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Of course we have to start making sizable monthly payments
on this financing. One very HAPPY situation here is that we are
now entirely paid out on MOST of our buildings already constructed
(that is, our short-term 50%), and by the end of this year we shall
be entirely paid up on all buildings so far constructed, except for
the remainder of the long-term (15 to 20 years) insurance company
loans. And even those are already reduced considerably.
I will say this, Brethren: If you have as much confidence
in our business management and handling of God's finances, (under
HIS guidance) as the major banks and insurance companies do, you'll
have a lot of confidence. Not many institutions or businesses
have weathered the economic recession of the past two years
remotely as well as we have done. This has given the big banks
more confidence in us than ever. Moreover, they have full
confidence in our wisdom to know WHAT, WHEN, and WHETHER to go
ahead.
So it appears now, that we can finance this building project
in one big package PROVIDED we can bring the SPECIAL CONTRIBUTIONS
for the building fund once again back up to a live, active fund.
This will inject NEW LIFE AND VITALITY into God's Work! TIME
is now mighty short -- we don't know HOW short! If we are to GET
THE JOB DONE, we must be UP and AT IT! The Work of God NEEDS this
new spark to come in on the home stretch of the Work.
I want to hear the living and soon-coming Jesus Christ say:
"WELL DONE, GOOD AND FAITHFUL SERVANT!" Don't YOU? Do you want
it enough to PUT YOUR WHOLE HEART INTO THIS -- AND INTO YOUR
PRAYERS -- and to sacrifice for it? Don't make the mistake of
setting dates, and foolishly (as the William Miller people did in
1843 and 1844) selling everything you have in order to put it into
the Work. Our Work could still be brought to a stop a year from
now, until after the tribulation. But that does not seem so likely
now. We may have only one more year -- we may have two years --
we may have five. I DON'T KNOW and YOU DON'T KNOW! We are laying
plans for the next TEN years, if God grants that much more time.
What I DO KNOW is that Jesus said, in regard to knowing or
NOT knowing the time of His coming: "Who, then, is that faithful
and wise steward, whom his Lord shall make ruler over His
household . . . ? Blessed is that servant, whom his Lord when He
cometh shall find SO DOING."
If Christ should yet cut our work short one year from now, I
want Him to find me SO DOING carrying on His Work right up to the
last minute!
We must PLAN AHEAD as if we have another ten or twenty years
-- or more. But we must be as close to GOD, and as READY, as if
He were appearing at His second coming, in the next moment!
Let me say, as I did once before, that even though we have
been willing to give up having our own local church buildings IN
ORDER TO LET THAT MONEY BE USED IN GETTING THE GOSPEL TO THE WHOLE
WORLD, God has shown us that we DO WELL in desiring to have ONE