by Herbert W. Armstrong

THE PEOPLE have a right to know! True, I traveled around the world – still do. You said – and front-page banner headlines screamed across the nation – that I was “siphoning off millions of dollars of church funds every year for my personal account.”

You should have ascertained the true facts before you filed the massive civil lawsuit against the LIVING GOD and His Church – instead of accepting at face value the allegations of ex-members.

In Japan I spoke to several public audiences. The Japanese government conferred on me the highest decoration ever given a nonofficial alien. At His Imperial Majesty’s invitation I enjoyed a 35-minute private audience with Emperor Hirohito. Only His Majesty, His interpreter, the United States ambassador and myself were present together. Ten ranking members of the Imperial Japanese Diet call themselves my “Japanese sons.” I am highly respected and loved in Japan and many other countries.

In Japan I have spoken on many occasions both to public audiences and at banquets attended by royalty and officials high in government.

Let me tell you what I said to these public audiences and these important gatherings. I give you here one example as a gist of all such speeches:

I said: “You are a generation destined to live in TWO WORLDS – the present evil world of MAN, and the soon-coming PEACEFUL world of GOD! The very first created man – ancestor of all races – was created in the image of GOD. He was made to have a personal relationship with the Creator – to be ultimately born into the very divine immortal Family of the living GOD! But he rejected God as his Maker, Ruler, Revealer of basic knowledge and Giver of eternal life! He cut off, from GOD, himself and the world that should spring from him!

“But that God of love, mercy and forgiveness now proclaims the GOOD NEWS [Gospel] that we may be reconciled to our Creator by the death of His Son Jesus Christ – that we may yet receive that blessed SONSHIP and be BORN AGAIN INTO THE VERY KINGDOM OF GOD!”

My speeches before public audiences were 40 to 60 minutes in length – 20 to 30 minutes at important banquets or such luncheons as Rotary Clubs, Lion’s Clubs and others. But the above summarizes a gist.

A NEW NATION was in process of being formed in South-West Africa. Representatives of 11 population groups had been in session since September, 1975, in a constitutional convention at Turnhalle. They were drafting a constitution forming an interim government and working to achieve independence by Dec. 31, 1978.

I was invited to visit South-West Africa and address that convention on the subject of forming a constitution for a NEW NATION! I addressed them on Monday night, March 14, 1977. Here is a brief summary of my address to this convention of nation founders:

“Immediately after the creation of the first human, God the Creator revealed to him the GOVERNMENT OF GOD and its WAY OF LIFE. The basic constitution of that GOVERNMENT OF GOD was the way of “GIVE” – meaning out-flowing love and concern for the welfare of others – as opposed to the way of “GET” – that of self-centeredness, envy, jealousy, competition, strife and violence.

But that first man, Adam, rejected the GOVERNMENT OF GOD and its basic constitutional Law of LOVE. Ever since, mankind has formed man’s own governments and a society based on the self-centered way. And man has produced a world full of evils, unsolvable problems, human injustices and agonies.

“And that,” I said to these constitution founders, “is the world in which you gentlemen are laboring here to form a NEW GOVERNMENT.”

I urged them to do a better job – to form a constitution patterned, as much as was for them possible, on the principles of the GOVERNMENT OF GOD! I mentioned how the governments of man are now toppling about one a month!

On Saturday night, Aug. 6, 1977, I addressed a large public audience in Monrovia, Liberia, Africa. There I told people of that country of the Message GOD sent mankind by Jesus Christ – a Message suppressed, un-preached to the world since mid-first century! I traced the course of this present troubled world, filled with human suffering. I announced the GOOD NEWS [Gospel] of the soon-coming KINGDOM OF GOD! The living Christ will soon intervene – will establish His GOVERNMENT over all nations of the earth. He will teach all peoples GOD’S WAY and bring WORLD PEACE, HAPPINESS and eternal salvation to all! And THAT was proclaiming to them the true Gospel!

Early last December I was the invited guest of the Communist People’s Republic of China – the first and only, so far as I know, leader from Christianity to be invited by that government. I and my party were royally treated by heads of that largest nation on earth!

I had a private one-hour conference with Vice Chairman Tan Zhen-lin, one of the two vice chairmen, and a close associate in the revolution with the late Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai. I had private conferences with both the president and vice president of Education in China – where the government is responsible for the teachings and beliefs of the whole people.

For nearly 40 minutes I spoke to an assemblage of 400 leading citizens and officials of the government. I spoke another 40 minutes to the diplomatic corps – with ambassadors representing 76 other nations present.

To them I delivered the same message – the evils suffered in this present world – emphasizing that all evils have been caused by living the way of “GET” instead of “GIVE.” I spoke of man’s efforts through time to form new and better human GOVERNMENTS – but the present world is in such trouble that it would seem the ONLY HOPE of HUMAN SURVIVAL lies now in the very imminent sudden intervention of an unseen “Strong Hand from Someplace.” And I announced to them the GOOD NEWS [Gospel] that such a new world will come in our time!

In the Philippines I spoke on successive nights, in the Coliseum in Manila, to public audiences of 11,000, 12,000 and 14,000 with the personal good wishes of President Ferdinand E. Marcos, and the presence of his mother on the platform. I have spoken to large audiences all over Europe, Asia, Africa, and to leaders in Central and South America. Also large audiences in Australia.

Of necessity I was accompanied by my necessary staff and crew of assistants. The total appropriation for these Gospel-proclaiming tours was the very smallest on the annual budget of the Worldwide Church of God – under $1 million per year!

AND THAT IS WHAT YOU HAVE TWISTED, Mr. Attorney General, on testimony of ex-members, to mean that I was siphoning off millions of dollars every year to my private personal account! The people have a right to know the PLAIN TRUTH about politically motivated false allegations emblazoned by the public media nationally.