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blue and purple and crimson -- with onyx stones and fine woods. It
will be excitingly BEAUTIFUL -- but it is NOT a temple or
cathedral. Solomon's Temple at Jerusalem would cost about five
BILLION dollars today. This auditorium is very modest and
exceedingly low cost by comparison. But it will be breath-takingly
beautiful, fitting to honor the Great GOD!
The long awaited meeting with President Suharto finally
occurred on this trip -- it will be explained in The PLAIN TRUTH.
NINETY Ambassador College students worked on our
archaeological project adjoining the Temple Mount in Jerusalem this
summer. At a banquet in my honor, hosted by the Hebrew University,
with our students present, Professor Mazar presented me with three
highly prized artifacts which our students dug up, of the era of
Kings David and Solomon, 3,000 years ago -- a decanter and two
oil lamps.
Today I was going over chapter 34 of my Autobiography,
re-editing it for republication in Volume II -- originally
published in The PLAIN TRUTH, March, 1961. I was intrigued with
the following, which I feel may be of interest and inspiration to
you. This is as I wrote it in 1961:
"I think it well that the reader be given some idea of the
financial hardship under which God's present worldwide work got
under way. Some persecutors imply I was in it for the money!
Perhaps it is well to set the record straight.
"And further because an advanced student here on the
Ambassador College campus expressed great surprise, the other day,
to learn that I had been forced to labor along for 28 long and
lean years in economic hardship. He had heard that I had been
'knocked down' by God economically, somewhat as the Apostle Paul
was by blindness, and plunged into God's service. But he had
supposed that the financial test of faith had consisted of some
three or four comparatively short periods of perhaps a few weeks
or a few months.
"So let me say right here something about conversion I find
most people do not understand.
"The REPENTANCE required as a condition to being truly
converted by receiving God's Holy Spirit is something far different
than most people suppose. It is infinitely more than merely
'seeing' God's TRUTH, or some of it, and being good enough to
embrace and accept it. It is something altogether different from
merely agreeing with certain doctrines.
"Whoever you are, YOU HAVE, or you have had, an IDOL. You
have had another 'god' before the true living Almighty God. It
might be your hobby or your habitual pastime. It might be your
husband, or wife, or child or children. It might be your job. It
might be your own VANITY, or the lipstick you paint on, or your
business or profession. Very often it is the opinion of your
friends, your family, your group or social or business contacts.