HERBERT W. ARMSTRONG GARNER TED ARMSTRONG Proclaim to the World the GOOD NEWS OF THE WORLD TOMORROW
Publishing: The PLAIN TRUTH a Magazine of UNDERSTANDING
Jerusalem, Israel April 12, 1971
Dear Co-Worker in the Greatest Mission on Earth:
Once again, I am in this remarkable "new" country, ISRAEL. From now on, Jerusalem will be the pivotal CENTER of world news. While here, I want to bring you up-to-date on the almost unbelievable, exciting, and momentous things now happening in this great Work.
GIANT doors have been opening before me, one after another, with invitations for personal conferences with heads of state — presidents, kings, prime ministers — and many others in high offices of POWER, in many countries around the world. The remarkable thing is that I did not seek or initiate these meetings — not once! I was invited.
Do you realize how IMPOSSIBLE it is for anyone, except those in official capacity, to initiate and obtain a personal private conference with a chief of state? These people occupy offices of GREAT POWER in the world. They are all surrounded by the most effective and well organized security systems. NO ONE except their own closest secretaries or ministers is ever allowed to contact them direct, either in person or by telephone. NOBODY, except those in official office with official business, ever gets to see them, unless personally invited by the head of state, or unless most carefullY screened, checked on, approved by secretaries, and then, finally, approved by the chief of state. If I, by my own initiative, had tried to arrange all these many personal meetings and conferences, it would have been utterly IMPOSSIBLE!
Mr. Unofficial Citizen doesn't just take the telephone, dial directly into the private office of an overseas chief executive, get him on the phone, and say: "Hi, King old boy! I'm coming right over to see you." He would never get to the king, the president, or the prime minister.
Even though the time has come, in this great Commission, when it is necessary for me to have these personal meetings, there is absolutely NO WAY I could have taken it into my own hands and accomplished it. It had to come like a continuous chain of MIRACULOUS occurrences. And it is having TREMENDOUS SIGNIFICANCE to the finishing of this most important Commission on earth in 1900 years!
Of course you've been reading, in The PLAIN TRUTH, of some of these meetings with the world's rulers. And many more such articles and reports are coming in future issues. Then later, I will take you into my confidence and give you the exciting facts of the incredible circumstances, and the surprising providential manner in which these giant doors have opened before me, one after the other in time order.
These very important meetings have suddenly catapulted the entire Work up onto a new and higher plateau! The Work has moved suddenly into a TOTALLY NEW PHASE! These providential new developments signal the warning to YOU and to me that we do not have much time left to get done THE MOST IMPORTANT JOB ON EARTH IN 1900 YEARS! We have now been moved into the last and final phase of the Work for this Age!
Before I tell you more of that, however, I want to inform you of the tremendously important happenings to the Work right here in Israel.
I am here this time to make final arrangements for the arrival in June of 75 of our Ambassador College students. They are coming to work for the summer on our huge archaeological project in Jerusalem. As you know, we are in joint participation with Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Israel Archaeological Society in the largest, most important such project of our time — probably of all time.
We are not only uncovering 3,000 years of buried history. We are clearing off the accumulated rubble, decay and debris — some 50 to 60 feet high — over the very THRONE OF DAVID — in the original Jerusalem of 3,000 years ago, also known, then, as the City of David. The Biblical prophecies of Isaiah 9:7-8, of Luke 1:30-33, and of Amos 9:11, say that the Messiah — the returning Christ in supreme and total supernatural POWER and GLORY — is soon, now, to RULE THE ENTIRE EARTH — ALL NATIONS — from that very spot! What a providential thing it is, that WE are clearing it off — preparing the way for His coming, in this, as well as in other ways.
And here's another exciting and important development: I am here also to confer with officials of the Hebrew University Institute of Urban and Regional Studies. Ambassador College now is in a joint-participation with this institute in a city-planning project, designing and planning the JERUSALEM OF THE FUTURE! The probability is that for the remainder of this age, the government will adopt the planning we recommend.
Still another very important development here: I am here also to consult further with Mayor Kollek of Jerusalem. He was our guest at Ambassador College in Pasadena only eleven days ago. And also with officials of the government's Ministry of Education, concerning the distribution of our booklets here in Israel. For some months our Professor Paldi (formerly of Hebrew University) and Dr. Robert Kuhn have been at work in Pasadena translating some of our booklets into Hebrew. Think what a great milestone in the Work this is!
It's hard to realize how this Work — in which you and I are privileged to be Co-Workers — has grown to such worldwide POWER and SCOPE! It is exerting tremendous IMPACT on more than 150 MILLION PEOPLE around the world. That is about every TWENTIETH person on earth!
The PLAIN TRUTH and TOMORROW'S WORLD have become mass- circulated magazines — now among the world's largest. The PLAIN TRUTH, especially, is gaining worldwide recognition and prestige as a high quality authoritative magazine — even in top circles of government and education in countries all over the earth.
For example, our readership in India alone is more than a quarter million — and among the educated classes. In Australia, another quarter million! In the Philippines, 260,000! In New Zealand — a small population country — 50,000. That many people, in one place, would make a fair sized CITY! THINK OF IT! In Malaysia and Singapore over in the Far East near the equator, a readership of 156,000 people! Miscellaneous others in the Far East, 23,000. This makes NEARLY A MILLION PEOPLE in India, the Far East, Southeast Asia, and Australia and New Zealand! Perhaps this will help you to better understand WHY heads of governments over in that part of the world want to take time to tell me of their problems, and to exchange views. Their people read what I write!
I think perhaps MOST of those who are Co-Workers IN THIS WORK have never fully realized HOW MANY people all over the world are reading The PLAIN TRUTH and TOMORROW'S WORLD.
Let me give you further facts. Holland is a comparatively small country. Yet the Dutch-language edition of The PLAIN TRUTH, circulating mostly in Holland, is now being read by approximately 52,500 people! The German edition, circulating mostly in Germany, northern Switzerland and Austria, has a readership of approximately 180;000! The Spanish edition, circulating primarily in Mexico, Central and South America, is read by 234,000 — nearly a quarter million people! The French-language edition in France and western Switzerland — 114,000; in eastern Canada 63,000; and in the Caribbean Islands 18,000.
Now look at the circulations of the English-language edition in still other countries around the world. In Britain, our readership is 456,000 — nearly half a million Briton!' In Scandinavian, other European, and North African countries, 84,000. In the British West Indies, 78,000. In islands out in the Pacific — such as Guam, Wake, Okinawa — 30,000. In Canada, not counting the eastern Canada French edition circulation, 500,000 — A HALF MILLION!
Now look at the United States. The PLAIN TRUTH has a readership of 4 to 5 MILLION people, and TOMORROW'S WORLD 1 1/2 to 2 MILLION."
Add to all this the broadcasting by radio and television, and the vast number reached all around the world by our double- page and full-page advertising space purchased in Reader's Digest, LIFE, LOOK, The LONDON TIMES, T.V. GUIDE in the United States, and other leading mass-circulation magazines and newspapers in Germany, South Africa, the Philippines, Australia, etc., and the Work is reaching, worldwide, between 150 and 200 MILLION PEOPLE! And soon, now — Japan and the few remaining countries of this earth!
With so many MILLIONS of people being reached all over the world, it has become NECESSARY to the Work that I, as well as my son, Garner Ted, and others on our editorial and research staffs, maintain a grasp and insight into world conditions such as is possessed by few on earth! As Editor of The PLAIN TRUTH and TOMORROW'S WORLD — with such multiMILLION readerships — these personal conferences with rulers of nations around the world are providing very important material for articles. Still more, they are giving me increased UNDERSTANDING and insight into the problems faced by many of the world's chief rulers, usually not disclosed to reporters, correspondents or editors of commercial magazines or newspapers.
Until recently we had reached, in this Great Commission, primarily the grass roots — the masses of the common people — the RULED. But in this greatest Mission in 1900 years, it NOW has become NECESSARY that we get directly to those in TOP POSITIONS OF POWER — AT THE TOP — THE RULERS! The Work had, of necessity, begin where it did. The time NOW has come when those who wield the POWER must also be reached! Of myself — or with the HUMAN ability of our entire organization — it would, indeed have been IMPOSSIBLE!
But — and I want you to REALIZE THIS SOBERLY — once that unseen Hand from Someplace, as spoken of by The United States News and World Report, had miraculously OPENED THESE DOORS, if I had not walked on through them in faith, ANOTHER WOULD HAVE BEEN RAISED UP WHO WOULD WALK THROUGH THEM.
THINK what a great Work has been generated! And yet, WHAT A SHAME that I have to tell you it is facing a financial CRISIS, in which we may even have to STOP publication of The PLAIN TRUTH! I'm not going to say any more. God's people don't beg! To just simply state the NEED — the critical CRISIS NEED — ought to be enough.
In the June number of The PLAIN TRUTH — and I HOPE we'll be able to print and send out such a vast number of copies — I'll give you my report on my conference with Mrs. Golda Meir, Prime Minister of Israel, and also of Mrs. Indira Gandhi, Prime Minister of India. I will give you my own close-up personal portrait evaluation of those two outstanding women — sitting in seats of TREMENDOUS POWER in a very sick, war-inflamed world!
Until next month, when I will reveal to you, in confidence, the incredible circumstances by which these giant doors have opened before me, I leave a mighty serious crisis-decision in your hands.
With sincere love, in Jesus' name, Herbert W. Armstrong
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