"The WORLD TOMORROW"
A WORLDWIDE BROADCAST

HERBERT W. ARMSTRONG
Proclaims to the World the
GOOD NEWS OF THE WORLD TOMORROW

BOX 111, Pasadena, California

Publishing
The PLAIN TRUTH
a Magazine of UNDERSTANDING

January 19, 1956

Dear Co-Worker with Christ:

GREETINGS, in Jesus' name! I have BIG NEWS! The year 1956 has started out with God opening tremendous new doors for thundering HIS GOSPEL around the world!

But first, I want to THANK YOU, sincerely and gratefully, for your part in making the year just closed the greatest year of accomplishment in the 22 years' history of the present work.

Just look at the advancement achieved -- the harvest reaped -- this past year! We started on TELEVISION, Coast to Coast, and earned the highest rating of any program in our field. The Commercial rating agencies, questioning many thousands of TV viewers, found that the audience watching The WORLD TOMORROW was up to TEN TIMES greater than ordinary religious programs!

We started daily broadcasting on two of the most important super-power radio stations reaching the north central, and the eastern states -- WLS, and WWVA. Also the world-wide over- seas broadcasting was expanded to include South Africa.

HUNDREDS of precious lives have been converted thru this work, and baptized by our own ordained ministers and advanced students of Ambassador College. Other hundreds have been miraculously HEALED of many sicknesses and diseases. MILLIONS have heard the Gospel proclaimed in power, as a witness. God's last warning for this age has been thundered around the world! And offices have been opened, with two ordained ministers in charge, in London, England -- our new headquarters for the overseas work.

But now 1956 looms up as a FAR BIGGER YEAR -- with the greatest growth and harvest -- even larger than last year. Tremendous opportunities have opened. New plans are laid.

The way has suddenly opened for us to go on a national net-work of radio stations in AUSTRALIA! We are sending out the first programs to Australia this week. This is something I have been hoping and praying for during the past three years. This is ANSWERED PRAYER!

Also the door has suddenly opened to go on the only television station in the Philippine islands, station DZAQ-TV, Manila. Although not so large a percentage of people have TV sets there as in America, there are several thousand sets, with from 5 to 50 people in front of every set. TV is new there -- everyone wants to see it. They say that all the public places, stores, restaurants, etc., have sets, and people congregate and crowd around them. When we are on the air there, EVERYBODY will be watching The WORLD TOMORROW -- for there is no other station to watch!

Unforeseen difficulties prevented our going on Chiang Kai-Shek's super-power radio station, "Voice of Free China." in Formosa, two years ago, as we had planned. But now the difficulties have been removed, and the way is open to go on that station immediately.

Just today the opportunity opened to go on TV in Alaska, where more than 90% of all homes have TV sets, and where the average number of people viewing TV programs per set is about three times as many as in the United States.

But even this is not the biggest news. The BIGGEST news is this: At last the way is opening for us to go on TV in the United States DAILY -- or at least 5 times a week. That is the kind of televising that will really REACH the people with the Message of Christ!

More and more, in recent years, we have been learning by experience that the once-a-week broadcast just does not take hold of the people as it used to. Today there are TOO MANY forms of entertainment attracting and tempting the people. After a whole week goes by, they forget how interested they were, a week ago, in the Message GOD is sending to the world.

The average Mr. and Mrs. America do not have an interest in trying to find and hear, or view, a religious program. It has been my job to produce programs that ATTRACT their attention, AROUSE instant interest, and make the GOSPEL actually more interesting to materially-minded people than Dragnet, The $64,000 Question, or a movie. THAT'S NOT AN EASY TASK!

But we have succeeded in arresting, and holding the interest of many hundreds of thousands, every time we are on the air. A large part of these will say, at the end of our program: "I'm sure going to tune in to The WORLD TOMORROW again next week." But people forget a lot of things in a whole week, and so most of them fail to tune in a week later. All our mail and other tests show this is what happens.

BUT, when we are on the air DAILY, people DON'T FORGET in a single day, and so they remember to tune in again tomorrow night, -- and then the next, and pretty soon they become SO INTERESTED that it becomes their VERY LIFE -- it becomes so much a PART of their daily life they feel LOST without it! I know that most of YOU dear Co-Workers feel exactly like that -- for thousands of you have written me and told me so!

Yes, we have learned that it is the DAILY programs that really get hold of people, move them, win them to Christ!

Now every commercial rating agency, so far as we have been able to get reports, rates The WORLD TOMORROW the NUMBER ONE Television program in our field. Yet, in spite of that, the actual mail response shows that we are reaching the people with only about one-forth the effectiveness that we MUST, in order to be able to afford it.

We have now been on TV six months, and we have watched and tabulated results carefully. The conclusion is now inescapable: DAILY Television programs MUST be used, if we expect to see God's great and powerful work continue to multiply in scope and power and effectiveness -- to really reach thru to the HEARTS of men and women -- to really CHANGE THEIR LIVES, and bring them, at last, into the glorious KINGDOM OF GOD for all eternity!

But HOW are we to go on TV daily? There will be some reduction in cost per program, but still it will cost almost FIVE TIMES as much as once a week, and we have had the tightest of tight squeezes in holding on to TV only once a week!

That, dear Co-Workers, is the problem I've had to face squarely. God has shown me the ANSWER -- and opened the WAY -- but you Co-Workers will have to BACK me in this tremendous undertaking as NEVER BEFORE! Never before have I had to call on you for such sacrifice -- such intensive and earnest and continuous prevailing PRAYER as now! But if you'll stand solidly back of me -- WE CAN GO ON TELEVISION DAILY, this very year!

I have taken the proverbial "bull by the horns," and set out on a breath-taking, daring new policy. In order to go on TV daily we have to first raise a definite fund for that purpose. As of now, we do not have the money to do it. But we CAN raise it. There is only one way. God showed me that way. It took COURAGE, but I have done it.

In order to raise this necessary fund for EVERY-DAY television, I have sent thru cancellation orders to all stations in the United States, cancelling the once-a-week programs as of January 29th. I have given a firm order to our business office to put the money that we would have spent on once-a-week-ONLY Television in a special fund in the bank -- a fund that cannot be checked on, or withdrawn, UNTIL we have enough to start us on TV daily. But even this will not be enough. We shall have to raise MORE money than that.

I am now planning, GOD WILLING, to start the daily TV programs next September. A definite fund must be raised by that date. But even as I write you the announcement of this new policy, we already have 5% of that needed fund in the bank. That's a good start! But it's only a start. We must add to that fund DAILY. If we let down or falter, we will not make it, and then we might NEVER get back on TV again.

But also, this presents us an opportunity to get God's work completely out of debt -- out of this rut of being just a little behind in paying current obligations -- and to enable us to have the financial responsibility, and the credit standing that the world will (recognize). This, in itself, will open up whole new worlds of opportunities!

But we DARE NOT .... (unreadable) .... dear Co-Workers. We must now put our hearts into God's work, and make more sacrifice, financially, than ever before! We must now plunge on ahead with even greater zeal!

I want to THANK all you dear, loyal, self-sacrificing Co- Workers from the very bottom of my heart for the way you have responded this past year -- especially this past month or six weeks. With your help, your sacrifice and your PRAYERS, we have been able to get the work almost out of debt and arrears on all current accounts -- tho there are still some back ones we must pay off. God's work is now on the way to a most sound financial footing.

I KNOW you dear Co-Workers don't want me to have to keep writing you all the time that we are behind -- that the situation is desperate -- that the work may be forced to stop unless you rush to my assistance. IF you'll respond, now, generously, and KEEP IT UP, week after week and month after month, we can now quickly get the work out of that unhappy predicament. THIS is the very WORK OF GOD ALMIGHTY. God is blessing this work -- prospering it -- blessing it with precious FRUIT for His Kingdom -- guiding it, causing it to grow constantly.

Brethren and Co-Workers, THIS is our one great opportunity to lift HIGH the head of the Eternal's work -- and to carry it this year to a GLORIOUS harvest far greater than ever before.

So BE FAITHFUL in putting the full TITHE of your income -- GOD'S TENTH, which is not yours, but GOD'S -- into His work -- and also generous offerings, as God blesses and makes possible. YOU WILL BE DOUBLY AND TRIPLY BLESSED!

We KNOW -- because the FRUITS declare it -- that THIS is the VERY work of God. Yet we have had to be running behind financially. This made me feel ashamed. It really HURT! It sent me immediately to my prayer room. I knelt, and with tears asked God to show me WHY -- to show me HOW to get out of this disgraceful situation. I said to God, that surely He is able to remove this reproach, and to provide EVERY NEED for His work, as He has promised, and I asked him boldly to DO IT!

He is answering that prayer! From that very day, somehow you Co-Workers began to respond as never before! Immediately God revealed this way to create the cash fund to get the work on DAILY television -- to give it the imperative cash working balance it MUST have to operate on its present scale of world-wide power and influence. Now I ask you to join me in that prayer -- and to KEEP IT UP, with all your heart and all your might, through this whole year, -- and the NEXT -- and the NEXT -- until finally our great Commission is completed, and we may all hear Christ say to us, at His coming, "WELL DONE, good and faithful servant -- come, enter into the JOYS of God's everlasting KINGDOM!"

I'm going to plunge into God's work harder than ever toward that end -- and if victory is achieved, YOU will have to do the same, and be willing to make real and continuous sacrifices that the needs of God's work may be supplied. God bless you -- I'm sure you will! GREAT things are ahead for us this year!

THANK you, in Jesus' name,

Herbert W. Armstrong

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