Proclaim to the World the GOOD NEWS OF THE WORLD TOMORROW
BOX 111, Pasadena, California
Publishing: The PLAIN TRUTH a Magazine of UNDERSTANDING
April 25, 1957
Dear Co-Workers with Christ:
Intense pressure of work has delayed the writing of this most important letter a full month. Now the situation is getting critical.
I am writing from Gladewater, Texas, in the midst of the spring Festival which God ordained for His Church — which was kept by Christ, by the Apostles, by the Gentile converts under the Apostle Paul, and continuously by the TRUE Church of God, in spite of the opposition and persecution of Rome during the second, third, and fourth centuries.
But now this letter cannot be delayed longer. We are face to face with a perilous emergency. So I am breaking away from the festival in our Tabernacle here long enough to write this letter, and to air-mail it on to Pasadena to be re-copied and mailed on to you.
These are perilous days! But most of us are too sound asleep to current world conditions to realize it. Co-Workers, we've got to shake ourselves out of our lethargy — QUICK! — and spring to action in God's work!
Do you realize that the "UNITED STATES OF EUROPE" we've been telling the world about is already started? On March 17th the French Premier Mollet called for the creation of a UNITED EUROPE! It is to serve as a third force between the United States and Russia. The pact has been signed breaking down trade barriers between European nations, and bringing about a certain unification in commerce and industry. This is the first actual start toward the emergence of the "BEAST" of Rev. 17!
EVENTS NOW SPEED BY FASTER AND FASTER!
God's work must keep pace! And it is keeping pace — in every way but one. The money required to THUNDER Christ's last Gospel Message around the world is not keeping pace with the necessary expansion of the work!
Time grows constantly shorter and shorter! It is now MUCH later than you think!
God Himself is opening new doors. We have to be able to walk thru them, or FAIL in His Great Commission. In my last letter I had to tell you that Communist influence had gained power in the government of Ceylon, and had closed the door of Radio Ceylon to The WORLD TOMORROW Broadcast. But IMMEDIATELY, almost before the postman could deliver that letter to you, GOD OPENED THREE POWERFUL NEW DOORS!
Word came to me from our international advertising agents in New York that we could now go on Radio Goa in India. Goa is on the west coast of India, so located as to reach more people in India than Radio Ceylon. That station is now increasing its power, until we hope and expect it to be made as powerful as Radio Ceylon. There are more people in this part of India who understand the English language than there are in England! I signed the contract immediately, and we ACTUALLY STARTED on Radio Goa April 4th. We are on every Thursday 8:30 to 9 P.M.
We had a large listening audience from one of the bands of Radio Ceylon way over in Malaya. Radio Saigon opened to us. March 6th I signed a year contract for a half hour every Friday night on Radio Saigon, to start April 5th. I have just heard from here that the government intervened, and took over control of the radio station at Saigon since the signing of our contract, and are refusing to permit the broadcasting of God's truth. Co-Workers, YOU MUST PRAY WITH ME THAT THE GOD WHO RULES OVER THE UNIVERSE WILL INTERVENE AnD EITHER RE-OPEN THIS DOOR, OR OPEN TO US A STILL BETTER ONE, for we have had many listeners in that part of the world who have had to travel in armored trucks, and listen behind barred doors secretly to God's Message, lest Communists catch them at it and stop them.
Then, also on March 6th, a national Network of four major city stations, and many smaller ones in the Philippine Islands opened, and on that day I signed a contract for a half hour every Sunday from 9 to 9:30 P.M. In the Philippines, English is the official language in all public schools, so they can understand the Message very well there. We started on the air over the Philippines April 7th.
Contracts have been renewed for another year on Radio Luxembourg, reaching all Europe and the British Isles; on the national Network of stations in Australia, on Chiang Kai Shek's great station on Formosa, broadcasting right thru the Bamboo Curtain to Communist China, and also on Radio Lourenco Marques, which gives us a bigger listening audience in the Commonwealth of South Africa than all their government stations combined.
In the United States we have recently added station WIL in St. Louis, which now carries the program DAILY, seven days a week, and also another station in Los Angeles, KFWB, the best station we could possibly get on in the area at present.
Plans are being made to go on a big net-work of stations all over South America, Central America, and the West Indies in THE SPANISH LANGUAGE a little later this year. All our booklets are now translated into Spanish thru our Spanish Department in Ambassador College, and are rapidly being printed in that language. My son Garner Ted, who speaks Spanish fluently, and Benjamin Rea, professor of Spanish at Ambassador College, have scheduled a tour thru South America this summer to complete arrangements for this great addition of stations. The ONLY continent we have not yet reached with this last Message is South America — and now we are planning to go down there, and GOD HAS ALREADY OPENED THE DOORS!
Co-Workers, this is the most important work on earth! We are now preparing to broadcast in the German and French languages — later in others. The booklets are being translated and printed in French and German now.
GOD'S WORK MUST KEEP PACE WITH FAST-MOVING WORLD EVENTS! Time is growing shorter and shorter! There is still enough time — but we must press forward HARDER THAN ever — sacrifice MORE THAN EVER BEFORE — that there may be financial means to keep this mighty work going!
We need more ministers — DESPERATELY! — and MORE DOLLARS! As I've written you before, Ambassador College will soon be turning out more and more called, consecrated fully-trained ministers. We ordained one more here in our big Tabernacle at this festival only last Thursday. The college has been outgrowing its facilities. New properties have been coming to us to meet this expansion. And NOW, we must make necessary alterations in the recently acquired Hulett C Merritt mansion, now named Ambassador Hall, so it may be occupied as our main class-room building by next September. Local building codes must be met, and this will cost us several thousand dollars — but it is way and by far the lowest-cost facilities we could possibly obtain.
We have completely outgrown the Tabernacle here at Gladewater, Texas, and I have had to sign a contract for the erection of another much larger one to be erected before fall. We have found a new-type low-cost building material — a corrugated aluminized heavy steel — by which we can erect new buildings at between half and two-thirds ordinary building costs — and it is a MORE desirable type of construction! Co-Workers, WE NEED, AND MUST HAVE, a SPECIAL BUILDING FUND OF AT LEAST $20,000 per month THRU THE REMAINDER OF THIS PRESENT YEAR!
Your regular tithes and offerings must go for the work of delivering the true GOSPEL to all the world as a witness. So I have to ask you Co-Workers now once again to make EXTRA SPECIAL OFFERINGS for the BUILDING FUND, regularly, every month — and even every week if possible!
Now this is going to be a real arduous task. A new two- story building adjacent to our campus has come to us recently, to be converted into an office building. WE HAVE COMPLETELY OUTGROWN our present office building. We were going to have to build a whole new large building which probably would have cost more than $100,000, but God has spared us that expense. Our Las Vegas agents purchased this large building to be donated to the college — already built. We are moving our printing department, which now must be much enlarged, into it. Also our big mailing room, where all the magazines and literature are mailed to radio listeners. And also our "Co-Worker Department," where a staff of girls keep careful and accurate records of all tithes and offerings you send. Also our Letter-Answering Department; most of the Mail-Receiving Department; and the Correspondence Course Department. Each of these departments employs a staff of several people.
But we are not getting off without spending any money at all on this new office building. It requires certain necessary alterations, and several new partitions, and this will cost at least several hundred dollars, altho it may save us more than $100,000. Our business office, bookkeeping and auditing department, and offices of some of our ministers and college administrators will remain in and completely fill our present office building.
This need of buildings and alterations is DESPERATE. It's now a race against time. I am forced, dear Co-Workers, to call upon you for more sacrifice than ever, and for ADDITIONAL, and SEPARATE SPECIAL OFFERINGS, just for this BUILDING FUND. Send this in addition to regular tithes and offerings:
REMEMBER, all this is a vital PART of God's work of getting the Gospel to the world! But I feel we should raise a separate fund for it. And so NOW, — all together — let's give this building program, and this constantly expanding GOSPEL program the biggest shove and "heave-HO" we ever put into God's work!
Just think! In all probability, inside of less than 25 years, (tho I set no dates) CHRIST WILL BE HERE RULING IN PERSON — WE SHALL HAVE WORLD PEACE — PROSPERITY — HAPPINESS — JOY! But before that, God's prophecies tell us this UNITED EUROPE shall rise, and invade and DESTROY the United States — the most TERRIBLE world catastrophe of all history shall have struck — and OUR WORK MUST HAVE BEEN FINISHED! We may have another 15 years for our work — but probably no more, and compared to what MUST YET BE DONE, we have only JUST STARTED! There is not a day to lose! Your every dollar COUNTS! No single dollar or two is too small — but at the same time we need more LARGE offerings in the thousands of dollars! AND I NEED YOUR EARNEST, HEART-FELT, PERSISTENT PRAYERS as never before!
This burden of this GREAT NEED is more than I can bear myself. I have to ask you for SPECIAL HELP — both in money, and in prevailing, deadly-earnest PRAYERS that this need will be met!
Co-Workers, you've proved before that you will stand by me in this crisis, and so I say in FAITH, in advance — GOD BLESS YOU FOR THE EXTRA EFFORT AND SACRIFICE I KNOW YOU'LL GIVE, AND FOR YOUR PRAYERS!
With gratitude and love, in Jesus' name, Herbert W. Armstrong
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