December 30, 2016 Brethren Letter
Dear Brethren,
In conjunction with the sermon I’ve recently been giving, I’m sending out some excerpts from a letter Mr. Armstrong wrote to the ministry, along with an attached letter to the brethren in February, 1974. Mr. Armstrong discussed the GOSPEL message and the end-time.
I believe the following paragraphs are an excellent summation of what Mr. Armstrong realized about his responsibility in preaching the Gospel to the world.
THINK OF IT! The chosen servant of the Great God being given great favor and high HONOR by numerous heads of state — who actually want to hear my message — who want their people at the top of their governments to hear it — who want THEIR PEOPLE to hear it!
I know of nothing like it ever before in history — unless it was in the days of the prophet Elijah.
The Worldwide Church of God has always produced the GOOD fruits — ABUNDANT fruits. It is the ONLY Work in 1850 years that has proclaimed the true Gospel of Christ — the Gospel OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD to the world — now GOING TO THE ENTIRE WORLD!
Prophecy says the END will not come until, also, there is a “falling away” first!
Tomorrow, I plan on giving part three (the final part), of my sermon. In the meantime, here are some further excerpts from Mr. Armstrong’s February letters.
Please have a wonderful Sabbath.
Your Brother in Christ,
Gary Liebold
I am en route to Manila for the FIRST of the world PUBLIC APPEARANCE campaigns next Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights.
This is an historic FIRST! It is the first PUBLIC meeting, hopefully before audiences of many thousands, in world capitals resulting from approvals and endorsements from the very TOP of the governments of these nations. It is the BIGGEST THING that has happened in God’s Work since it started, in our time, in January 1934!
I face a very busy week. On Monday there is another personal meeting with President Marcos, accompanied this time by the Minister of Education. I am to give a Graduation Address at the University on Wednesday, and receive an honorary Doctor’s degree. I am to speak before the Rotary Club, the Lion’s Club, the Junior Chamber of Commerce, and the Press Club. There are to be interviews on radio and television. The Friday and Saturday night meetings are to be in an auditorium seating 1800, as I understand, and the Sunday night meeting in the Coliseum, seating about 15,000.
The first of these world capital PUBLIC appearances was originally scheduled for Saigon. But as you know the Viet Nam war “Cease Fire” has never ceased, but recently has flared up, and government officials there, sponsoring it, felt it better to postpone it until late in March. I hope the war situation permits us to hold it about three weeks after the Manila meetings.
The officials in the Philippine government were willing to move the meetings there three weeks ahead of the original plans.
The Living GOD has moved, these past four years to give me, as your fellow Minister whom YOU call God’s Apostle, and as God’s chosen servant for getting His true GOSPEL into all the world, for a witness to ALL NATIONS just before the END of this age, almost unbelievable prestige, favor, and stature in the eyes of many kings, emperors, presidents, prime ministers and OTHER HIGH LEADERS OF MANY NATIONS. I am now, by God’s grace, received in many world capitals as an AMBASSADOR FOR WORLD PEACE. I can assure, with authority and confidence, world leaders and heads of state that WORLD PEACE not only is possible, but is definitely coming in our time. And this in spite of the fact that the efforts of world leaders for six thousand years have brought no peace but repeated WARS.
That Message is the Message of their Creator — the Good News OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD. I go before these world leaders with the highest credibility. And in this I think you should REJOICE and THANK GOD, and add your most fervent PRAYERS to mine for the VICTORIOUS conclusion of this GREAT WORK, to which YOU have been called TO HELP!
NEVER, so far as I know in all history, has our GOD moved on government heads of major nations to invite, and endorse such meetings where God’s Minister delivered the GOSPEL OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD before their LEADING people. It is something NEVER DONE BEFORE.
God’s Church Today
Now we come down to ourselves in God’s Church today.
In the autumn of 1926 God called me. For sixteen years I had been specially prepared for it. I was challenged into intensive study and research into the Bible. I was astonished — shocked — to see that the “Christianity” I had been brought up in was almost the antithesis of the Christianity of Christ and His Apostles. Against my will, as it had been at the time, I had to acknowledge I had been wrong about God’s Sabbath.
That was the beginning of learning God’s TRUTH. It was like a sudden awakening to a whole NEW WORLD. I was impelled to keep on studying. My complete surrender to God, His Law, His Word, His Will changed my whole life. I was baptized and received God’s Holy Spirit. It was a total NEW AWAKENING — A NEW LIFE. Now for the first time God opened my mind to understand the Bible.
The intensive study became my life. My conversion was in the spring of 1927. In 1931 I was ordained by the Oregon Conference of the Church of God. After many tests lasting seven years from my conversion, God chose me as His instrument to raise up the present era of His Church, to proclaim His GOSPEL OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD to the world and to feed the flock which He was to put in His Church.
The END TIME Was Here!
This proved to be the start of the fulfillment of the prophecy of Matthew 24:14.
But the Gospel was not to go to all the world right away.
First, radio opened in the smallest way at the start. The first week in January, 1934, the true Gospel — the KINGDOM OF GOD — went out to reach perhaps a few thousand people in the northwest corner of the United States — in Lane County, Oregon. The PLAIN TRUTH started February 1, 1934 with the VERY SMALLEST circulation — just a few hundred copies. By late 1942, we were reaching a scattered national group of listeners and readers. Not important national leaders — all just the “grass-roots” common people.
Gradually Jesus Christ, the living HEAD of this Work, called more and more of you brethren as Co-Workers with Him and with me in proclaiming this GOOD NEWS of Christ’s GOSPEL OF THE KINGDOM.
The Work, on radio and by the printing press, grew. It spread to reach many MILLIONS over the United States, Canada, and Australia. Still God called only a comparative very small minority to conversion — at this time!
We Were Blocked
Governments in those nations — in nearly all nations CONTROL radio, television, and the means of reaching their people!
They try to CONTROL the minds and thinking and teaching of their peoples!
I tried buying radio time in a few little countries adjoining France, Germany, Belgium, India, Russia, and China. But results were ALMOST NIL — almost NO RESPONSE. We simply could not reach the MILLIONS in these big nations that way.
Stupendous Doors Open
Now, at last, after 40 years of building toward it, the living Christ has opened STUPENDOUS NEW DOORS for getting HIS MESSAGE into the nations whose doors, those 40 years, were closed!
In all these HUGE POPULATION NATIONS — China, India, Russia, Indonesia, Japan, Brazil, Bangladesh, the nations of western Europe, Asia, Africa, South and Central America — God is opening doors AT THE VERY TOP!
He has already given me almost unbelievable FAVOR and CREDIBILITY in the eyes of those at the very TOP of many nations. And the number of nations conferring this unusual grace and favor upon me personally continues to GROW and EXPAND into more and more nations month by month!
There has been NOTHING LIKE IT BEFORE, so far as I know!
THINK OF IT! The chosen servant of the Great God being given great favor and high HONOR by numerous heads of state — who actually want to hear my message — who want their people at the top of their governments to hear it — who want THEIR PEOPLE to hear it!
I know of nothing like it ever before in history — unless it was in the days of the prophet Elijah.
Today, after 40 years, the DOORS TO THESE NATIONS ARE OPENING one after another, faster than I can get to them! THIS IS DEFINITELY OF GOD!
And now, PUBLIC APPEARANCE CAMPAIGNS are planned already in THREE nations, sponsored by officials high in the governments of these nations. Already I have gotten the MESSAGE OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD to audiences of 55 to 100 of each nation’s LEADERS in banquets or dinners in India, Japan, Thailand, South Vietnam, Ethiopia, and the Philippines.
This is positively miraculous! It is GOD’S DOING!
Look at the Fruits
But LOOK AT THE FRUITS! The work of the original apostles BORE THE TRUE FRUITS!
The Worldwide Church of God has always produced the GOOD fruits — ABUNDANT fruits. It is the ONLY Work in 1850 years that has proclaimed the true Gospel of Christ — the Gospel OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD to the world — now GOING TO THE ENTIRE WORLD!
Prophecy says the END will not come until, also, there is a “falling away” first!
He put us in His Church NOW! He will demand of each of us to show how much we have grown spiritually in the way of GOD’S LAW — the way of CONTRIBUTING AND GIVING. Those who prove disloyal or drop out of the Work — THE ONLY PURPOSE FOR WHICH YOU WERE CALLED NOW — will find themselves in the position of the one described in verses 20 and 24. They will lose the very salvation they were trying to GET!
You are each admonished to “make your calling and election SURE!”