by Herbert W. Armstrong

God has given us significant and important victories very recently. He has opened new and extremely important doors for conveying His Gospel Message to NEW AUDIENCES in NEW AREAS! He has delivered us, for the time being, from the foreboding State of California lawsuit that hung like a foreboding cloud over us.

But we must REMEMBER:

The dropping of the lawsuit by the California Attorney General was only a single battle victory – NOT THE END OF THAT WAR! And Satan is still on his throne, unchained, knowing he now has but a short time – and HE WILL NOT GIVE UP!

The Attorney General of California and those politically behind him, beside those civil service bureaucrats in the Attorney General’s department, and the judges who were, to say the least, irritated by our dynamic resistance and refusal to “cave in” that God’s Church put up, are angry and will yet seek to win a next round of this war if possible.

I cannot read the Attorney General’s mind, but I would guess he would like to carry on his political crusade to become the governor.

There is, in this world, the way of life of self-seeking and of competition that leads to the ECSTACY of winning, and the AGONY of defeat. The Attorney General and those whose interest is politically with him are not now going to just lie down and play “dead.”

Already a new political movement is in evidence in Sacramento to try to introduce and pass another bill in the Legislature that will amend the Petris Bill, and restore that part on which the Attorney General really based his lawsuit and claim to ownership and total supervision of churches.

Actually, the original bill which the Petris Bill rescinded was aimed at cults like the Jonestown tragedy – cults that were not really responsible churches in the accepted sense. I understand there is another organization of some sort, claiming now to be a “church” which in reality is not a real church but engaged in a more or less criminal activity. Those embittered by the Petris Bill still want legislation to go after these “cults” posing as churches for legal protection. But if they can now succeed it may give the Attorney General’s office legal grounds for renewing his lawsuit against God’s Church. I’m sure those of that view would rejoice if they yet could DESTROY the Worldwide Church of God, or take over its current assets. I say current assets, because there is NO WAY they can destroy or STOP the Work of the living God. But they could, if they ever won, take over what current cash assets are in Pasadena and perhaps millions of dollars worth of fine properties.

Anyway, remember we have won a crucial BATTLE – but not yet the WAR!

And remember, Satan is more subtle and diabolically clever than we many times over. God set him on earth’s throne when he was “perfect in all his ways from the time he was created.” He rebelled, revolted, turned from the brilliant Lucifer to the cunning, evil Satan. God is allowing him to remain on that throne, deceiving and misleading an unsuspecting humanity UNTIL He who qualified is established on that throne, and Satan chained and put for a thousand years into the “bottomless pit” where he can no longer sway mankind during that millennium.

If YOU don’t fully realize it, Satan does – that now he has but a SHORT TIME left. And he hates most of all the ONE AND ONLY place on earth where THE GOVERNMENT OF GOD is administered – in this very Church of God! We are near, about at or just barely past the time of Revelation 7–the war in heaven, from which Satan and his demons are cast back down to earth. And what then?”

And when the dragon (Satan) saw that he was cast unto the earth, he persecuted the woman” (God’s Church – us). Then, soon we are to be taken on the “two wings of a great eagle” to a place of safety and protection from Satan during the Great Tribulation.

Yes, SATAN KNOWS how close we are to that time. I was personally persecuted ever since I first wrote my first article and preached my first sermon during the old “Sardis” days by some of their ministers (NOT by their brethren)!

But the first time the Church as a body met with real persecution from Satan’s earthly governments was this recent lawsuit! It was definitely PROPHETIC!

LET IT WAKE US UP!

Now Satan will try harder than ever. He will find new ways to persecute us. Even yet our attorneys advise me strongly NOT TO GO YET TO PASADENA! There are those waiting to grab me or serve papers on me! Not for any wrong or evil I have done – but pure persecution!

God through Peter says to us, “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about seeking whom he may devour: whom RESIST steadfast in the faith…” James writes: “Resist the devil and he will flee from you.”