Basic HTML Version
Personal from...
Now lt Must Be Revealed-
How theWorldwide Church of God Began
N
ow it must be revealed- the true story of how
Jesus Christ prepared His servant far in
advance- then called him in poverty and
hunger- and 1he history of 1he slruggle to
raise up this era of God's Church in financia! stress and
on shcer living FAITH!
As a young man, 1 had been successful in 1he
advertising profession, ea rning, while sti ll in my twenties,
an income comparable to $150,000 a year today.
1was then unconverted and proud-ambi1ious and full
of self-confidence. I did not then know Jesus Christ as
personal Savior, Lord and Master and coming King!
The living Chris1 well knew that before He could
effectively use me, I had to be humbled, subdued,
CONQUERED by Him. 1 know now thal God had guided
my life
f rom rhe beginning,
preparing His fu1ure servant
for His purpose- even as He had prepared Moses, Job,
Paul and others, in advance. Even in my birlh, rearing,
and early business life, He was guiding me.
When I was age 16, my employer in my first summer
job away from home sparked in me lhe flame of
AMBITION to make something of my life- and with it,
the willingness and delermination to work hard and pay
the price of success.
When 1 was 18, a book caBed
Choosing a Vocalion
pul me through a self-analysis, leading me to choose the
advertisi ng profession.
1 had developed an intense driving energy.
r
studied
nights, learned by experience during the day.
By age 25 1was well established, with my own office
in Chicago's downlown Loop, as a successful publisher's
representative in the banking field. My business contacts
were with officers of 1he nalion's grea1 banks on South
LaSa lle Street and on Wall S1reet in New York-and
with prcsidents and board chairmen of many Midwest
industrial corporations.
1was married al age 25 to the wife 1was later to know God
had sclectcd forme- a marriage thal !asted 50years-until
death did part us. She was the help 1needed.
The
PLAIN TRUTH June-July 1979
But a flash depression in 1920-when
J
was 28-put
my major clients (indust rial corporations) into
receivership. Ninety percent of my income was Iost in
that depression.
But 1 had acquired the business training whích was
later 10 be needed in the Work of the living Christ. And
I had become proud. God did not make His calling
known 10 me al thal s1age. Firsl, Christ took me through
a humb1ing experience. By 1926 I was in Portland,
Oregon, reduced 10 poverty, hunger, wearing threadbare
clothes. Then a paír of supremely important challenges
carne. God's time had come to call me.
J
was taken through the humilíating experience of
finding that everything I had believed, or perhaps better
stated, taken for granted, about God and the Bible was
proveo wrong. By spring 1927, my mind had been swept
clean of the religious beliefs 1 had carelessly assumed,
and Jesus Chris1 had come into my life. Self-confidence
was replaced with a living FAITH. 1 was in desperate
financia! straits. 1 had taken a real beatíng. I had been
CONQUERED by Christ Jesus.
l
repented, was baptized
and a totally new life begotten within me.
When 1 was bap1ized in the spring of 1927, 1 received
the supreme gift of God's Holy Spirit. God's TRUTH was
being opened to me. God had now called me and put me
in His Work.
1was used by Jesus Christ, in 1933, in raising up the
parent church of the Worldwide Church of God. I had
hitchhiked- or walked- to hold services in a one-room
country schoolhouse eight miles west of Eugene, Oregon.
My one pair of shoes had holes in the soles. I said, in
humor, "1 have a suit for every day of the week-and
this is it!" My wifc was wearing her younger sister's
cast-off clothes. Our children had bcen sent to school
hungry. It was then the mídst of the Grcat Depression.
Church brelhrcn took up a collection 10 buy me a new
suit of clothes.
But now Goo was using me! 1 had started
broadcasting al a cos1 of $2.50
(Continued on page 38)