Proclaim to the World the GOOD NEWS OF THE WORLD TOMORROW
Box 111, Pasadena, Calif. 91109
Publishing: The PLAIN TRUTH a Magazine of UNDERSTANDING
September 16, 1959
Dear Co-Workers with Christ:
I have to sit down and tell you seriously that we have reached an alarming EMERGENCY, an overwhelming CRISIS, and I have to ask your earnest, heart-rending, prevailing PRAYERS—and your sacrifice and immediate response as never before.
Christ has called us to a WORK of self-sacrifice. He has called us as HIS INSTRUMENTS—using us to PREPARE THE WAY for His glorious and all-powerful RETURN to earth as KING of kings—using us to RESTORE the truth of HIS VERY GOSPEL which the world has hidden for 18« centuries!
Jesus did not say it would be an EASY way. We have met crisis after crisis—but never has such an overwhelming crisis confronted us before. I am going to have to ask you to come to our aid quickly.
Faster, faster, FASTER, world events keep speeding up. And our Eternal God is speeding up HIS WORK at the same accelerated pace! It takes my breath! IT IS LATER THAN WE REALIZE! Last time I wrote you I was on a train with Mrs. Armstrong enroute to Texas. While there I received a telephone call from our New York overseas advertising agency which caused me to fly two days later by jet plane on an emergency trip to London, England—my second visit to London this summer.
Radio Luxembourg—one of the two most powerful radio stations on earth—had just thrown off the air all the religious programs during the half-hour 11:00 to 11:30 P.M. The WORLD TOMORROW was not affected, as we have TWO half-hours every week, Monday and Tuesday nights, 11:30 to 12:00. But our agency was alarmed. We might be thrown off the air next. In London I went directly to a top director of the station, and to the manager of the London office. God gave us favor in their eyes, and caused them to offer us the unprecedented wonderful time of 8:00 to 8:30 every Saturday night, with the promise of an early prime time EVERY NIGHT, seven nights a week, as soon as they can clear time—AND WE DO NOT HAVE TO GO OFF OUR LATE TIME UNTIL WE GET AN EARLIER TIME! Never before has any religious program been on Radio Luxembourg earlier than 11:00 P.M.—after most people have gone to bed. This is a WONDERFUL VICTORY!
Last week I gave our New York agency authority to put the WORLD TOMORROW on BOTH Australian and national networks SIX NIGHTS A WEEK. Never before have they accepted religious programming except on Sundays. This means we must open a branch office in Sydney within about 60 days! A cablegram today O.K.s our order.
While in London, I found our deal for the purchase of the college campus on the London outskirts was about to fall through. The owner had gone back on his word, even though we had it in writing. But God caused this to work for our good. Before I left England, we had signed up a new deal with money changing hands making it legally BINDING, giving us a THIRTY-ACRE campus instead of the original ten. It now includes additional housing buildings, cottages, and grounds for new buildings, athletic field—everything we can need.
At the same time God sent to Ambassador College this fall a man who graduated from Oxford last spring, and one who just received a Master's degree from Harvard. Another Oxford senior is coming to Ambassador next fall after he graduates at Oxford. Another man—a top ranking professor at one of England's best known universities—with a Doctor of Philosophy degree from the University of Cambridge and another Ph.D. from the University of London—is here on our campus now, visiting us for 2« weeks, helping us prepare the catalog for the college in London, and we hope he will be the Dean of Instruction in our new college. Thus God is sending us men who will give the college there prestige and standing on the faculty.
It literally takes my breath, the speed at which God is now moving things in His Work. Our baptizing teams have finished their summer tours—seven of them—after baptizing by far the largest harvest of lives for God's Kingdom of any year so far. We have one other team of graduates out now. Hundreds are being converted. Our two ministers in England have baptized a goodly number this year, and the harvest continues to grow.
BUT—this rapid growth and expansion of God's great work demands constantly increasing tithes and offerings to pay the bills!
RIGHT NOW GOD'S WORK IS IN A TERRIBLE FINANCIAL BIND! It is proving a very tight squeeze. I have today received from our London advertising agency the finished draft of the 2-page advertisement for READER'S DIGEST, British edition. The Reader's Digest has ACCEPTED IT for publication! It will start in the November issue, instead of October as first planned, because of the printers' strike in London. They had to have an immediate O.K., and I have just hung up the telephone from a long-distance call to London giving my O.K. Some 6 to 7 million people in England will read this powerful message in these two pages! This will mean a terrific boost to the work!
All these things do mean INCREASED EXPENDITURES! I am going right ahead BY FAITH, as Christ, the Head of this work, opens doors. We have extra heavy obligations to meet during the next three months which will slacken off after January 1st.
The need for additional sums is IMPERATIVE—and DESPERATE! I wonder if we have, among our Co-Workers, two or three who are in position to LOAN God's work—if you cannot give so much —amounts of $25,000 or $30,000? I wonder if we do not have several who could—if you cannot GIVE it, then LOAN God's work sums of from $1,000 to $5,000? I do not like to have to see God's work borrow money—but this may be the only way to meet this emergency. IT MUST BE MET! As Christ's minister, I simply have to call on every one of you to try to dig down a little deeper—to sacrifice other things—so you can GIVE for the wonderful work of God LARGER amounts than formerly! And those who have been a little forgetful or negligent, I do have to call on you in Jesus' name to make SPECIAL effort to send in SPECIAL amounts, in addition to honest tithes, for the most important work on earth NOW—by return mail— and for the next three months!
THIS IS AN S.O.S.! We have encountered crisis after crisis in our Master's work. But NEVER one so overwhelming as this! NEVER has the need been so GREAT! And remember, YOUR EARNEST, BELIEVING PRAYERS will cause many OTHERS to respond! I need your prayers, and your financial help now, as it has never been needed before. Every bit helps—the WIDOWS' MITES count up and HELP—but of course we need the larger sums now as never before. We have always met every crisis—I know by faith we will meet this one—BUT DON'T TAKE IT FOR GRANTED—SEND IN GENEROUSLY, AND JOIN ME IN EARNEST PRAYER! And HURRY!!!
Urgently, with love in Jesus' name, Herbert W. Armstrong
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