Proclaim to the World the GOOD NEWS OF THE WORLD TOMORROW
BOX 111, Pasadena, California
Publishing: The PLAIN TRUTH a Magazine of UNDERSTANDING
February 2, 1954
Dear Co-Workers:
I'm forced to send a second emergency letter right on the heels of the last one from New York. God is moving faster and faster in His great work thru us! But at the same time, many of our Co-Workers are slowing down. We MUST realize what this means!
It means the END of this world is nearer than we believed!
It means the very turning point — the supreme CRISIS of God's work, has been reached. It means we now have to stir our- selves as never before, with a renewed burst of zeal and willingness to sacrifice all else for the WORK OF GOD.
The really great problem right now, as I have written before, is to manage to hold on to this great major net-work that has opened to us, until it results in enough new co-workers to defray this added expense.
In December our co-workers got under the burden, joined us in earnest PRAYER, and in personal sacrifice, and we were able to hold up. I was encouraged greatly. For the first time in the history of the work the income was up to quota the week between Christmas and New Year's! The new year of 1954 started out right on quota — funds received daily equalling the daily expenses of God's work. It was reassuring, and very encouraging.
Then, all of a sudden, the receipt of money for the work went into a nose-dive. That had continued about a week when I telephoned the letter from New York to be mailed from here. It has continued since, up to now — less than HALF as much money being received daily as we must pay out to carry this greatest work on earth. That means just one thing. A lot of our Co-Workers had stopped PRAYING for this work. Could that include YOU?
Now the situation is desperate! It's like God's precious work were a giant airplane nose-diving for a crash! Unless there is an immediate upturn in less than another week, I'll have to drop this great major net-work, which is carrying the Message to 56% of the nation's population which we were not reaching before. It's just that important!
Until this net-work opened to us, we were on stations with fairly good coverage reaching areas where 44% of the people of the United States live. The net-work reaches those areas where the other 56% live. Without this great net-work, we CANNOT CARRY OUT THE MISSION GOD HAS CALLED US TO PERFORM. Week by week more and more hundreds of people are writing in for The PLAIN TRUTH and other vital Gospel literature. It indicates a rapidly-increasing regular listening audience. It indicates that more people are already listening every week to CHRIST'S OWN MESSAGE over the World Tomorrow, than to any other Sunday program on the ABC network!
Co-Workers, WE DARE NOT LET THIS NET-WORK DROP!
Now a glance at the world situation. Mail is now rapidly increasing from the British Isles and Europe — from listeners over Radio Luxembourg. A large pile of letters is coming from over-seas listeners every week, now. It shows the broadcast to Europe and England is really taking hold on people over there.
I want you to read a few of the letters from over there.
A woman in England writes: "Dear Mr. Armstrong: I am writing to say how much I appreciate your weekly broadcasts on Radio Luxembourg. I was just going to put my wireless off the other week, not knowing of your service. I was so glad I just happened to hear you, and was thrilled with your stirring message and your daughter's lovely message in song. So I have told not a few of your broadcast. May God bless this wonderful enterprise. The Message is sure to go home to millions of people. I would love one of your children's story books that you mentioned over the air this week. Thank you again for the help and blessing you have been to me. I pray that God's blessings will be upon every broadcast, and the speaker and singer and every listener. Mrs. Stella Newsam."
From Lancashire, England: "Dear Mr. Armstrong: Thank you very much for your most enlightening programme, which I receive on Radio Luxembourg, 208 meters. It has made the Bible a different Book to me; also thanks very much to your daughter for her very beautiful singing. I am greatly interested in the signs of our Lord's coming, and have never understood the Book of Daniel until I heard your broadcast. Am looking forward to next Monday. Will you please send the booklet "The Key to the Revelation?' Thank you very much, and may God bless you. Most sincerely, Mrs. Olwen Harley."
Another from Lancashire: "Dear Sir: Having listened once again to your broadcast from Radio Luxembourg I am wishful that you send me the "Key to Revelation"; also "What is Prophesied." I have already sent in for The Plain Truth. I enjoy very much hearing your daughter, Beverly Armstrong Gott, singing those beautiful settings of the Bible which only God can be letting her sing; and we should be truly thankful that your daughter has taken up the worship in praise, and I assume that this is the only way of vocation in which her talent is used. Praise the Lord! I pray you will be able to carry out your programme for 1954. Yours faithfully, D. J. Blackwell." — and let me add that he is correct — Beverly's talent is devoted ONLY to the service of God, singing, as much as possible, the direct words of the Bible to the finest music composed by the greatest composers of the past three hundred years. Let me suggest again that you ALWAYS have your Bible open when we come on the air, and follow my Message, and, on the Sunday program (It's Monday nights in England and Europe), Beverly's Bible message in song, by reading the messages out of your own Bible. Let me add, too, that you will soon hear my younger son, Ted, also singing on the program — probably first in a duet with Beverly, and later in solos — and still later on, God willing, you will hear Ted as well as Dick and Herman Hoeh, and perhaps other Ambassador graduates, preaching on the air.
From Yorkshire, England: "Dear Sir: Every week I listen to your broadcast from Radio Luxembourg, and am never disappointed. Always your messages are alive, fresh, and stimulating, and I have been greatly helped and enriched by them. I am most interested in your recent invitation to send a year's subscription to The Plain Truth, and would be grateful to have it sent to this address. May God continue to bless the work. Yours sincerely, Eric S. Powell."
From a Veterans' hospital, in Essex, England: "Christian Friends: How we, the night staff of this hospital, look forward to your weekly message of hope and service! It is what we need in this sin-filled world. Many patients listen, and I know are helped. Keep up this wonderful work. Please send me a copy of 'The United States and Britain in Prophecy.' We are all looking forward to reading it. Our prayers are with you. Yours in Him, Dan Smith."
From County Durham, England: "Dear Brother Armstrong: Thank you for your inspiring messages on Radio Luxembourg each Monday evening. My wife and I look forward to Mondays to hear another message. They lift us up, and we feel they are bringing us nearer to Christ. I wish I possessed your faith and love for our Father. There is a fight going on between my heart and my thoughts. Please pray for me that I may overcome evil thoughts and come nearer to Jesus. I would count it a favor if you would send me your book, "What is Prophesied." I pray God will richly bless you and your staff and the work, also thank your daughter on my behalf for the lovely solos. Yours in Christ, F. Lawson."
From Caithness, Scotland: "Dear Mr. Armstrong: I am writing you to say that like many more people who listen to your broadcasts, your God-felt and soul-inspiring messages are being appreciated by most people throughout the English-speaking world. Under your ministry one feels that one is in the radiant presence of our Redeemer. Under your ministry much has been done, and I pray that you will continue to win souls. At a great price (paid by Christ) we have the privileges of a Christian walk in life. There are many who accept Jesus Christ as the personal Saviour, but who, on entering the stream of life, never allow the waters to rise farther than their ankles. Oh, that the Lord's ever-expanding Brightening Word, revealing and fulfilling all that prophets have foretold, these will go on, until there shall be 'one King over all the earth.' 'In that day there shall be one Lord, and His name One.' May you be rewarded, Brother Armstrong, by Him whom you serve, and may you and all those who have been brought to Christ under your preaching earnestly strive to be each a jewel in the Master's crown. Before I conclude my letter, Brother Armstrong, I wish you to convey my profound thanks to Miss Armstrong for her services in the noble work in which she takes part. Miss Armstrong possesses a voice which I think is unique. May God bless her. Both my sister and I do enjoy your messages. Your and His servant, John Sutherlans."
My, aren't those wonderful letters, dear Co-Workers! If you have sacrificed of your money to make it possible to bring God's precious Message into their homes over in England and Scotland (and many more from Wales, Ireland, Germany, France, Holland, Switzerland, Italy, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Belgium, and even Africa, which we cannot take space to print), and they have been helped, enlightened, and inspired, surely WE over here in America should be inspired in return by these moving letters from our British and Scottish cousins from overseas!
This Scottish brother calls Beverly "Miss Armstrong," and perhaps I should explain that she ceased to be "Miss Armstrong," and became "Mrs. Gott," several years ago, and is the mother of FOUR of our very fine grand-children. And let me also add here that Beverly is doing a job of which I am proud. She does her own housework, cooks for a family of six, has made a splendid and successful wife and mother, and in addition has found time to devote many hours each week to her music, and in one short year she has learned and sung for you listeners more than 70 different solos and arias, many of which are very difficult and written by the world's greatest master composers. Very few singers have ever learned so many solos of that quality in so short a time. Mrs. Armstrong has to help by keeping these four grandchildren of ours often, while Beverly rehearses and sings — but it's all a labor of love, and I'm mighty grateful to God that He has called Beverly, and our two sons, our two sons-in-law, and my wife into His active service. They are all of them putting their full zeal, almost night and day, into God's work along with me.
But it takes ALL our great family of Co-Workers, not just my personal family, to carry on this tremendous work of God. It is now rapidly stretching to the far flung corners of this whole earth!
FLASH! BIG NEWS!
Just as I finished writing the above sentence, news came from New York — The CHINESE GOVERNMENT RADIO STATION OPENS TO US!
I have just hung up the telephone from a long-distance talk with the New York radio station representatives. Generalissimo Chiang Kai Shek has approved the use of the super- power government station, "VOICE OF FREE CHINA," on Formosa, for us to broadcast God's Message thru the Iron Curtain, and all over Communist China.
Think what this means! There are more people in China than in any other nation on earth — more than 450 MILLION PEOPLE! When the Communists swept thru China, and Chiang Kai Shek and his government were forced to flee to the island of Formosa, they brought the government radio station and equipment with them from Shanghai, and set it up on Formosa as their only means of reaching the people of China, in order to fight against Communist propaganda.
This "Voice of Free China" radio has one super-power 100,000-watt standard broadcast transmitter, powerful enough to reach all China, and also two 20,000-watt short wave transmitters.
It is the only station listened to by the 7 million people on Formosa. It is the only Chinese source of information on the outside world for the hundreds of millions of Chinese behind the Iron Curtain. The Chinese on Formosa claim the listening audience inside Communist China is very large. There the Chinese people have secret listening places, guarded to warn against approaching Communist police or troops.
And here is another almost unbelievable fact I have learned. Just as in India, where there are some five different dialects, so in China there are MANY different dialects. They do not all speak the same language. And, as in India, so in China, English has in recent years become the one universal language by which the leaders of the people in all walks of life speak to one another. Millions have learned the English language — and they are the leaders, and the others are the followers. One leader, at one of these many secret listening places in China, who understands English, will relay the Message to many others in their own Chinese dialect. It's just as if God had used this method of giving us the "gift of tongues" by which to communicate to these people. Besides, this, the New York foreign radio station representatives will supply us trained radio speakers in every dialect if we wish to use them. And, if so be the will and way of God, God Himself will give us the miraculous gift of tongues by which we ourselves may speak His Message to those people in their own language. THIS IS THE WORK OF GOD! He is performing miracles. Nothing is impossible with Him!
THIS IS THE ONLY WAY THE GREAT MASS OF CHINESE UNDER THE HEEL OF THE COMMUNISTS CAN NOW BE REACHED! It's like a miracle that God has opened this great door thru the Iron Curtain to us!
Madam Chiang Kai Shek professes Christianity, and the Generalissimo himself has professed to be a Christian. He knows the most effective way to combat Communism is the Message of Truth from GOD. Therefore He has opened to us this one and only DOOR thru the 'iron curtain.'
Here's another providential happening! This is the government station of the free Chinese — the only Chinese government the United States recognizes. It is not a commercial station, therefore does not sell time for profit. Chiang Kai Shek therefore has graciously offered us the use of his great radio voice WITHOUT CHARGE, except that we are to pay just the operational overhead — a very small amount — for the time he is letting us use — a half hour every week.
TRULY GOD IS MOVING SWIFTER AND SWIFTER, in our behalf! My co-workers, and brethren, this is not our work — this is the WORK OF GOD! God is using us! All this means that TIME IS SHORT! The END OF THIS WORLD is much nearer than we supposed! How can God use us in His glorious work, carrying His Gospel arounD the whole earth, to ALL NATIONS, unless we STIR ourselves, — unless we PRAY more than we have been doing — unless we are willing to MAKE SACRIFICES, not only the sacrifice of prayer, but also of money, that WE MAY BE DOING OUR PART?
Finally, dear Co-Workers, I have to say as I did in my letter of December 18th last, PLEASE, in Jesus' name, take this at once to heart, and to a private place of PRAYER! We must again ask God to give us strength and courage and FAITH to go on! We dare not falter! We must each do our own part to the very utmost, and keep on doing it WEEK BY WEEK! I know that hundreds and thousands of you did pray earnestly about it then. The response showed it. But the response has also shown that hundreds of us have been NEGLECTING to pray over this during the past two or three weeks!
I am working SO HARD, myself, to do my part in God's work, and more than anything else I could desire, it is to hear the voice of Jesus say to me, when He comes, "WELL DONE, good and faithful servant!" And I pray I may hear God say those same words to you! This most recent financial slump has driven me continually to my knees — but dear Co-Workers, I NEED YOU TO PRAY WITH ME, and if we unitedly cry out to God, and put our HEARTS into our prayers, and thus show God that we are IN EARNEST about wanting to be His servants, thru whom He carries on His great work, God will move on those who are able to respond — and will cause SO MANY co-workers to respond so generously — that there will be enough money for every need.
Already new co-workers from the powerful net-work broadcast are beginning to join you. The present trend indicates that in three more months the NEW listeners from the net-work will be paying half the cost of the net-work broadcast, and by next fall we will have enough new co-workers to carry ALL the additional expense.
But I'll have to cancel out the net-work UNLESS THE RESPONSE IS IMMEDIATE AND LARGE, and unless it KEEPS UP! PRAY with me! Sacrifice with me! GOD BLESS YOU FOR IT!
In Jesus' precious name, Herbert W. Armstrong
Starting February 14, 9:30 Sunday morning, on the ABC net-work, station KRMG, Tulsa, 50,000 watts, 740 on the dial.
EMERGENCY! IMPORTANT!! URGENT!!!
The immediate financial situation of God's Work is so desperate, that in prayer God has put an idea in my mind I must add as a post-script to this letter.
It's this: Perhaps some of you have sent your regular tithes or offerings a few days ago, and will not have your usual amount to send again for a few more days, or perhaps a week or more. But IF EVERY ONE of you, who otherwise cannot send a larger amount right now, would send in the enclosed envelope at least ONE DOLLAR — more if possible, of course — but at least one dollar — EVERY ONE of you! — an EXTRA dollar you would not send otherwise — it will probably save the network broadcast. The last two weeks of each month is our hardest. If EVERY ONE of you would, in addition to whatever else you send, just send in an additional dollar EVERY MONTH between the 15th and the 25th of the month IT MAY SAVE GOD'S WORK! WILL YOU? THANKS a million! and GOD BLESS YOU!