August 23, 1984  
August 23, 1984 - Brethren & Co-Workers Letter
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Herbert W Armstrong 

WORLDWIDE CHURCH OF GOD
PASADENA, CALIFORNIA 91123

HERBERT W. ARMSTRONG
PRESIDENT and PASTOR

August 23, 1984

Dear Brethren and Co-Workers with Christ:

   Now we're hearing in the news of a soon-coming NUCLEAR WINTER. Nuclear explosions will produce an earth-covering cloud that will give us a NUCLEAR NIGHT. The sun will not get through. Crops will not grow. Billions will be killed by the nuclear blasts. Those remaining will starve.

   That is, unless the great Creator GOD does intervene and cut the nuclear war short before all humanity is erased from the earth!

   It is now months ago since the nuclear scientists set the DOOMSDAY CLOCK forward one more minute — from four to ONLY THREE MINUTES TO MIDNIGHT. Midnight is the END of the world and of civilization as we know it!

   Brethren and Co-Workers, this is no wolf-wolf cry! It is PROPHESIED in your Bible! It is REAL! And the present economic crisis threatens to bring this about in a matter of months — or at most a very few years from now. Will we listen to what our GOD warns us?

   Right now we need to refresh our minds on what is prophesied in Bible PROPHECIES!

   First, where are we right now in the sequence of prophesied world events? YOU, with me, are being used by Jesus Christ in the fulfillment of Matthew 24-14, where Jesus, foretelling the sign of the END OF THE WORLD, said, "This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the END come."

   We, by personal preaching, and by television, radio, The PLAIN TRUTH and other publications and literature, have proclaimed that very message, for the first time in 1,900 years, into every nation on earth except Laos and Cambodia — and even they are under Soviet dominion and we have gotten the message into the Soviet Union. So Jesus' prophecy HAS BEEN FULFILLED!

   But what is the gospel of the kingdom? It is the gospel OF JESUS CHRIST. In Mark 1:1, "the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ" and in verses 14-15, it is "the gospel of the KINGDOM OF GOD."

   But in about two decades after Jesus said that, we read in Galatians 1:6-7, they already were turning to ANOTHER gospel. It was men's gospel ABOUT Christ — a false gospel, holding back from the people the message Christ preached about the kingdom of God.

   But what IS the kingdom of God? The world does not know. The churches and preachers have been deceived. Some say the kingdom of God is an ethereal notion — an emotion "in your heart." Some say it is their church. But NOT ONE except the true Church of God knows GOD is that kingdom. That is what the churches and preachers have HID from the people, because they themselves have been deceived by Satan the devil.

   God is a FAMILY. God himself is Father of the GOD FAMILY. Jesus is God's Son. The true Church is the affianced bride who will marry Christ when he comes in his KINGDOM.

   To the Pharisee Nicodemus, Jesus said the kingdom of God is something we shall SEE, but cannot see until BORN AGAIN. He said we who were born of the flesh ARE flesh, but when born again we shall be no longer human, but composed of SPIRIT (John 3:6).

   But the world's churches are deceived by Satan into thinking they already, still in human flesh, have become "born-again Christians."

   In I Corinthians 15, we read that flesh and blood humans cannot inherit the kingdom of God, but our natural human body shall be changed into a spirit-composed body by a resurrection or instant change at Christ's coming.

   Traditional "Christianity" has been deceived and has deceived the world with a false gospel ABOUT Christ, instead of the gospel OF Christ, which Jesus preached. He was a messenger sent from God with a message, and that message is the GOSPEL. The word gospel means "GOOD NEWS." It was an ANNOUNCEMENT about the coming kingdom of God — that we can be born into that kingdom, and that kingdom IS the divine FAMILY of God.

   It's like a very rich man sending a messenger to a family of people in a far country, saying that they are heirs to receive five million dollars which has been placed to their credit in their local bank. But the messenger only tells them what a fine man this rich man is, and that he loves them. Of course, it's nice to know he loves them, but unless they hear the MESSAGE, they will not receive the five million dollars. The preachers today tell people, "God loves you," but they do not really tell them how they may become God's sons and receive eternal life.

   Brethren and Co-Workers, God wants the world to hear the MESSAGE — if only as a witness. WE HAVE DELIVERED THAT MESSAGE — AND WE ONLY!

   Time is short. An average of nine or ten thousand people have telephoned in after every telecast recently. We are going on more and more stations. PLAIN TRUTH circulation is nearly eight million. But it takes more money. And our treasurer's office is gravely concerned about enough money to meet this expanded circulation and enlarged TV audience. God would not want us to cut down this wonderful growth in the work because of lack of funds.

   We are, so far as I know, the only program on the air that does not beg the public of the world for funds. That we WILL NOT DO! We have served God faithfully — and are the ONLY voice in a lost and doomed world shouting out GOD'S MESSAGE.

   I do have to ask you to PRAY earnestly for God to BLESS those who are tithing and working with us to shout out God's last and closing END-TIME MESSAGE to a dying world! Please take this to heart. God IS wonderfully blessing his work. Pray for more financial laborers to help reap the great harvest in this END TIME! I'm now in my 93rd year and still working hard. Pray for me, and for one another.

With deep love, in Jesus' name,

Herbert W. Armstrong

Publication Date: August 23, 1984
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