Herbert W. Armstrong encouraged the Worldwide Church of God members to focus on Jerusalem. Why? Mr. Armstrong recognized Jerusalem's great importance to God and, by the ways things were going, he obviously felt God would have him fulfill the prophecy given in Isaiah 40:9.
Here is what God's apostle wrote in his "Personal" in the October-November 1980 Plain Truth: "The Arab world wants the Old City of Jerusalem back into Arab control. Some nations contend Jerusalem should be made an international city. But the State of Israel has control, having wrested it from Jordan in the war of 1967.
"What has been happening in Jerusalem since the Israeli takeover in that war?
"I have been somewhat personally involved in events there since that war.
"Immediately after the death of my wife of 50 years, April 15, 1967, I flew to Jerusalem. I had two urgent reasons. I had seriously wanted to buy time on Radio Jerusalem, then owned and operated by he State of Jordan. Also I wanted to get away from Pasadena immediately into a totally different environment to ease the grief of losing the companionship of my beloved wife and partner in God’s work.
"I wanted not only to go on Jerusalem Radio, I wanted to manipulate the increase of its power to 1 million watts to give coverage over the entire Middle East. At Amman, Jordan, and in Jerusalem, in conference with the Jordanian government and its radio management, I arranged for a price for a choice time on an extended contract whereby our monthly payments for that time would finance the Jordan government in the purchase of German Telefunken equipment to boost the station power to this maximum wattage. It was one of the largest contracts for purchase of radio time ever signed.
"On Sunday morning, June 4, 1967, I left my home on our campus in England for London airport to fly to Amman to broadcast in person that evening, the first broadcast on this new contract. En route to the airport we heard on the car radio the sensational news that the Six Day War had started early that morning. No planes were allowed to get through to Beirut or to Amman. My broadcast on Jerusalem Radio never got started. By the following Friday, June 9, the Old City of Jerusalem was in Israeli hands….
"A message (Isaiah 40:9-10) is yet to go by a servant of God to the cities of Judah. In whatever way God wills, it shall go."
Here is what God's apostle wrote in his "Personal" in the October-November 1980 Plain Truth: "The Arab world wants the Old City of Jerusalem back into Arab control. Some nations contend Jerusalem should be made an international city. But the State of Israel has control, having wrested it from Jordan in the war of 1967.
"What has been happening in Jerusalem since the Israeli takeover in that war?
"I have been somewhat personally involved in events there since that war.
"Immediately after the death of my wife of 50 years, April 15, 1967, I flew to Jerusalem. I had two urgent reasons. I had seriously wanted to buy time on Radio Jerusalem, then owned and operated by he State of Jordan. Also I wanted to get away from Pasadena immediately into a totally different environment to ease the grief of losing the companionship of my beloved wife and partner in God’s work.
"I wanted not only to go on Jerusalem Radio, I wanted to manipulate the increase of its power to 1 million watts to give coverage over the entire Middle East. At Amman, Jordan, and in Jerusalem, in conference with the Jordanian government and its radio management, I arranged for a price for a choice time on an extended contract whereby our monthly payments for that time would finance the Jordan government in the purchase of German Telefunken equipment to boost the station power to this maximum wattage. It was one of the largest contracts for purchase of radio time ever signed.
"On Sunday morning, June 4, 1967, I left my home on our campus in England for London airport to fly to Amman to broadcast in person that evening, the first broadcast on this new contract. En route to the airport we heard on the car radio the sensational news that the Six Day War had started early that morning. No planes were allowed to get through to Beirut or to Amman. My broadcast on Jerusalem Radio never got started. By the following Friday, June 9, the Old City of Jerusalem was in Israeli hands….
"A message (Isaiah 40:9-10) is yet to go by a servant of God to the cities of Judah. In whatever way God wills, it shall go."
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