OUR Co-Workers' BULLETIN =================================================================== ------------------------------------------------------------------- VOL. 5 Number 4. September 21, 1944 ------------------------------------------------------------------- SHALL WE NOW CARRY THE GOSPEL TO O T H E R NATIONS ? Hollywood, Calif. -- GREETINGS, dear Co-Worker family, in Jesus' name. Once again I am broadcasting daily in a special series over KMTR, at 4:45 PM, besides Sunday mornings at 9:30. I have just returned from a conference with radio-station representatives. They represent foreign SHORT-WAVE stations, and are working now on availabilities for The WORLD TOMORROW program, by which we can send the Gospel to ALL THE WORLD for a witness to ALL NATIONS! Think of it! Short-wave stations carry the Message many times farther than standard-broadcast stations--come are powerful enough to be heard almost around the world. The power of radio makes it possible to send God's final Message quickly to ALL THE WORLD! I believe God has provided this power for a purpose. Now I need your counsel and advice. Some have criticized because this work has grown even to its present scope and influence. Some seem to believe that to remain humble, God's work must always remain small in range and number of people reached and helped. The question is, SHOULD the glorious Gospel work to which God has called us--YOU dear Co-workers, our active staff, Mrs. Armstrong and myself--should it GROW, and serve and help increasingly more people, and proclaim the Gospel to constantly greater multitudes, or should it shrink back to a little work, little in doing good, reaching only a FEW? Let's look to the Bible teaching, and Christ's commands. Remember two things: 1st) the Bible reveals, everything God does thru human agencies starts small and GROWS BIG; and 2nd) Jesus said. "Every plant, which my heavenly Father hath not planted, shall be rooted up." But when God does the planting--when it is guided by Him, watered by His Spirit--it is like the mustard-seed of Jesus' parable: the smallest of all at the start but it grows and grows until it becomes the LARGEST OF ALL! God started the human family with one man and one woman. He commanded, "Be fruitful and MULTIPLY." Today there are two billions of people on earth! God started His chosen nation Israel with one surrendered man, Abraham. Today Israel numbers hundreds of millions, and ultimately thru conversion into the true spiritual Israel, this nation shall include ALL the earth. Unless a work, such as ours, started small, it is not of God. But the work which God uses us to start began as small as any work could possibly begin. There was no money--NONE! It started, with nothing but willing obedience to follow where God led, with abiding FAITH, and with hard work, in a little one-room country school-house. But God blessed that first beginning eight miles outside Eugene, Oregon, with a harvest of souls. A few months later the radio phase of the work started on one of the smallest stations in the United States--only 100 watts--in one small community. But God blessed it from the start, and for nearly eleven years it has grown steadily, tho thru much opposition, with much persecution, encountering constant trial and test and difficulty which has been hurled ONLY by answered prayer by OUR GOD--it has grown to national scope. Hundreds have been converted --even atheists. Uncounted thousands have heard the TRUTH and have been helped. But did Jesus intend the preaching of His Gospel to remain small in power and scope of members reached? His parting command to His disciples was, "Go ye, therefore, and teach ALL NATIONS." And again, "Go ye into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature." Now every thing in the operation of God's Plan is DUAL in fulfillment. The disciples of that first century lived in a smaller world than we today. But they DID carry His Gospel to EVERY NATION, then. The GREAT APOSTASY But the prophesied great apostasy set in. During the middle Dark Ages the light of God's TRUTH--the Gospel Message Jesus had brought from the Father and preached--was snuffed out, except for its preservation thru the written Word of God. And Satan, arch- deceiver, god of this world, has succeeded in blinding the eyes of men, until even the Protestant reformation has resulted in hundreds of differing and disagreeing teachings and denominations. The original Gospel JESUS PREACHED people seldom hear today! Now we have reached the TIME OF THE END. We are the last generation of this age! And, just as the early disciples did carry Jesus' Message to all the world of that day, so Jesus prophetically commanded for NOW: "This Gospel of the KINGDOM shall be preached in all the world for a witness UNTO ALL NATIONS; and then shall the END come." WORLD WARS have started (verse 7)--after 1914 and 1939. Now for centuries that Gospel has not been preached! It's the ONLY true Gospel--the Message Jesus brought and preached--the one His first-century disciples DID carry to all the world of that day. Today that which is being preached around the world is a DIFFERENT gospel--a preaching which DENIES the GOSPEL OF THE KINGDOM. The Message of this KINGDOM is the Message of Christ as Saviour, but it's MORE than that. It's the Message of the coming KING, to establish GOD'S KINGDOM, which shall replace all present kingdoms and governments on earth, and rule over all peoples. The whole, pure Gospel OF THE KINGDOM is not being preached today to all the world for a witness to ALL NATIONS, and it has not been preached since Jesus' first-century disciples carried it! Now today we live in a much larger world. This Gospel of the Kingdom must now go to ALL nations--between now and the END of the age (Matt. 24:14). Our time is SHORT! Radio men from Hollywood, just returned from a national convention of radio- station owners and managers in Chicago, tell me there was a decided increasingly hostile attitude toward religious broad- casting. More and more radio stations, under pressure of powerful, influential, sinister big-money interests in New York, are constantly closing their facilities to the preaching of the Gospel. Yet today RADIO and the PRINTING PRESS are the facilities which God has raised up which ALONE make it possible to preach this Gospel of the Kingdom to all the world, to ALL NATIONS, in the short time that remains! Think of it! One servant of God today can take his Bible, and speak in an ordinary voice, and the power of the radio throws that voice right into thousands and millions of homes, all around the world! Just one humble, faithful minister of Jesus Christ, inspired with His true Message, can be heard by untold MILLIONS, all around the earth! How else can Jesus' command be carried out? The time is HERE. The time is SHORT! You and I are commanded to work while it is DAY for the NIGHT cometh when NO MAN CAN WORK. God warns us thru Amos (8:11) that just before the end of the age there will be a FAMINE of hearing the word of God preached. Our days of opportunity are NUMBERED. Yet God is going ahead, and in spite of powerful forces setting out to STOP the preaching of God's truth, He is opening amazing new opportunities before us. The new A.B.C. net-work, I find, is progressing nicely--waiting for us to be able to afford to use it. I am to see, in a few days enroute to San Antonio to broadcast over WOAI, a super-power station at Juarez, Mexico, across from El Paso, Texas, which is TWICE as powerful as the strongest super-power stations in the United States--100,000 watts. It is station XELO, and I have reason to believe God is opening the tremendous power of that station to our use! PERSONAL So many of you have shown such kind interest in my family--- written such nice things about Mrs. Armstrong who is heart and soul in this work with us all--and so many recently have asked about our daughter Dorothy getting married. Yes, she was happily married July 22nd. Her husband is a U.S. Marine, and has been thru the battles with the 1st Division, beginning with Guadalcanal. Dorothy had asked us to pray for his safety when he went over, two and a half years ago. He came home without a scratch, tho many of his buddies are never coming home, and he had one hair-breadth escape after another. When told how we had prayed for him, be believed it, because he said he constantly was aware of some strange presence he couldn't understand which he KNEW was protecting him. He has been selected from the ranks on his record to become an officer and at present is at officer's candidate school on the Atlantic coast. May I ask you to PRAY for Dorothy and her husband? Neither are converted, but we know they will be, and I know you'll join us in praying for God to convict them, since so many of you ask us to pray for the salvation of YOUR loved ones. God bless you for this. IMPORTANT! URGENT! Finally, I have to tell you our Co-workers are slackening again in sending in tithes and offerings for God's great and glorious work. My, how glad I'll be when the money system is abolished and we do not have to use money any longer! You can't begin to know how I dread--and always put off till last-- acquainting our Co-workers with this financial NEED. I never do until the situation is DESPERATE. But I know you understand I never so much as MENTION the need of money, let alone beg for it, over the air. We send The PLAIN TRUTH and other free literature to 35,000 different homes, yet more than 32,000 of them have never had any request for money in any form whatsoever. You are one who voluntarily became one of our Co-Workers, and this BULLETIN goes only to our little inner family of Co-Workers, who are the ONLY ONES, aside from God, I can acquaint with this need. I never take up offerings in church services, or public meetings. But GOD'S WORK is again in dire need. That ought not to be. There ought to be PLENTY to carry this work constantly into bigger fields of service--plenty to start now adding short-wave stations one by one to carry the Gospel AROUND THE WORLD. And an important consideration is that these short-wave stations carry the Message to our boys in the service OVERSEAS. It's the only way we can reach THEM. Shall we do it? They are facing death--thousands of them hungering for God's TRUTH just now. This work of God NEEDS MANY THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS JUST NOW. Expenses are increasing. Beginning last Sunday the cost of sending the broadcast to Southern California over KMTR nearly doubled, now almost triple what it was up to a year ago! It depends upon Southern California Co-workers whether we can even continue to send out the precious Message in this important section! Listen, dear Co-Workers, won't you PRAY, earnestly, prevailingly, believingly, for me, and for his work? You can't know the trials and problems we face in conducting it. Yet its as much your work as mine--we are Co-Workers together for GOD. I NEED your prayers, SO MUCH! Please don't forget! If we'd all pray enough, I know God would lay it on the hearts of a few, who can, to place some really large gifts of from one to several thousand dollars in God's work, right now, when it is needed so sorely. There are some who CAN. But it's HARD to part with that much money, even tho one has it. It will take earnest and prevailing PRAYER on our part, and then God will help them do it, and lay up treasure in heaven instead of keeping it invested or stored up in this uncertain, and doomed world. God is our only REAL security today. Will YOU take upon yourself the burden to PRAY to this end? Our united prayers alone can keep this great work going and growing. We must not fail our Saviour in this solemn hour. I know YOU will sent in at once--by AIR-mail if possible--the very largest amount you possibly can. And whether it's a dollar, or several thousand, God knows the ability of each of us, and He expects us to give as we are ABLE--He does not expect us to give what we do not have. Remember to PRAY! My heart is filled with gratitude for your interest, your sacrifice, your prayers. Thank you, and GOD BLESS YOU. Sincerely, in Jesus' name, HERBERT W. ARMSTRONG