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AMBASSADOR COLLEGE
PASADENA, CALIFORNIA
HERBERT W. ARMSTRONG, Chairman
Publisher of The PLAIN TRUTH Magazine
EXTENSION DEPARTMENT
An educational service at all levels
for all people worldwide
January 2, 1975
Dear Inner Family of Co-Workers with Christ:
Can you believe it? -- another year has flashed by; another
year of world troubles, overthrow of more governments, increasing
violence and crime -- whisking us rapidly into and through the
END time of this present evil world. We now have little time left
to finish God's Work.
In my last letter (November 18) I wrote about the most
important activity on earth -- the WORK -- explaining just what the
Work is. And I used that same letter as my "Personal" article in
the January Plain Truth.
The WORK is the great commission to which the Living Christ
has called us NOW. And that commission is to proclaim Christ's
MESSAGE for the first time in 18 1/2 centuries to all the world.
In the first issue of the new Plain Truth (February will be
the first issue), my "Personal" article will explain more clearly
than you've probably ever understood it before what the MESSAGE
really is. That MESSAGE is Christ's Gospel. But those who lived
in the first century suppressed it! They prevented the MESSAGE
God sent by Jesus Christ from being proclaimed to the world.
Instead, for 18 1/2 centuries, the world heard preaching about the
MESSENGER, calling that the "gospel." Thus, they suppressed God's
MESSAGE and deceived the whole world.
Jesus Christ was crucified for bringing and teaching that
MESSAGE. All His original apostles were martyred (with one
possible exception) for proclaiming it. What the world has been
led to believe is "the gospel" is not the MESSAGE Christ brought
from God. People have thus been deceived as to what IS the true
Gospel. Christ's Gospel -- His MESSAGE -- was the good news of the
coming Kingdom of God. It was NEWS. It was a new ANNOUNCEMENT.
It was the message of the coming KINGDOM OF GOD. That is a
tremendous subject, but Satan has manipulated men to withhold it
from the world.
But Jesus said, "And this gospel OF THE KINGDOM shall be
preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then
shall the end [of the world] come" (Matt. 24:14). Until God began
proclaiming that MESSAGE of God's Kingdom through me, it had not
been proclaimed to the world since the first century. His
disciples had asked Jesus for a sign so they would know when the