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RADIO CHURCH OF GOD
WORLD HEADQUARTERS
PASADENA, CALIFORNIA
HERBERT W. ARMSTRONG
PRESIDENT and PASTOR
Broadcasting
The WORLD TOMORROW
Publishers of
The PLAIN TRUTH
July 11, 1958
Dear Brethren in Christ:
HERE OUGHT TO BE CAUSE FOR SHOUTING ALOUD FOR JOY!!
I have just been reading, in Ezra, the account of the laying
of the foundation for the new Temple of the Eternal at Jerusalem.
This was 70 years after the original great Temple of Solomon had
been destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar's army in the captivity of Judah.
Now, as prophesied thru Jeremiah, God moved on Cyrus, King of
Persia, to order Jews under Ezra and Nehemiah to return to
Jerusalem and build a new Temple.
I wonder if we, today, as SPIRIT-BEGOTTEN children of GOD,
can realize as much as those flesh-born children of Jacob the
tremendous IMPORTANCE of building a great Tabernacle for GOD! I
wonder if we feel any of the EMOTION, the JOY, and GRATITUDE that
they expressed! Reading this account surely made me THINK!
LISTEN!
From Ezra 3:7-13: (Moffatt translation) "The foundation of
the temple of the Eternal was not yet laid, however. But masons
and joiners were hired" (just as we have done), "and Sidonians and
Tyrians...to bring cedars down from Lebanon to the sea-coast at
Joppa," (this is so REAL to Mrs. Armstrong and me, since we have
been through Lebanon, have visited Sidon and the ruins of ancient
Tyre, and have seen the Mediterranean seacoast at Joppa, which is
a southern suburb of Tel Aviv today--and the natural means of
transportation of the huge timbers from Lebanon would be by
floating them down to the seacoast to Joppa, only a few miles
straight across from Jerusalem, thence this shorter distance
overland to Jerusalem)....
"It was the second month of the second year, after they had
reached the house of God at Jerusalem, that a start was made.
Zerubbabel ... and Joshua ... appointed Levites, from twenty years
old and upwards, to superintend the work on the house of the
Eternal;...
"When the builders laid the foundation of the temple of the
Eternal, the priests took their place, furnished with trumpets, the
Levites who were Asaphites, with cymbals, to PRAISE THE ETERNAL
after the ritual of David king of Israel; they sang their response
of PRAISE and THANKS to the Eternal, ... and all the People raised