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inhabited this earth, prior to Adam. That the GOVERNMENT OF GOD
was established on earth over them, and that they sinned (II Peter
2:4), rejected GOD'S GOVERNMENT, rebelled, and went their own way
of DESTRUCTION AND DARKNESS, instead of God's way of CONSTRUCTION
and LIGHT.
Although I learned early many of these BASIC TRUTHS, God did
not commit to me His GREAT COMMISSION until I had been severely
tried and tested--by opposition, persecution, hardship, giving up
everything my heart had been previously set on. The commitment to
me of the GREAT COMMISSION came when I was 40 years old--almost
SEVEN YEARS after I was first called by being challenged into Bible
study.
In those early days of getting Christ's last MESSAGE to the
people, I had to start in the VERY SMALLEST manner possible. I
first spoke over radio in October, 1933. I proclaimed, for five
days straight, the KINGDOM OF GOD, showing the PROMISES were made
to ABRAHAM--that they were for inheritance of the EARTH, not
heaven--that Christ was going to return to EARTH and rule here for
a thousand years. Hundreds were SHOCKED! They looked in their
Bibles, as I had asked them, to the very scriptures I gave them.
They went to their ministers. They said to them, WHY have YOU
been preaching to me just the OPPOSITE of what the Bible says,
showing the scriptures to their ministers. That brought
persecution from the ministers, but people began to LISTEN.
On January 8, 1934 the program then called Radio Church of
God,
went on the air, never to cease to this day. Audiences GREW. I
had to take it on FAITH.
Once, when I had to leave home in two minutes for the
broadcast, without the money to pay (as I had to in advance) for
that
morning's broadcast, a man came to the front door, saying, "Here's
my tithe," and left running. It was 10 dollars. Another time I
was walking to the station for a broadcast, and the money HAD NOT
COME. But a man met me on the way, and handed me the money.
ALWAYS, one way or another, the money came. This was a WORK OF
FAITH. It was the work of GOD!
In those early days I was especially interested in the book of
Ezekiel. A special reason was that I saw Ezekiel was first given
God's message in PROPHECY, while he was a Jewish slave, by the
River Chebar in the land of Babylon. Now this was close to 120
years after the House of ISRAEL had been taken captive to ASSYRIA.
My astonishment was aroused when I saw that his message was to
be taken to the HOUSE OF ISRAEL. Now Ezekiel was a slave among
the HOUSE OF JUDAH--not Israel. By this time many of the "lost
sheep of the House of Israel" had migrated north and west from
Assyria. They were, by Ezekiel's time, in Britain and Western
Europe.
The book of Ezekiel starts off in the first chapter with a
rather weird description of his vision of the GLORY OF GOD.