July 28, 1969  
July 28, 1969 - Brethren & Co-Workers Letter
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Herbert W Armstrong 

The WORLD TOMORROW
A WORLDWIDE BROADCAST

HERBERT W. ARMSTRONG
GARNER TED ARMSTRONG

Proclaim to the World the GOOD NEWS OF THE WORLD TOMORROW

Box 111, Pasadena, Calif. 91109

Publishing: The PLAIN TRUTH a Magazine of UNDERSTANDING

July 28, 1969

Dear Co-Worker with Christ:

   Last Sunday night, as two U.S. astronauts stepped cautiously down from their Lunar Module onto the moon, President Nixon, by radio-telephone, said to them in the hearing of the WHOLE WORLD: "THE HEAVENS HAVE BECOME PART OF MAN'S WORLD."

   I want you to realize how SERIOUS these events are. I am sure the President did not intend to be saying "GOD, GO HOME! — we humans are taking over Your Heavens." But the implications are frightfully serious in what they now portend.

   After Neil Armstrong (no relation to me so far as I know) had taken one or two steps on the moon, he said, "That's one small step for man...one GIANT LEAP for Mankind!"

   Giant Leap — toward WHAT? Going WHERE? Immediately the Vice-President was urging that the Government set its next goal to land men on MARS! Immediately predictions were filling the radio and TV airways that THIS IS ONLY THE BEGINNING — that man will now even make the distant stars — even other galaxies — MAN'S world!

   I want you to realize WHAT THIS MEANS! It does mean, even as you probably heard many commentators saying over radio and TV, that this world HAS ENTERED SUDDENLY A NEW ERA. This is a definite and violent TURNING POINT! It means TIME IS ABOUT UP! We haven't much longer to go to finish God's Work which the living Christ is doing through you and me!

   Co-Workers, IT'S TIME FOR US TO WAKE UP!

   GOD saw those astronauts walking and cavorting over the moon. What does GOD say about this? What is GOD going to DO?

   Let me tell you what He says! The Instruction Book our Maker has given for our guidance begins with these words:

   "In the beginning GOD created the heavens and the earth."

   That may have been millions of years ago — we have no way of knowing. But in other parts of the Bible we find much revealed that happened between the first verse and the second. If you do not yet understand this, write for our special booklet on the origin of Satan. These other passages — numerous passages in both Old and New Testaments — show that originally God populated this earth with angels — long before the creation of man.

   God's revelation to man — His Instruction Book for us — reveals that God is Creator of ALL that exists — the entire universe — and that God GOVERNS His entire creation. At the very throne of God, thoroughly experienced in the administration of God's Government, was a super archangel, the cherub LUCIFER. His name means "Shining Star of the Dawn" or "Bringer of LIGHT." God set him on this earth to administer the Government of God over the angels.

   In Isaiah 14:12 and Ezekiel 28:11-17 we find that Lucifer let pride, vanity, lust for power fill his mind. He organized his angels into an invading army, and swept UP TO HEAVEN to attempt to knock God off the throne, and to try to seize the power of government over the Universe. But God's power is supreme. Satan was cast back down to earth. As a result of that supernatural SIN — rebellion against God's Law — against the GOVERNMENT of God (I John 3:4 — a universal DESTRUCTION came to the earth.

   So we see, that in the second verse of Genesis one, the earth was chaotic waste and empty and in confusion. The word "was" is translated from the Hebrew word meaning "became." The same Hebrew word often is so translated in the Bible. The words "without form and void" are translated from the Hebrew words "tohu" and "bohu."

   The Bible plainly says God did not create the earth in chaos and confusion. In Isaiah 45:18 it says God did not create the earth "tohu" — there translated "in vain", But Genesis 1:2 says it was — that is, it BECAME "tohu." If it was "tohu," but God did not create it "tohu," it had to become that way after it was created. Also, God "is not the author of confusion" — (I Cor. 14:33) — but Satan is!

   So, with Lucifer, his name now changed to Satan, back down on a waste and empty and chaotic earth, in six days God RE-CREATED — reformed — reshaped the earth — that is, He brought order and beauty out of confusion and ugliness. And on the sixth day of that week — some 6,000 years ago — God said: "Let us make MAN in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the SEA, and over the fowl of the AIR, and over the cattle, and over all of the EARTH..." (Gen. 1:26). So God gave man DOMINION, — OVER WHAT? Over the solid earth, the seas, and the air. BUT THE ASTRONAUTS ARE GOING FAR BEYOND THIS EARTH'S ATMOSPHERE. Man has no dominion assigned to him outside the earth's atmosphere.

   In due time, rebellious MAN brought about universal SIN, in lust and violence which in turn again brought universal DESTRUCTION to the earth by the flood. But soon after that, MAN — even as Satan had tried to do — was starting a program to GET TO HEAVEN. They were starting to build a skyscraper — a giant TOWER. And God said, "...and this they begin to do: and now NOTHING will be restrained from them which they have imagined to do." So God CAME DOWN to STOP them.

   Do you see what this means? Landing on the moon is only what MAN says he is BEGINNING to do. Satan has influenced the thinking and reasoning of man always to want to GO TO HEAVEN. And God knew that He had created the human MIND with such capacity that NOTHING will be impossible for man — UNLESS GOD STOPS HIM!

   WILL mortal MAN ever go to the planets of other stars — beyond our sun? I answer, NO — not mortal man. How far will he go? I don't know. It depends on how far God allows. Mars? I doubt it. For this signals the imminency of God again sending Christ down to STOP IT!

   This is not the only purpose for which Christ is soon coming to the earth in ALL THE POWER AND GLORY of the Great GOD! He is coming to save Mankind from DESTROYING HIMSELF! He is coming to bring PEACE! He is coming to RESTORE THE GOVERNMENT OF GOD, which the archangel Lucifer (Satan) took away! But man's conquest of the MOON is one more GIANT LEAP in world events, hastening Christ's coming! Man is NOT YET ready to rule over God's vast UNIVERSE! He is not yet even able to rule himself and solve his myriad earthly problems!

   The living Mighty Christ is using YOU, and me, as Co-Workers with Him in GOD'S WORK, now preparing the way before His coming!

   When He comes, He is going to sit on the throne of King David of ancient Israel. This summer fiftY Ambassador College students are working in this gigantic archaeological project at Jerusalem! They are digging down, clearing away 3,000 years of accumulated rubble, decay, debris, that has piled up sixty feet high over the very place where David sat on his throne. Not only preparing THE WAY — also PREPARING THE PLACE.

   If you do not yet understand how that throne has continued as one unbroken dynasty, every generation to NOW — and where that throne is NOW, then by all means write in for our free book, "The United States and British Commonwealth in Prophecy."

   Today I have started writing the new CorresPondence Course! This will be a straight educational course of instruction — AMBASSADOR COLLEGE instruction, in the home, by mail. It will be interesting and very important — a well-rounded education for those who did not go to college — as well as for those who did, but who never received this kind of education. Half of the students enrolled in our three campuses have studied at other colleges — a fifth of them already hold degrees — but they came to Ambassador to obtain what no other college gives. This, now, besides the BIBLE Correspondence Course. YOU NEED BOTH!

   Now a brief report on the WORK! Due to this giant worldwide advertising campaign — purchasing double-page space in Reader's Digest in many editions in many parts of the world, besides FULL pages in LIFE in the U.S., in the London Sunday TIMES, and other mass circulation magazines. This means the WORK — getting out the GOSPEL — has expanded about 60% this past year — just about double the 30% growth that we have had yearly for 35 years!

   BUT, the income to carry on this gigantic WORK, now reaching 150 MILLION PEOPLE WORLDWIDE, is now running considerably under the usual 30% increase. The PLAIN TRUTH circulation is now up to TWO MILLION COPIES — a readership of SIX or SEVEN MILLION! Then there is the NEW magazine, TOMORROW'S WORLD! It makes the BIBLE plain, interesting, and important enough to give YOU ETERNAL LIFE!

   Co-Workers and Brethren! — this tremendous WORK OF GOD is now WAITING ON YOU! Christ is OPENING DOORS! God is blessing this Work with greater and greater results! Thousands upon thousands of lives are being changed — brought to Christ and ETERNAL LIFE IN GOD'S KINGDOM every year, with increasing momentum!

   ONLY the income is lacking! We must get it back up! Otherwise I have to cancel about 100 radio stations and cut PLAIN TRUTH circulation in half. That would be an unthinkable tragedy. It would be DISASTROUS. But I will be forced to do just that unless income picks up! It's no "wolf-wolf cry"!

   With so little time — with every sign in the world pointing to the short time left — with Christ leaping the Work forward so dynamically with such tremendous results, I find it hard to understand WHY our Co-Workers are letting down at so serious a time.

   This is not to be taken lightly. Please PRAY for the Work, as you never prayed before, and PUT YOUR HEART INTO IT! PLEASE, Brethren in Christ, let's not let Christ down! Try to increase the amount you send!

With much love, In Jesus' name,
Herbert W. Armstrong

Publication Date: July 28, 1969
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