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WORLDWIDE CHURCH OF GOD
PASADENA, CALIFORNIA 91123
HERBERT W. ARMSTRONG
PRESIDENT and PASTOR
January 15, 1984
Dear Brethren and Co-Workers with Christ:
I'm writing from Australia. But wherever I am, it is needful to keep in
touch
with the fast-moving world conditions. We all live in the same world. And the
atomic scientists have now moved the DOOMSDAY CLOCK one more minute
forward--from four to only THREE MINUTES TO MIDNIGHT!
I mentioned before how the President of the United States had said it
seemed we are fast approaching Armageddon and the END OF THIS WORLD.
Not too long ago if anyone mentioned "the end of the world," people would
have thought him to be a crackpot doomsday freak. But today the sanest atomic
scientists and heads of nations are talking about doomsday and the END of this
world.
These sober men are not wild-eyed religious fanatics. They KNOW what is
actually happening. They know how the EVILS in this world are mounting. They
know how the weapons of mass destruction have been produced that now can blast
all human life into extinction.
AND THESE SOBER LEADERS ARE WORRIED! One said, "I am frankly
scared!" They are bewildered, confused and perplexed. They see no way to stop
what now seems inevitable!
That is because they don't see GOD in their thinking. They know not what
GOD says about it.
Jesus' prophecy for NOW--our very time now--says, "This gospel OF THE
KINGDOM shalI be preached in alI the world for a witness unto all nations; and
then shall the END [of the world] come" (Matt. 24:14). The Church of God was
founded in A.D. 31. About A.D. 53 the apostle Paul wrote to the churches in
Galatia that they had already turned to ANOTHER Gospel! At that time a fierce
controversy arose over whether the gospel to be preached was the gospel OF
Christ, or ABOUT Christ. The Gospel OF Christ--that is, the Gospel he
proclaimed, was the good news of the Kingdom of God (Mark 1:1,14-15). That
Gospel (or "good news" announcement) was not preached from about A.D. 53
until 1953--a century of 19-year time cycles--when God opened up the most
powerful radio station on earth, Radio Luxembourg in Europe, to me.
Now that Gospel OF Christ, the Gospel of the Kingdom, has been
proclaimed in all the world, as a witness to all nations. Jesus was talking of
the
end of the world. Verses 21 and 22 of this same 24th chapter of Matthew quote
Jesus saying that following the end-time proclamation of the true Gospel would
come the GREAT TRIBULATION. Present world troubles are only preliminary to
it. It will be a time of world violence so great that "no flesh should be saved
alive." Humanity would be erased from the earth. But for the sake of God's
Church, God will stop the world violence short of human extinction. But the