Behind the Work 2017

[Music] it's very important to be a Christian in this age because obviously or any age because otherwise you have no purpose in life you don't know why you're here and where you're going and in this age it's the time when the Great Tribulation is coming and we've got to have God's protection in these years ahead and if we don't have it then we're going into the most horrible time in human history as Jesus said there's never been a time like it and all nor ever shall be but the big picture is not just escaping the tribulation the big picture is fulfilling the purpose of human existence and that is that God is reproducing himself God made the animals that was very good God made the plants in each animal reproduced after his kind and then he goes right down the line and then God made man like him he didn't say after his kind but that's obviously what supplied God is making us after his kind we human beings are the only creatures that have understanding we have creative imagination to create things that no other creature does we put a man on the moon the chimpanzees or the other supposedly smart creatures they don't do anything remotely like that we have a godlike capacity and we're made in God's image and God is using us to grow to be like Christ and then to make us full sons of God to help rule the Sun the Moon the Stars the entire cosmos out there which he intends to build later on as part of his kingdom tremendously exciting potential we have the ultimate human potential to become full sons of God in his kingdom and family forever there's nothing like that it's awesome [Music] warm festival greetings to all our brethren around the world we hope you are all having a wonderful feast wherever you are as most of you know dr. Roderick C Meredith died earlier this year he suffered a stroke back in 2008 which left him partially disabled for the remainder of his life but he fought on he then was diagnosed with prostate cancer in early 2017 he went to sleep on May 18 2000 17 and now awaits the resurrection my life was directly affected by dr. Meredith in powerful ways he was my teacher colleague brother-in-law and friend in the earliest days of my conversion his writings influenced my life in 1959 I was teaching an eighth grade Sunday School class in Meriden Connecticut the material for the course was very weak so I started using the plain truth magazine for course material specifically dr. Meredith series on the Ten Commandments as I taught that course I began to understand God's truth in a whole new way which led to my interest in attending ambassador College in Pasadena dr. Meredith has touched the lives of all of us either directly or indirectly what some may not realize is that he served in the work of God for more than 64 years that's even longer than mr. Herbert Armstrong both of these men were giants in the Church of God when we consider dr. Mary's contribution to the church we find that there are many different parts to the picture he was a strong voice for clean moral behavior among the students at the three ambassador college campuses in which he served he provided a comprehensive biblical education for us in his first year Bible class which covered the four Gospels and the book of Acts he also introduced and taught a class on the epistles of Paul it's difficult to quantify the importance of his contribution toward an educated ministry not only in the living Church of God but among other Church of God groups I think most of us realized that God used me Herbert Armstrong in a very special way at the end of this age but after his death Satan tried to wipe the truth out of existence it was then that Christ guided dr. Mayer to fill the gap and revive the work that God used mr. Armstrong to build dr. mirth was not perfect no man is but he had a sincere heart I can still remember from my days in ambassador College that no one ever doubted that he believed what he preached and strove mightily to live the same even one who became a critic of the Churches of God wrote that he saw dr. Meredith and a different light than all the others as we remember dr. Meredith we were also here observing the Feast of Tabernacles a festival he observed and taught about for decades this festival symbolizes a time when the entire world will be learning God's Way of life every nation on earth we are pioneers of that way for we read of the soon coming time in Zechariah 14 verse 16 and it shall come to pass that everyone who has left of all the nations which came against Jerusalem shall go up from year to year to worship the king the eternal of hosts and to keep the Feast of Tabernacles Isaiah also prophesied now what shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established on the top of the mountains and shall be exalted above the hills and all nations shall flow to it Isaiah 2 verse 2 what a wonderful time that will be when these prophecies will be fulfilled yes we have the hope of a new godly Kingdom coming a time of peace prosperity and harmony as the world has never known a time when Jesus Christ Himself will rule the earth from Jerusalem and God's Way of life will prevail we have an opportunity to be pioneers of that way of life today and we are extremely grateful to God for the example set before us as we move forward toward his kingdom dr. Meredith like mr. Armstrong before him finished his race these were two remarkable men they were a Philadelphian pioneers they fought a good fight they kept the faith and it is incumbent on us to do the same we too must with God's power fight the good fight keep the faith and finish our race in that light for this year's feast film we're going to get a glimpse of the modern history of God's work through the eyes of dr. Roderick C Meredith back in 2011 the living Church of God produced a feast film entitled Philadelphian pioneers to honor the memory and the work of dr. Meredith this year we've chosen to remake that 2011 film including new footage and photographs we hope you will be inspired to hear and the words of one who labored in the work for decades how Christ intervened to guide and direct his work with God's help guided by Jesus Christ we can all go forward with zeal and power as pioneers of God and his way so now it is our honor to introduce to you Philadelphian pioneers onward to the kingdom in the fall of 1926 mrs. Loma D Armstrong wife of Herbert W Armstrong challenged her husband on the subject of a seventh-day Sabbath and a theory of evolution after an in-depth six-month study mr. Armstrong became convinced that mainstream Christianity was not teaching what the Bible really says following a series of humbling ventures in the advertising business in 1931 God began to use mr. Armstrong to preach the true gospel of Jesus Christ his powerful voice was first heard over the airwaves in Eugene Oregon and then over time the broadcast grew to cover the United States and many different parts of the world in the mid 1940s a young man looking for answers to life's biggest questions tuned in from Joplin Missouri after hearing about the program from his uncle dr. C paul Meredith I first heard of God's truth back in the winter of 1944 45 I know that specifically because the Second World War was still raging German was still being bombed but the British bombers by night because they had radar and we did an American bombers by day and mr. Herbert Armstrong was talking about the fact that Germany all what was being pulverized by our bombing it would come back and Germany would be the leader of becoming United States of Europe during those years one of my friends Jimmy mallet got killed and a wrestling accident got his neck broken and he and I had wrestled hundreds of hours together as little boys growing up rolling around in the Bermuda grass trying out tricks on each side there lovingly of course but like little bear cubs he got killed wrestling at the very thing we did it hit me and as Jimmy's body was lowered into the ground I wanted to understand why why did God let Jimmy die and the Methodist Church the mainstream Church I was growing up and did not understand and so I began to realize that mr. Armstrong didn't understand am alcohol doctor see Paul Meredith and I began to hear the program together and we realized that these other men were having religious programs did not understand we began to get various commentaries and Bible of religious writings from various Protestant groups as well and it just didn't make sense it had no real meaning was just love Jesus and be nice but they did not understand the purpose of life I did hear just before I came a young Youth for Christ evangelist and this man was very zealous about talking about Jesus Jesus and the gospel and the precious gospel and I asked him I was hearing mr. Armstrong are just getting ready to come down to ambassador College and everyone was very sentimental about the precious blood of Jesus of the precious gospel and I went up afterward after others had mainly gone and said was that it it's just about Jesus he said well yes that's it that's it that's it and he was really puzzled I told him I was hearing mr. Armstrong and he had hurt him in the core so he was buried he said well he says mr. Armstrong was very enthusiastic and very sincere I guess but he said you can be totally sincere and totally wrong and he looked at me like that and I thought yeah I thought about that then later I came to realize that he was totally sincere and totally wrong and that mr. Armstrong was sincere but had the truth of the Bible in the early days of course as I first began to hear the program I was attracted by prophecy because that was showing that God was real it wasn't something sentimental that was happening in world events but as I came to college and began to hear his sermons in person then it took on more of a deep spiritual meaning and he talked about Jesus Christ being our Savior and how we had repent of breaking God's commandments and he gave a very powerful sermon within weeks after I came about the true Sabbath of God and I hadn't understood anything about that but he went right down the line proving that the seventh day was the Sabbath of God and how important that was as a sign between God and His people most of my family when I was first being called to not understand and they were upset my mother was deeply distressed about it being different and strange compared to the Methodists and all of her friends and she got extremely sick and later said she realized it was out of anguish about his religion and I knew it hurt her and it affected me I did not like to see her hurting but my dad he began listening and subscribing to the plain truth my father did realize that I was learning something very special and he at one time later finally said he said someday I may need to be baptized really baptized and I want one of the appellant from the college to do it I know you know the truth and I understand that and I'm not ready yet but someday I will be and of course he died before that happened God was not calling him but he did come to respect the truth that mr. Armstrong had taught us well my mother and father were both college graduates they both graduated from maker University in Baldwin City Kansas just out west of Kansas City a Methodist College and my father became an accountant and my mother at first was a history teacher and various junior high in high schools until my father and mother married and so they both were educated they both had high ideals and my old methodist grandma that was very sincere and would read the Bible to me and I began to realize there's something about the Bible itself that went way beyond what I was getting in church and Sunday school I do remember walking through her bedroom when she was praying dealing by her bed with her long hair streaming way down her back to her waist but I I was impressed that she she prayed before she went to bed at night so I loved her learned from her and that was very helpful and my father gave me a pair of boxing gloves when I was a little boy and taught me to box and had a fast bag you know not the heavy bag like rocky hit but the fast bag you know bottled up like that so I learned to box as a little boy and I became the Golden Gloves champion in the welterweight class two different years there in Joplin Missouri then a junior high school basketball ah remember specific instance where at the halftime playing this final game of some tournament we were way behind and the other fellows had gone on up and as I was coming to the steps to go upstairs to the basketball floor from our lower floor locker room this other fella John Ivy was there we both looked at each other peculiarly and I said well how did you were stating behind why did you stay behind John he said why I was praying and I felt fine I said well I was praying too and God suddenly helped us start winning and John made more baskets by far than I did he was the best man on the team and he was taller and he didn't wear glasses as I did but God let me make the final winning shot I threw the ball just like a baseball and the strange that went right in and we won and then the buzzer sounded and God helped us win it was an obvious to me answer a prayer I had several things like that happened what God began to show me that he was real and a number of things and that was that was encouraging to me to realize that God was real another thing I did I became the mile championing of my high school for all three years I learned perseverance you've got to keep on keep on don't give up and that helped me in that particular way a milers got to keep on to the end you can't just bang and it's over with you got to drive yourself even when you're terribly tired and you're getting really worn out by the end of the third lap and then at the end of the third lap as some of you know they have what they call the gun lab because they start they they shoot the starting pistol at the final lap at the beginning of it and that sort of gives you another shot of adrenaline so you do that fourth lap to finish the mile run and that's when you have to keep driving ahead in order to win part of it is willpower it is not just a matter of ability it's a matter of willpower never give up and that's something mr. Armstrong taught us as well and what the Bible tells us never give up I came to ambassador college of course because I've been hearing the program and I realized I had to somehow find out the meaning of life and so I came down for my work a job I head up and near Boise Idaho and a government dam project on the Greyhound bus and stayed with my uncle dr. C paul Meredith and his wife for the first few weeks he guided me he paid my first year's tuition and ambassador college and was very helpful and he was a very thoughtful sensitive man and spending hundreds thousands of hours thinking through what the truth was and going over the notes he'd taken on mr. Armstrong for many many years included before he came to ambassador college and during that time and helped him put together the correspondence course he was a very thoughtful very educated and very dedicated man and then I moved into Mayfair and the big old wonderful X millionaire's home the mr. Armstrong had bought for very little because it was a rooming house by now and would begin to renovate it and the fellows lived on the third floor and the girl the only girl in college lived on the first floor betty bates and they had these old ladies living in the second floor in between they were all in their 70s Andes and as they died off or moved out or went to nursing homes then the students began to move in there I went all over the campus by the way when I first came ask mrs. Esther Olson who was getting the mail and opening the money the checks that were coming and I said well where does the money go and who counts the money and who takes the money to the bank and does it go to mr. Armstrong and I went around all over campus checking up on him to be sure he wasn't a greedy person or in it for the money and years later he laughed he said rowdy says I heard you're all over the campus checking up on me he said I didn't care we have nothing to hide and so I did check up on him and asked him occasionally difficult so-called difficult trips or questions I can't remember which ones but I was somewhat challenging I came out to check up on mr. Armstrong and once I got there I realized that I had found the pearl of great price so to speak and one of my dear friends named Jimmy Porter later became president of the CPA Association for the whole state of Missouri intelligent young man but a very dear friend he knew I was frustrated for the last couple years of high school trying to figure out what was going on and after I'd been to ambassador college a year or two and came back home to the for a year and a week or so during the summer he said Ronny said one of her it is you're looking for you found it didn't you you have a peace of mind and I said yes I I know I found it now and he sensed that he didn't understand but he's the sense that I had found what I was looking for in the first year of ambassador College we only had 12 students a year I came and some of you brethren know the first year or only for students with Herman hey Raymond Cole and Richard David Armstrong and Betty Bates the second year Raymond McNair and his brother Marion and Kenneth Herman came then the third year my uncle dr. C Paul Meredith already had a doctorate of course and and others came and I came they were just five of us so it made 12 students still only one girl Betty Bates so we all dated Betty we would take her for a walk or this is that just as a sister none of us fell in love with her she was a very sweet girl and we often would have mold sessions Friday night on the third floor where the fellas lived was just the fellows up there and we would have a some wine and cheese and crackers and talk over prophecy and world events and the purpose of life and that was very meaningful and there was a sense of dedication a sense of learning a sense of the purpose of life among the students all of us had to work to earn our way through but we had to be willing to sacrifice we were there for a purpose and there was that sense of purpose during those early days we were very close to mr. Armstrong on those early years I spent thousands of hours and I'm not exaggerating I don't mean hundreds I mean thousands of hours with mr. Armstrong perfectly he had us over to his home for Thanksgiving once or twice he would come and talk to us and he Raymond manera and I particularly because we were the best two ping-pong players we didn't have any gymnasium so ping-pong became a big thing and he would play table tennis with us or ping-pong many many times and talk and visit and tell stories about his life and then afterwards students to gather around him and he would open up and tell us you know various things about his life or about the growth of the work or what it was going on in a very personal way I heard him and watched him make the radio programs well many times maybe fifty or a hundred times and of course he had a tremendously rich resonance radial voice and a very great sense of dedication and enthusiasm and he was a man who always thought big he saw the big purpose of life and portrayed that and a sense of understanding and a sense of confidence I'll always remember coming back from my first baptizing tour with Raymond McNair I'd been out all over the United States in 1951 and just to give you a little flavor of mr. Armstrong's personality he had actually ordered us to come on back Raymond and I wanted to keep going to visit more people we hated to miss them but Raymond was designated as the senior class president and I was already designated as the student body president and he absolutely wanted us back he said that won't be the same to start this college year without our main two leaders you guys get back here so we drove all through the night from Oklahoma City and got back there dead tired the morning that we were to have the freshman orientation and as we walked in the back of the college he heard we were coming and he came down to meet us I didn't know he'd be there but he heard I guess he knew we were going to be tired and I was all browsing around with Raymond oh I'm so tired and we had to come back and I was ready to be very negative to him and we didn't know he was an apostle of course he didn't know that either I respected him but I was had been losing sleeping out of sorts and he came bounding down to see it she said boy it's good to see you fellas and he said it's really great to have you here and you're going to add so much to this orientation of all these new students and we're glad you worked your way through the night at here you are and you're here safe and he was so enthusiastic and warm I just melted like hot butter in the Sun Hey he used his personality and it's even expressed that his voice personality to just charm me to death so to speak so I did get to know him extremely well personally partly because of my friendship with Nick I'd go out at night with dick armstrong taking the tapes as they were actually the old discs the old radio programs were made on these discs and he had to take them to the radio atutor to mail them to the radio stations and he had to go to out to Los Angeles International Airport we call it LAX I Drive out there with him many times and we would stop by and had a cup of coffee or something on the way back and long talks with dick and got to know him very well and because of that relationship and friendship would dick then I would be over at the Armstrongs house and see them at a very personal way and got acquainted with Armstrong special mrs. Armstrong was not too much of a cook her mother had died when she was three or four years old and so she didn't learn how to cook very much and the Armstrongs had a lot of what they called Armstrong special and that was corn flakes so we'd be over at the Armstrong's house and sometimes for lunch or something and have cornflakes and I dick and I would eat out a lot later because again they didn't do a lot of cooking and finally dick was married and actually I got married before he did and he and I spent thousands of hours together again until his death on a baptizing tour and late July 19:58 and just before he died it literally just a couple months before he died God allowed him to perform three unusual miracles I was grabbed the others but the most striking of all was the healing the supernatural healing immediately of a man named Howard Clark and Howard Clark had been a pair a quadriplegic who had shrapnel wounds from the Second World War he was a Marine medic and had been shot up he'd been in the top Navy hospitals all over the nation they top-rated on him they've done everything medicine could do but on Pentecost weekend in 1958 I'd been sent out to either I don't remember where Chicago or Pittsburgh or somewhere for the Pentecost weekend and when I came back as I was being brought in from the airport by one of the young men from the college he said by the way mr. Meredith do you realize that Howard Clark was healed and we didn't have as much action on the telephone and there was no email back then I just hadn't heard said wow he's healed because I knew how it really well and taught him and and worked with him and met in his home as a guest and and his wife doing the cooking of course and even baptized him personally and counseled him and liked him I was astonished so the next day I came to the campus where they used have a circular drive he older brethren may have seen those pictures of circular driving here as you look in there's the library and the right side and a circular drive with parking places and here was Howard sitting on the fender of his car there before he couldn't even set up a loan without the braces of his wheelchair and he was sitting on the fender and I came up to him he was very intelligent had his good sense of humor as many intelligent people do it is kind of an all-knowing smile on his face as he saw me coming up he knew what I was thinking I said Howard I hope you've been healed he said yeah I've been completely healed I said well that's great I'm sure if we're able to God and Wonder okay so you could walk he says you want to see me don't you and I said yes I do so he got down and he kind of clumped around kind of like I have to since my stroke but two months later when I performed the wedding of another Clark no relationship mr. Brice Clark Howard was there and just within six or nine weeks whenever it was he was at the wedding at this time it wasn't clumping around his strength came back to the muscles were rebuilt in his body gradually week by week this time he had a child and each hand was going along holding the children brought tears to my eyes here's the guy who couldn't even get out of the wheelchair now he's standing up unaided carrying a child in each arm Wow God supernaturally healed Howard Clark overnight because of the prayers of Richard David Armstrong God heals supernaturally that's one of many examples but I've never forgotten that because I was very much involved with dick and his life at Howard Clark and his wife [Music] the first feast of tabernacles I attended was up in Mel Knapp Springs and the place we met was a great big wooden lodge with a huge stone fireplace and so inside where we would meet it was very interesting and the brethren that all sit around and various kind of old chairs it wasn't fancy at all but mr. Armstrong gave all the sermons and I mean we used to meet morning and afternoon for all eight days of the Feast of Tabernacles and he would give the opening night as well so he preached 17 sermons in a row his sermons are usually about two hours each so he was able to explain and expound the Bible and the whole purpose of life was a very meaningful time mr. Armstrong Mertz League talked me into giving my first sermon had I think it was in my junior or senior year of college and I said well I don't want to be a minister that's one thing I'm not going to be and he remembered that and kidded me about that later but he said well you're the student body president and so just give his speech to the students it's just a college chapel service he called it at that point to get me to speak so I did give a talk and then afterward he said well when you finished all of us knew you were going to be a minister everyone knew and I thought no I didn't know that and I'm sure many others didn't either I remember my topic I may still have that old outline I keep these little spiral notebooks with my sermon notes and they the topic was what is a true Christian because that is one of the things that I learned from mr. Armstrong also pressed upon me in the freshman Bible class that a Christian is not just someone who just believes that Jesus a Christian is someone who has Christ living in him and who follows Christ's example in keeping the law of God the Ten Commandments the Sabbath and and the one who really follows what Christ taught and the way Christ lived and so I gave that sermon just a quick quick nice sermon sermon and I said they based on that theme and it was very well received I was able to be a speaker more quickly or readily perhaps than some of the men because I had had a fairly educated background and had reasonably good grammar and also a great deal of enthusiasm and I had a junior-high speech teacher a high school called a callin course in speech and I had mr. Armstrong's brother-in-law for about a year Walter Dillon he writes about in his autobiography in a speech class my first year in ambassador College and the second year another teacher so I had several speech classes and that helped me have a better background in speaking it was exciting I was very jealous to help people but I did not have any idea I would be a minister I thought a minister just sits in one place or stays one place preaches in one church but as exciting going across the United States and Raymond annihilator burka and I would leave Pasadena around 9:00 or 10:00 at night and ride through the desert across to usually Tucson and have breakfast there the next morning when the Sun was coming up and then we would drive on a cross and be baptizing these people that are written in and we would have their address and we would have written them ahead of time saying we will meet you at the US Post Office and Russellville Arkansas or Waco Texas or Bolivar Missouri or wherever it was and then we would pull in and our big old Chrysler this was 1951 or two it we had in 1946 Chrysler mr. Armstrong was given and so we were able to drive that it was a very safe car an older car but in good shape and they would see these two young men coming and they would usually meet us there and they would know immediately who we were to be coming big car with a California license and we'd have short-sleeved white shirts on and then they would come up and we would since they were the ones and they'd say oh you the boys from Pasadena are you the boys from mr. Armstrong well we were acting ministers but we aren't ordained and so they did call us boys in many occasions we were just 21 22 23 years old but by the time we finished explaining and expounding the Bible they they didn't just think of us as boys they would often break down and in prized I said knowing they might not see anyone again from mr. Armstrong in this life they would sometimes foolishly bring along their local pastor thinking he would be so happy and in many cases he was not happy at all and he would try to interrupt or challenge us but every single time somehow God gave these two young men in our 20s insight and wisdom to answer them and we would start right down to the Bible and they would get embarrassed and leave every time because they could not answer they just simply could not answer us about the Sabbath or basic things the Bible is very plaintiff one we knew the Bible only having had you know three or four years of college we knew the Bible better than they did they did not understand so it was interesting to me and a revelation to me how confused these ministers were and all the sentimental stuff but did not understand the Bible and we did we had to trust in God again and again and again from water moccasins and other snakes from men who wanted to shoot us or beat us up and we had to put our trust in God and again we can see that God delivered us again and again we were missing meals we were missing sleep but God was with us on those tours at the end of that summer of the second tour I raised up a church in San Diego the first church raised up as a result of a master college God gave me that opportunity and we began a little church and were placed down on 6th Avenue in San Diego called dart Lee Hall and we begin that church with a congregation of seven local people plus five of us coming down and the college car from the college we had 12 people there all together which was interesting because 12 is the number of organizational beginnings after that autumn early autumn mr. Armstrong had already planned to send me up to Oregon to take over the church in Portland Oregon he said may slow Wolverton you wrote the Bible story some of you older brethren member he was pastor in the church but he had a full-time job as a cartoonist and he was just doing that on the side to hold it sort of hold it together as a local elder so I wasn't ordained anything and yet had been on these baptizing tours had sent out as mr. Armstrong's representative so he sent me up there as an acting pastor to help build up the Portland Church which I did I helped add a few people and strengthen the church looking back I think mr. Armstrong sent me up there to test me frankly to see what I would do during that time he flew me down because he had decided to ordain a number of men as evangelist and he didn't think of evangelist of some great office as we do today he just thought of young men like Timothy and Titus and others who are helping Paul and he needed help some of us were already beginning to write articles I had already began to write articles in the good news magazine and later the plain truth magazine and help edit those magazines while I was still in college and then during that autumn before I went up there to Portland Oregon so I was flown down and ordained an evangelist on December the 20th 1952 and mr. Armstrong and the library building the main room there ordain first of all Herman hey who is the oldest and in that sense in terms of service and he was ordained and then he and mr. Armstrong turned and ordained Raymond Cole and then they all turned and ordained Richard David Armstrong mr. Armstrong's older son who turned out to be faithful in the work and they in turn laid hands on my uncle dr. C Paul Meredith and last I was ordained last and least which I should have been because I was the youngest physically and the newest of the truth so I was ordained an evangelist in December December the 20th 1952 and I'm the only one left of that group that's still alive at this time mr. Armstrong asked Herman hey and me we were already leading students to help get out the good news magazine at one point during my junior year of college he had not been able to get it out for thirteen years because he had been building the work in the college and so we were able to get it out in the spring of 1951 if you older breath remember that's when it first started coming out regularly and on the second edition of it I think I had the lead article College atmosphere at ambassador we shared a little corner office and Mayfair basement the student dormitory basement and we had little student desks that were just normal student as side-by-side and we would work together and Elva Russell later Elvis said the Attic would come down and help type some of our articles off and wrote mine out on yellow legal pads and she was the only one who could figure out a decipher my handwriting and she would type my articles and then we would put it together edit it get it down to Ed Swain at Pacific press the next morning we usually leave at 8:00 7:30 or 8:00 the next morning when they opened down at this place called Pacific press where they would put it together and then we'd get the brown lines and the page proofs and finally the magazine would come out so Herman and I helped get out the magazine in the early days he did not want it to call it the plain truth that first well let us write he wanted the plain truth to be of a higher level so after we'd been helping him get out the good news magazine and he'd worked with us and taught us and trained us and giving us ideas about how to write better then he begins to let us write for the plain truth and then if you look back you who have these old compass you'll find that plain truth began to come out regularly for the first time in January 1953 and of course at the beginning we just had a few thousand issues so finally it grew and grew and grew and once we got on more radio stations the circulation grew and it grew all the way from three to five thousand issues on up to finally we had 8.3 million issues going around the world that was tremendous growth over the years and by the way we had a third magazine for a couple of years and the plain truth you older brethren may remember was kind of worldly during that time just a lot of news stuff and then you had the good news magazine just news about the church and deep spiritual articles but the bridge between those two was wide we got the tomorrow's World magazine going back then which had more spiritual evangelistic type articles to bring people along toward the Church of that magazine lasted two or three years and it did a lot of good though frankly during that time and we were grateful to have that opportunity but that kept us very very busy as you know now brethren we have used that same title I've revived that title having started the first time so we call our flagship magazine tomorrow's world and very grateful for that title on the trip to Europe with Richard David Armstrong in 1954 I was very enlightened in so many ways I've never been outside the United States and we went over on the old ship the Queen Elizabeth the big Queen the biggest passenger ship ever built to that time and as we pulled out of the fog coming out of New York Harbor just as we passed the Statue of Liberty the tugboats let loose and the main engines came on the whole ship just shuddered and the big horn came on and it just made shows go up and down my spine I thought I'm believing the United States had never been out of the United States before except briefly across the border into Mexico so it was quite an experience but the most striking thing was the campaign's themselves we had 700 people come in Northern Ireland and partly that would because they were very upset at the Catholics and there was a stress between the Catholics and the Protestants and they assumed that mr. Armstrong was anti-catholic in the way that some of their Protestant ministers were so they turned out and support they weren't necessarily being called frankly but mr. Armstrong was very powerful and he told the people there and Belfast and / and blogs go and Manchester and down in London he said if you British people don't wake up and turn to the God of the Bible he said God will take your Empire away and he said specifically and I want all of you brethren to realize this I heard it before God I was there he said God will begin to take away your sea gates and at that time they were about eight or ten major sea gates and now all but two are gone all but two and my wife and I were sent back over there two years later and right then the Suez Crisis came and Britain lost the Suez Canal within two years after he said that that was an amazing thing those things did begin to happen major things affecting major parts of the world even now the last two remaining sea gates are in danger and before long they'll probably be gone and then there will be none there had been ten then there will be none just as God's servant mr. enthroned said in the early 1950s and I've heard him repeat that many times over the years before he died then my wife and I were sent back over there by that time I had marriage Margie McNair mr. Raymond McNair and Berkman Eric Carle McNair sister Karl McNair's older sister Margie was my first wife who died of cancer about thirty five years ago but we went over and were given the opportunity to have a little follow through campaign and London and January February of 1957 we were there the winter of 56 57 and our first child Elizabeth was born in London and then in 1960 my family and I were sent back to Britain again and I had 12 solid weeks of evangelistic campaigns this was planned by mr. Armstrong not by me the old-fashioned campaigns five nights a week for 12 weeks in a row so I had 60 sermons in a row plus additional one or two sermons every weekend on the Sabbath because sometimes that preached in Bristol in the morning and back in London in the afternoon when mr. Armstrong wasn't there so I helped start the churches in London and then an Bristol and and Birmingham and up in Manchester as well and two of my four children were born in Great Britain my younger son my younger older son I should say Jim was born right at the college at brick Atwood and November of 1960 while we were there [Music] two months after dick Armstrong's death mr. Armstrong became very concerned because he and Ted were the only leaders at the top and he read about this businessman who had his big business and his son with him and they both were killed in a plane crash and the company just came apart two or three hundred employees and no one to carry on so he appointed me the second vice president I never asked for that dreamed of then I didn't know there was such a thing frankly but he appointed me second vice-president around October November 1958 two or three months after dicks death so he said if anything happens to me I want you to carry on Roger the most experienced and balanced overall man that we have but I was there for about 12 years was told oh no all about the work and to get into the various departments and know what was going on in case I had to take over so I was shouldered with that responsibility I had the privilege of teaching more students ambassador college classes Bible classes than any other human being and that's the truth you older brethren can check up on that and so I was teaching ambassador Bible classes nearly every year from 1953 until 1989 also I was superintendent of ministers over the churches and helped develop these churches all over the United States we'd start one church in Cincinnati and pretty soon we'd have two or three we'd start one church in Chicago and pretty soon we'd have three or four and all across the country was like that tremendous growth I sometimes talk about the fine 50s because mr. and mrs. Armstrong with the father and mother figure and there was a great deal of stability and the work slowly began to get going but in the 1960s I call that the soaring 60s because things really did take off but then we had dozens of ministers dozens of churches and we grew very very rapidly during the soaring 60s ever near the end of the 60s there began to be a little bit of a malaise come in because people began to take it for granted and as the world got worse the church got worse dr. Herman hay is to say the church reflects the world when the world becomes weak and worldly and we might say Laodicean then the church becomes more lay at at sin mrs. Armstrong died in about April or May of 1967 and things did begin to tear it a little bit those of us inside that could see it most of the Brethren couldn't see it but we could see it even by 1968 and 9 and in the late 60s and the deep respect for God for the Bible that fear of God was not as prominent near as much for back in the 1950s when we would visit people on the baptizing tour or in starting churches so many of the times they would know all about the Bible and they would be asking questions about the Bible and the main questions they would often ask were about the epistles of Paul the difficult scriptures in Paul's writings and that's one reason I started the class and God allowed me and mr. Armstrong allowed me to introduce the course called the epistles of Paul to explain all the so-called difficult verses and but by the 1960s and early 70s they were so turned off most people didn't even ask questions about that they didn't know about the Bible the question was is there a real God and is there a purpose being worked out so the whole worldly malaise began to set in to a limited degree even in the church but certainly the college did a lot of good we had beautiful activities beautiful concerts and dances and parties and mr. Armstrong always emphasized quality his quality permits that auditorium with stone that was used in the auditorium and it was very expensive but very beautiful and that auditorium is one of the most beautiful auditoriums in the world some of the top orchestral leaders have said it had the best sound quality of any place they had ever played so it was a very beautiful auditorium the death of my first wife Margie Helen McNair Meredith was in June June 16 1976 and that hit me like a ton of bricks I never expected that I would outlive Margie I always thought she would live longer because she was six years younger so it really shook me and I remember having to pray and fast and ask God's help to see the big picture myself but I saw that it was God's will and within his will at least and he allowed it part of that might have been because not a Margie she was a very wonderful person but it helped me to have to be tested in that way and then I had to adapt to a completely different personality with my second wife and a different set of emotions to give me a broader perspective as I went on and it certainly humbled me because I remember thinking as young some young smart aleck young man as so many of our and I have been growing up but he came right out of the edge of the freeway in the on rent when I was coming into work one day from LA cañada and almost hitting my car and he went on and I swerved so he didn't hit me but it was right after Margie's death and then I thought well I don't care my life is over anyway Margie's gone I started to speed up and catch and I thought no after just a 30 seconds I had to meditate sitting there in the car I thought no life goes on and I've got four children to take care of I'm a minister of Jesus Christ and I had to pray to God silently to forget my arrogance and to help go on and do his will but all of you out there brethren will have trials like that your child will die your wife will die you'll get fired we're going to have trials and tests in the next several years beyond what we have ever dreamed it and we're going to have to keep our mind on the reality of God he is our Father he will never leave us nor forsake us and you have to always understand that I was used as a regional pastor kind of an area pastored they called it at that time out from Pasadena and watching over Bakersfield and Santa Barbara and several other little churches around the area and I was asked to go up to solve a deacon problem the Deacons were having a feud up in Bakersfield and tourists three of them had already dropped away so I went up there to solve the problem and talk to them and try to help straighten it out and in the meantime I gave a sermon once the first Sabbath that was there a very strong heartfelt sermon because my wife had died about a year before this time and I gave the sermon on the resurrection and several people came up later and the group was this beautiful young woman actually radiantly beautiful I thought and she says dr. Meredith I love you that was such a wonderful sermon and all this thing I remembered was course was dr. Meredith I love you and that just hit me and she was so pretty I was just afraid she was married and this and that nice the pastor later I said well who was that and he said that was Cheryl Hensley and I said well is she married and he said no her husband died a few months ago I thought wow she's a widow and I'm a widower anyway so I got big ideas right away and I asked her out a few days later maybe the next time I came up and began to court her and we had a wonderful courtship because I was terribly lonesome after my wife's my first wife's death of cancer back in 1976 and I met her just about a year in two weeks later and never seen her before that is Cheryl so I was grateful to have that companionship while we're recording and later on I would have her come down from Bakersfield to stay and pass it in and take her around every weekend and one weekend I would have her stay with the family that were he was the barber there in Pasadena used to cut mr. Armstrong's hair and my wife had been a friend of him and his wife when they were in makers field and was baptized on the same day back in 1971 and then the alternate weekends that had them stay with mr. and mrs. a partying so that she would always be staying with someone it wouldn't look funny in any way to people and after a few weeks my wife said her she was my wife then my my friends said Cheryl said rod she said I find out mrs. the partying was your first wife's best friend you put me right in the lion's den I said that's fine it's good to check up on each other and of course they gave the good report on her and I came to love her very deeply and so we were married at the end of November and had a a very good marriage overall for over 33 years now about thirty three and a half years so I'm very grateful for her and the help that she's been she had to come right down and be a mother to my little daughter Rebecca was only about nine years old at the time we were married and was I just really needed someone to be a mother to her and Cheryl was a mother to her and then for a few years to my son Jim who was still a teenager and helping me take care of the house and everything so I've been very grateful for her all these years I now have six children and I will soon have 10 grandchildren and I had three great-grandchildren so I'm very blessed and God has given me a very rich and wonderful life and it is difficult to be a minister and constantly be out on trips and raising up churches and campaigns and still be as good a father as you would like to do but I always entered the work as a crusade that when I was first converted it was like a crusade and I wanted help mr. Armstrong to build the work and I've been a crusader ever since frankly and my family all knows that this is the most important thing in the world and I'm very grateful to be part of it but my children have had to put up with that and have done reasonably well in spite of that and a very thankful for them and to God for protecting and watching over them in that way [Music] God warned the Ephesian era he said you have lost your first love and so on warn them about that and that began to happen to us during the 1970s and some of the Liberals began to take over and two or three of us including me we had to do battle with the Liberals helping mr. Armstrong and trying to back up the truths and help him hold things together and we were successful and yet we lost a number of people and a number of ministers who were very willing to compromise the truth and who turned on mr. Armstrong some of them back in 1974 we lost 30 ministers and 3,000 people on the East Coast because of a bunch of rebellious young ministers Satan was attacking and attacking and attacking continually and trying to turn people against mr. Armstrong but we had to try to help him and carry on the work as best we can and during those years frankly some of the bad guys that kills me and they would say that they've tailed mr. Armstrong maying Raymond McNair Raymond and rod wish she would die so they could take over the work and that was a damn the boat why and that was not true at all and all the people around they knew that including those that work closely with me some are with United right now but I think they would still verify that I worked hundreds of hours with Burt McNair during those years and he knows that I never even started to commence to say anything against mr. Armstrong or that I wanted to start my own church or take over I did not feel that way I did not have that attitude and so we had to wait on God and ask God every day to deliver us and protect the work in the 1980s as most of you know mr. Armstrong had just had his massive heart failure back in 1977 and he was still recuperating from his massive heart failure and was very weak and was not able to do as much in the early 80s as he had but he still would try to come over to the office about 10 o'clock in the morning and spent a number of hours at the campus he didn't make quite as many trips but he was put into church back on the track when mr. Armstrong died mr. Tkach took over and he had I came by to see him that very morning he called all the council of elders and had his come in for a photo and told us that mr. Armstrong had died and we got along fairly well at first until the doctrines began to change but as he allowed a couple of the young men to influence him that slowly but surely you began to sense a lack of respect for everything mr. Armstrong had taught and they didn't talk much about prophecy they didn't talk much about mr. Armstrong's leadership about how we needed to do a powerful work that began to water down aspects of the Sabbath finally they began to water down the whole approach to healing and lots of things that made us distinct and it was easily seen by those of us who were on the inside a lot of the Brethren did not understand that at first they came out slowly very carefully just like the old story of how you heat the water up slowly with the Frog and the pan and pretty soon the frog was cooking before the frog realizes how hot the pan is getting and that was what was happening in the church for several years during the late 1980s and early 90s one of the major things that I saw them changing of course was the whole approach of having faith in God to heal and they begin to undermine that and just tear that apart in his sense and dr. Hayes said about this man that wrote the booklet on healing actually mr. Takata did not write it someone else wrote it and he said mr. Armstrong and his book that talked about faith and he said this other man talked about medicine I thought that was an interesting summary one man talked about faith and the other man about medicine very subtly and yet you could easily see the emphasis was away from God the emphasis also got off the understanding of who we are as the people the British descended in American people's are the descendants of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel he helps us know who we are in Bible prophecy as mr. Armstrong said that's a major key they very quickly began to undermine that concept and do away with that and then they began to undermine nearly all understanding a prophecy that made any sense and then they got back to the Protestant evangelical idea just love Jesus and that's all you need and of course that began to come in more and more as each year went by and since I was one of the major Bible teachers that had ever been in the college I taught more than any other human being the Ambassador College Bible courses I could see that right away I know many of their brethren and some of the even the ministers couldn't but it was easy for me to spot and they really bawled me out one time and one reason I was finally brought out of Big Sandy because they gave his sermon on the fact Christ has to live within us the same life he did live 1,900 years ago and showed the doctrine of Antichrist was exactly contrary to that and made that very plain and that sermon did not go over too well with the guys and pass it in and the other thing you could see very clearly was they didn't like mr. Armstrong they resented mr. Armstrong they wanted people to look to mr. Tkach and not look at mr. Armstrong anymore and so they began to understand undermine everything mr. Armstrong taught that was in any way different from mainstream so-called mainstream so-called Christianity so that was interesting and easy to see if you had understanding and if you had been around for a while as I saw these men turning away from God it helped me realize more profoundly had God had used Herbert W Armstrong to give us the basic knowledge of what life was all about the basic truths of the Bible following real genuine original Christianity and all those things that he gave I came to deeply appreciate that even more once he was gone and then I also came to appreciate the vast importance of genuine humility not just wanted to do your own but asking God to keep you humble walk forward in the fear of God and that has helped me ever since not to try to appoint myself an apostle or a prophet or give myself some big title but just to be God's servant I was ordained as an evangelist and that's what I am I'm Christ's servant at the same rank mr. Armstrong ordained me and I haven't tried to pretend to be anything else and I'm not anything else I had to finally start the global Church of God because it was getting so terribly bad as I said and I had two or three opportunities to do it earlier was urged by one group to join them and starting at different works full year and before I finally left but I told my wife and others I said I can't do that I was always taught unity and loyalty and I don't think things have got that bad yet and mr. Takata still could try to straighten things out so finally I was going to be forcibly retired by two of the young men and I told them I don't want to retire I'm only 62 years old I'm in good health I can just serve as a local elder annoyed people and preach some sermonettes and and help people any way I can I don't have to be a big shot and one of the smart alecks said that's out of the question and he had a real smart aleck win and it said it flew all over me because they began to undermine mr. Armstrong so much before that time the previous summer they call me in and they said you don't get it do you you still don't understand that we're not going to teach these are the things that mr. Armstrong taught anymore and they began to make fun of mr. Armstrong and pulled out old plain truths where there were some errors and dates and setting dates and prophecy articles and and literally they didn't jump up and down on him but they did verbally make fun of what Christ had done through mr. Armstrong I began to realize they're going the wrong way then a few weeks later they came out with the book that does God is I think was the title of that booklet they had and it gave a whole different concept of God Almighty than the Bible gives that was very obvious at that time that came out just before the feast in 1992 and I had a chance to read it but I just thought maybe it'll go away and we went to the feast and afterward I realized this is terrible we got to do something then a few weeks later why another leading evangelist called man or I came by to see him and he told me they're going to change everything this man had always told me the truth I said are they gonna change the Sabbath yes the holy day is yes are they going to change the prophecy understanding yes they were already beginning to do that and he just said they're going to change virtually everything that made us different from the mainstream Protestantism and so he told me that very clearly and I could see that's where they were heading then shortly after that as I said I was called in by the two young men and told I was going to be forcibly retired that made me make up my mind God gave me a shove I didn't want to leave but I was going to have to accept their retirement package they offered me a good extended salary and to be able to buy my fleet car for very little and to get me to move anywhere and they would pay for of course they would have been very glad to have me move anywhere to get me how to pass a deed I knew that the politics of it I had to do that and then start something later which would look hypocritical or else take my stand right then so I took my stand right then I did insist on seeing mr. Tkach and I came in with my wife because I knew that he would probably bring others with him and try to twist whatever I said so I one wanted one honest witness so Cheryl went with me and we went up to see mr. Tkach in his office and sure enough he had the two young men there so at least I had my wife and so I tried to tell him that I would be glad to carry on if we could carry on the truth and the work I would help him revive that work if he would but he said no we're going to continue on our present way and then I said well in that case I'm going to have to revive the work and teach the truth God has called me to teach the truth I can't let you guys stamp it out and he said rod rod he said you'll destroy the whole work and I said no sir you are already destroying the word I said thousands are going with Ted who would not have done that otherwise thousands are going with flirty who would not go do that otherwise and I'm going to have to teach the truth and carry on the work and that kind of shook him and he said well one thing I won't do I won't attack you personally and try to get people mad at you because of your problems I knew a number of his personal problems some of which were very very serious but he said oh that's good and then I thought well what'll they do though so I asked him and the young man who said well will you attack me and his old no we would never do that they all came out and of course my wife told me in the elevator going down she said Rhonda that's the first thing they'll do and I found out later yes indeed that was the first thing they did they got things out on the telephone of the computers all over the country beginning to put me down and saying rod Meredith always wanted to have his own church and attacked me and attacked me and attacked me and when we started the global church as you older brethren remember we did not spend our time attacking them we did try to get the church back on the track we talked the truth and that's the way we started not just to have a continuing job I told my wife Cheryl we may have to live in a trailer house I didn't meet a big fancy mobile home I met a trailer house and I met and she knew I met it we had to be willing to step out on faith and that's what we did and we were very small at first but we started with 19 people in my living room then the first Sabbath later when we meant a little more public meeting we had 42 and gradually grew that through that from that January up until the feast that all above 93 and then the next feast of tabernacles we had 3,000 people so we did begin to grow and God bless the work we got on radio right away we tried to get out the gospel right away and I'm grateful that we could do that the way we can help prevent it happening again again as to reinforce this whole concept of original Christianity and make it very clear that Christianity is not merely believing in Christ but having Christ lived his life in you that's why I keep emphasizing as you know Galatians chapter 2 verse 20 where Paul said I'm crucified with Christ nevertheless I live yet not i but Christ lives in me and the life which I now live in the flesh I live but the faith of his it ought to be the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me I'm trying to emphasize that I give that scripture actually in almost every other sermon as you know and teach that way of life and teach the course the importance of understanding the real God who intervenes in human affairs and get their mind on God as a reality the great god of creation who created it now intervenes in human affairs and teach people the reality of God and the fear of God and to do what God actually says and to study not just read but really studied the Bible feed on Christ and have the fear of God and walking that way [Music] we preach the whole truth and Paul talks about that of course in back in Acts chapter 20 verse 27 I think it is the whole Council of God and if you find any of you something we're not preaching tell us about it we have grown we have changed and we will change but other groups have dropped all kinds of things mr. Armstrong taught others have added things that mr. Armstrong did not teach and we are trying to teach the whole counsel of God based on not just what mr. Armstrong taught but the Bible itself and not water things down secondly we preach and practice the government of God and some groups have a dictator would be some of these men have gone out and appointed themselves God didn't appoint them but they've appointed themselves as apostles or prophets or whatever none of us in this work have done that we are God's servants if we're evangelists or a pastor that's what we are that's what we do and we teach the truth and we teach the way of God we try to teach the principle of government from the top down based on faith in God and where God is working and the fruits of a man's life and also we teach the approach of servant leadership that the minister the leader is to be a servant of others to try to help them to build them to serve them and that's what I've been trying to do harder than ever these last 18 and a half years of building the global and now living Church of God the third area of course is doing the work and many of the churches started out just so the men would have a salary as one group just openly said they wanted the ministers to have the same salary same way of life they'd had before and that's in their literature the early literature which most of you can't yet I suppose they've tried to get rid of that but many of the men who later came with us had been with some of these groups and told us that that's what they said we never did that I told each minister who came with us I said you've got to have faith in God that God will use us to do the work and he'll take care of us but we've got to do a powerful work God wants us to do that my food Jesus said is to do the work of God that's our food that's the strength we have our reason for being is to get this message over the world and obey God's command to preach the gospel of the kingdom of God the coming government of God to all nations and then Jesus said the end will come mr. Armstrong said to us a number of times and in the final Council of Elders meeting that I was where I was present with him just a few days before his death and as many of you know at the very end of his autobiography he said the greatest work of the church is just is still ahead and you go back and read that that's what he wrote that's what he said a number of times so he recognized that probably we can't be dogmatic but he recognized that probably the greatest work of the church was still ahead at his death he had done a wonderful work we honor him for that but frankly the vast majority of human beings all over Britain in Europe and all over the world even here in the United States has never heard the word Herbert W Armstrong or Worldwide Church of God a greater work is going to yet to be done perhaps the two witnesses will no doubt finish it beyond what we can do but we've got to carry on that work and we will be blessed forever if we do carry on that work and we will be laying up treasure in heaven and we will be rewarded by God for doing our part in his work [Music] jesus said this is my food my food is to do the work of God he said remember in the book of John that was his reason for being is it your reason for being that you were here on earth and your call now not just for sir personal salvation but you're called to help do the work today Dodd could call have called you later but he called you now and one of the big reasons they called you now is to help be part of the work of God to get Christ's message to the world to be on that team and if we all work together as a team and promoting the telecast and promoting the internet in promoting the magazines and booklets and correspondence course in promoting these campaigns then we can have a great impact on the world and additional thousands of people and actually millions will be witness to at least know there is a real God working out a purpose here below they'll have that opportunity because what we have done in giving of ourselves to do the work of God and get Christ's true message to the world today at the coming Kingdom the government of God a true government has got to be set up and this is our message to give the message of that government what that government stands for and what it means and if your heart is in that that it's in what Christ is doing today and you will be rewarded forever by having your part with zeal and faith and courage in the work of God today [Music] [Applause] you this has been a production of the living Church of God you

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Length: 77min 55sec (4675 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 11 2017