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The increase over the year before in the United States is mounting to the 20
percent increase
--and in Britain, West Germany, European nations, South Africa, Canada, the
Philippines, it
is back about 30 percent again--as of the first 35 years of the Work. Australia
and New
Zealand are showing similar gains. When WE please GOD, He expands His Work He is
doing through
us!
Brethren, God is pleased with our recent greater efforts and increased
devotion to HIS
WORK, and is answering our prayers! I have asked you to devote more time and
more intensity
and fervency to your prayers for the Work at this crucial stage in the very
special Work He
has given His Church of this particular generation to do. Results show you have
responded.
BUT I FEEL WE NEED A STILL MORE SERIOUS SENSE OF URGENCY right now--a still
deeper dedication to PRAYER at this time. We CANNOT AFFORD TO BECOME LUKEWARM!
We cannot afford to let our minds drift from the intense NEED for this very
special mission
of this particular time in world history, so shortly before Christ's coming and
HIS KINGDOM!
It must be FIRST in our minds and hearts--not interests of this world.
Now about the Work itself.
I think I should address a certain point at this time. Actually it has
been more of a
question in the public press than among ourselves. They seem continually to have
asked:
"Who will succeed Herbert W. Armstrong? Who will rule the Church and all the
college assets?"
They cannot understand that Jesus Christ is a LIVING Christ--that HE is the Head
of the
Church, and if they want an answer to that question they would have to ask HIM!
To the
world, there is no living Jesus Christ in the picture at all. To them this
Church is merely
an organization of PEOPLE--like a social club, or any other church where a group
of PEOPLE
have associated themselves together for their own religious purposes.
Few understand just what IS the Church. There are so many churches in the
world.
People just take churches for granted. But more than 1,953 years ago, Jesus
Christ said,
"I will build my Church." Few know WHY He built it--for what PURPOSE. The
purpose,
primarily, was dual:
1) to proclaim to the world the Gospel Message God sent to mankind by
Jesus as God's
Messenger (Mal. 3:1) of the coming Kingdom of God,