Co-Worker Letter – July 25, 1978
WORLDWIDE CHURCH OF GOD
WORLD HEADQUARTERS
PASADENA, CALIFORNIA 91123
HERBERT W. ARMSTRONG
President and Pastor
July 25, 1978
Dear Brethren and Co-Workers with Christ:
Now we are beginning to prepare in earnest for the greatest Feast of Tabernacles ever.
Last Friday night, in addition to the weekly Bible Study in the House of God (Ambassador Auditorium), I recorded on television an opening Festival greeting to be shown by 16mm projector on large screens in every Feast site on the opening night.
Then on the Sabbath I did a full sermon, televised, to be put on 16mm tape to be projected at all Feast sites over the earth on the first Holy Day.
Last year, I was in the early stages of recovery from the heart failure of last August. But the four or five years before that I spoke personally at every Feast site in the United States and in Penticton, B.C., Canada.
This year I decided to speak at all sites worldwide, by having it projected on motion picture screens.
I have been working closely with Mr. Sherwin McMichael, Director of Festival Sites, and Mr. Wayne Cole, Director of Ministers and Churches Worldwide, in planning for this year’s Feast.
Did you realize that our Feast of Tabernacles is the LARGEST ANNUAL CONCLAVE OR CONVENTION HELD BY ANY CHURCH OR RELIGIOUS GROUP ON EARTH? In actual fact, it is!
We are working together with all the ministers who will be speaking at these many Festival sites. We hope to bring you this year the most INSPIRATIONAL, the most SPIRITUAL, the most INTERESTING AND INSPIRING sermons ever!
The HEAD of our Church – of GOD’S Church – the Living Jesus Christ, has been dynamically and inspirationally putting the Almighty God back into His Church.
Jesus Christ has awakened us to the realization that there had been a let-down in the Church! Ambassador College was rapidly becoming secular – with Christ thrown out! But Jesus Christ is not going to allow Himself to be PUT OUT! It will be GOD’S College again this coming school year.
This is the Church and the Work of the LIVING GOD – not of MEN Not of this world! The television program was becoming more and more secular – as some viewers voiced it, political, leaving God and the Bible out! But Jesus Christ has put God and the Bible back in – and the number of TV stations, as well as radio, is increasing every week now. Our booklet program was becoming more secular – less Biblical. The entire profile of the Work was becoming more and more secular – God’s TRUTH was being watered down!
Jesus Christ is ALIVE, AND LIVING TODAY – and He is dynamically CHANGING ALL OF THAT!
This documentary and secular approach in broadcasting, and in literature, was wasteful cost wise! Eighty-six percent of the people responding, and requesting literature from the telecast, dropped all interest as soon as they learned that a church was connected with the work.
Brethren, Christ is leading His Church into a dynamic return to that which built God’s Church and the Work – THE TRUTH OF GOD’S WORD, and the GREAT COMMISSION, as prophesied by Jesus in Matthew 24:14!
Some were beginning to look on this Work as just a humanly operated activity of this world! But we are NOT of this world – this is the Church and the Work of the LIVING GOD – and Christ calls us out of this world – to be not of it, though we must live in it!
I’m sure you will experience a NEW UPLIFT and INSPIRATIONAL SURGE FORWARD at this great Feast of Tabernacles!
I am now turning over to the printers what I believe to be THE MOST IMPORTANT BOOK SINCE THE VERY FIRST CENTURY! The printers are setting up a speedy CRASH PROGRAM, to give us first delivery of this book by October 1 – in time for the Feast. Never in our time has any book or writing spoken as this new book will! Its title is The INCREDIBLE HUMAN POTENTIAL. It is the MESSAGE OF THE ENTIRE BIBLE – put together as never before – from the prehistoric existence of only God and “The Word,” through the creation of angels, the creation of the endless PHYSICAL UNIVERSE and CREATION OF THIS EARTH – on through the sinning of the angels, the renewing of the face of the earth for MAN – the creation of MAN – WHY man was put here on earth – WHY God left Satan here up to now – WHY the Old Testament congregation of Israel – and why the Church and its mission – on through the world tomorrow for one thousand years – and then – THE INCREDIBLE POTENTIAL OF MAN THROUGHOUT ETERNITY – over all the vast material universe.
Much of this has never before appeared in print. Much of it will be NEW Bible truth to YOU! It explains the mind of man, and the actual source of human nature.
This book – full book length – will be available in virtually all bookstores in the United States and the English speaking world. It will reach an entirely new audience with God’s Message, heretofore unreachable!
Also we are updating, and getting before the world, such booklets as THE UNITED STATES AND BRITISH NATIONS in Prophecy – back to full length! Also such booklets as WHY Were You Born?, What Do You Mean – BORN AGAIN?, Just What Do You Mean – SALVATION?, What Do You Mean, THE KINGDOM OF GOD?, and The SEVEN LAWS OF SUCCESS, and many of those vital booklets that BUILT the work!
God is rapidly increasing my personal strength, and I am now turning out more work than I have in the past twenty years!
I pray earnestly for YOU, and I also need your prayers! The Work is now fast PICKING UP!
With much love, in Jesus’ name,
Herbert W. Armstrong