure it would be WELCOMED and BLESSED by the GOD whose work this is — and every single dollar in this work reaches HUNDREDS of precious lives with Christ's GOSPEL. Also, many HUNDREDS are being brought to Christ — their lives CHANGED — receiving God's Holy Spirit, by this great work every year! Not merely a profession or a routine acceptance of Christ! To receive Christ means to make an UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER TO GOD — to receive Christ as a LIVING SAVIOUR, who literally, IN SPIRIT, comes within you,and LIVES YOUR LIFE FOR YOU — as He lived! It means a totally CHANGED LIFE, living the BIBLE WAY — by EVERY WORD of the Bible in every thing you do. A hundred such converts are worth THOUSANDS of the ordinary kind!
Truly this has been from the start a WORK OF FAITH! Not merely in name, but in FACT! Of course our faith has been sorely and frequently TRIED! It seems it is ALWAYS tried in a very special way, at the Christmas season now once again approaching.
For years the month of December was our most difficult month of the year, in the struggle to meet the financial needs of this great work. It seems that at this season most people, apparently not realizing what they are doing, FORGET any gift for CHRIST and His work! It does seem strange and paradoxical, doesn't it? And yet people become SO ABSORBED in exchanging Christmas presents with their friends and relatives, they seem to overlook CHRIST entirely! They SUPPOSE they are celebrating CHRIST'S birthday, yet their presents are not for Christ — but for business customers, friends, and relatives!
Did you ever stop to think about that? At this season people seem to have a very GENEROUS spirit — for all except Him whose birthday they think they are celebrating! They spend lavishly for Christmas presents. Ask people WHY they do this, and they reply, "Why, to follow the example started by the wise men who gave their gifts to CHRIST!"
But does anyone ever stop to realize that those wise men did not exchange presents back and forth — they gave their gifts to CHRIST! And few people know that the wise men were not giving the Christ child birthday presents at all — for they presented their gifts actually weeks after His birthday! It was simply an eastern custom to present gifts to a KING when coming into His presence — and they knew Jesus was born to be A KING!
Why don't you write for our book of plain facts about CHRISTMAS? This booklet is rather shocking — but it's TRUE — you can check up on every statement in your Bible and at your public library.
And before closing, may I say sincerely, and from the heart, THANK YOU for the very great PRIVILEGE of being able to serve you, on the broadcast, or by the things that I, or colleagues on our staff, have written.
DO YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN? I've found it's TRUE — what Jesus said — "It's more blessed to GIVE, than to receive!" I feel, sincerely, it is a far greater privilege God has granted me, in being able to serve you, and to be His instrument, that thru my voice and pen (or type-writer) you may receive the precious truths of God, than the privileges He grants you in receiving. But, WE'RE BOTH BLESSED!
And may I add a word about the new booklet, "1975 IN PROPHECY" — a fast-moving, one-two-three SUMMARY of all the major prophecies in world events FROM NOW — in plain, simple language, in their precise order of time-sequence, exactly as YOU'RE GOING TO SEE THEM HAPPEN! And are you enrolled for the Ambassador College Bible CORRESPONDENCE COURSE? I think it's the most interesting, most valuable course of Bible study ever prepared. Thousands think so. If you're willing to devote not less than a half-hour every day to the study of YOUR BIBLE, then please write me and enroll by return mail. There is no charge — no tuition. Ask for further information about it if you prefer. I enclose a self-addressed envelope for your enrollment.
THANK YOU AGAIN, for your interest in the precious things of GOD!
Copyright © 2024 Herbert W Armstrong Library