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A few years ago a similar desire came to me. Because of
the sins of Israel and Judah, God rejected Jerusalem and turned His
back on lt. He will YET choose Jerusalem AGAIN, at the coming of
Christ as WORLD RULER, to be the capital city of the world. But
UNTIL then, Jerusalem is NOT God's earthly Headquarters, but
Pasadena, California IS. At Pasadena, God's Headquarters Church
had to meet for years in a hired hall. For the last four years or
so, we have met in the college gymnasium. The College NEEDS an
auditorium. And since the Headquarters Church meets on the campus,
this auditorium would also be THE HOUSE FOR GOD, where the
Headquarters Church would hold its Sabbath services.
The desire came to me to build a HOUSE FOR GOD at His
present HEAD-QUARTERS.
Of course I did not have in mind anything remotely as fine
as Solomon's Temple. Yet I feel it should be very fine in quality,
in the type of construction of our day. It should not be cheap or
shoddy.
I wanted to build this before we built any other buildings
on the campus several years ago. But serious needs for the College
seized priority. These other buildings had to come first. Now we
have the gymnasium -- used almost constantly seven days a week. We
have the Student Center, with the dining hall. We have the
classroom and lecture buildings, named the Loma D. Armstrong
Academic Center. And, at last, we are ln the new desperately
needed Hall of Administration, at the College's new main entrance,
300 West Green Street.
And now, at last, the architects' plans for the auditorium
-- which to God's people will be thought of as THE HOUSE FOR GOD,
at His present world Headquarters -- are completed. And here is a
most unusual coincidence -- OR IS IT COINCIDENCE? In Jerusalem is
a large-scale MODEL occupying an area of at least 100 feet or more
each way -- possibly 150 feet. This model represents the city of
Jerusalem as it was at the time of King Herod. Herod died while
Jesus was still a young child (Matt. 2:20) -- probably not over two
years old. One of the many, many buildings modeled in miniature is
the Temple -- called Herod's Temple, for King Herod (the Roman
King) had repaired and remodeled the second Temple built by
Zerubabbel, and enlarged it. As I looked at the model of the
Temple, from the front, I was startled. In form and shape it is
VERY SIMILAR to the design of our new HOUSE FOR GOD! Neither the
architects knew or planned it to be that way, nor did I. It made
me feel that God surely must have guided the plans for our
auditorium. For example, this auditorium will seat about 1250.
Yet the building is to be over 70 feet high. Now I might, myself,
wonder WHY would we build an auditorium so high? That much height
is NOT required to seat the audience -- or the congregation. How
did that happen? Well, some five years ago, when we first started
planning for this HOUSE FOR GOD, our architect firm's designers
made eight or ten rough sketches of building designs and shapes.
I was at the time at the English campus. They sent these to me
there. I tacked them all up on walls in our radio studio there.
Then I, and our ministers who were there, carefully studied all