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of August, A.D. ---(date)"
WHAT A PROCLAMATION! Who signed it? A news scoop I am
sending you, signed by Richard M. Nixon? I wish it were! But I'm
afraid he would only be laughed at, in our day when our nation has
FORGOTTEN ITS GOD!
HOW FAR FROM GOD has our nation gone, since that
Proclamation was signed, in 1861, by Abraham Lincoln!!!!
But, dear Brethren, HOW FAR have we slipped from our God --
we, who profess to be HIS TRUE CHURCH?
Let me APPLY that Proclamation to THIS ONE I am sending YOU!
I think God INTENDED that I give you this, for I never saw or read
it until TODAY, when, in the midst of deep prayer over our present
serious situation, I just chanced to run across it, in a book in
my library at home. Or, WAS it by "chance" -- or by GOD'S design?
Let's apply it.
I now say to YOU:
A P R O C L A M A T I O N
Whereas, in our present serious financial dilemma, the
living HEAD of this Worldwide Church of God has moved me to call
a day of Church-wide humiliation, prayer and fasting, to be
observed by all members of this Church worldwide, on Sabbath,
November 18, 1972, with the offering of FERVENT SUPPLICATIONS to
Almighty God for the preservation and spiritual welfare of His
Church;
And whereas, it is incumbent on us at all times to revere
the Supreme Government of GOD, and to pray earnestly "Thy Kingdom
come -- quickly -- thy will be done" -- and to bow in humble
submission to His chastisements now laid upon us in this present
financial dilemma, and to CONFESS and deplore our SINS in becoming
LAX in prayer and personal Bible study, as well as our SINS in
allowing worldly interests and pleasures to start drawing us away
from our God, and our zeal for HIS WORK, I call on all Brethren
to CONFESS this lukewarmness and this drift from the needed CLOSE
WALK WITH GOD, and to PRAY, with all FERVENCY and CONTRITION, for
God's pardon for these offenses, and for a permanent BLESSING on
HIS WORK henceforth, continuously to its final completion.
And whereas, when this beloved WORK OF GOD and His Church
was, until three or four years ago, blessed, united, and producing
abundant fruit for God's Kingdom, it is now AFFLICTED WITH
FINANCIAL PROBLEMS OF UTMOST SERIOUSNESS, it is peculiarly fit for
us to recognize the hand of GOD in this terrible visitation, and in
repentant remembrance of our own faults, and laxities, and
neglects, TO HUMBLE OURSELVES before the living Christ, and to cry
out to Him in deep earnest for His mercy, and HELP in overcoming --
to pray that we may be spared from further punishment though justly
deserved.