Sermon Transcript/Commentary - HWA- FOT Day One - 1955 - Big Sandy, Texas

Sermon Transcript: Feast of Tabernacles, 1955, First Day. Big Sandy, Texas.
Audio from: Herbert W. Armstrong :: Resource Library

Herbert Armstrong. Offertory.
My comments will be in blue.

At the Feast of Tabernacles 1955, Herbert Armstrong gave the Offertory. This was an excellent opportunity to showcase and display his sales and business skills. It begins just a minute or so into the beginning of the message. 

We've got to get on a different road. We have come to a crossroads, and this road is a dead end road. It goes down here into a ditch and down into oblivion, and we don't want to go any farther on this road. That doesn't mean that we're going off of radio at all but it means that radio alone is no longer effective. Now we've had quite a problem, it's taken a lot of prayer and a lot of wisdom to know what to do. We've come to the crossroads. The people have gone away from the radio. Where are the people? They're in front of television sets. So we decided that the thing to do, we have to go on television. Now television is a lot more expensive than radio. But that's where the people are.

Here, we begin to see the transition from radio to television. It is very obvious when you read this what Herbert required to get his mojo on, at least from an emotional standpoint. He required pats on the back and encouragement - but when Herbert saw it, he was extremely consumed with comparing himself and how he did with all of the others. This, I believe was for two reasons - one, ratings, two, ego and conceit that never really left him. If his priority and focus was on the Gospel he was presenting as first and foremost, the appearance of himself and the program would not have been as debilitating an issue. 

Well, then we learned something on television. We started on television. You know, I had a terrible time getting the first program out. First day, I didn't do anything. The second day, in the morning, I didn't do anything. Just couldn't get going. That afternoon, I got a program off and partly, and I finished up, and got another one going the next day, and we got two programs done in three days. You all know the story. Not since I was over here the last time, the Passover time. Well, finally, they got me all patted on the back, and they got me encouraged and, they told me our producers and directors and the cutters out there and editors told me that we had a better program then Bishop (?) and any of them that we had a wonderful program. So I thought. And then the first time I saw it on our local station it was such a letdown I just had a nightmare and couldn't sleep that night. I was so discouraged when I saw our program in comparison to the other kind of programs that were exciting, that people listen to, I just thought it was a total let down.

Again, I need to take note of some glaring observations. The focus here is not on the Gospel Message. If that was what this was all about, this would have been open and shut. The focus here is on appearance, presentation, and reach. And he displayed plenty of pride for himself all the way through it - regardless of how humble he tried to make himself be at the end of this paragraph. I could not help also, but notice how he almost said "I've got the truth", but quickly caught himself and said "We've got the truth". 

  . When I listen to some of our radio programs I know they're all not alike and some are better than others and some aren't so good. Now that's got to be true because I'm a human being and I do the speaking on radio, and I tell you, you don't speak as good some days as you do others. Some days you just feel like it, and you can just put yourself in it and do everything and other days it just isn't there. I think you know what I mean. You're the same way in your job whatever you do, aren't ya? Well, at some times at work, maybe you go along the same every day. But you can't do it in this kind of work. But when I'm at my best, when I listen to the radio program, I think myself that, uh, it's one of the best programs on the radio. I might say more than that, but I don't want to say anything as long as I'm involved, but, it isn't just my part of it, I've got, we've got the truth! It's a wonderful thing.

Here is Herbert's business skill in full glory. If this is the Gospel of Christ - why discouragement? What was the issue? Quality of course was the issue. He could not help comparing himself with others. Obviously, this was the competitive businessman in him coming out in it's fullness. It was never good enough. They had old equipment. Fuzzy picture. Poor sound. Old tin pan piano - nothing like his "finest Steinways". He's correct in one thing: "We didn't see it as you were seeing it". 

If I run an ad in the paper I think it steals the page, it attracts the interest, it dominates the magazine, the newspaper, and it always gets results. Now I was just discouraged. I said to my wife, why is it, I can do these other things better than other people but on radio or television, down we go. And I was terribly discouraged. Well, then we did nine programs on the second shooting and they were a little better. Those of you that have seen them know they were a little better. But they still weren't good enough. Well, I found out one reason that I was so discouraged, was that our local station KTLA, about the oldest station out there, in fact, one of the oldest in the United States, they had some old worn out 16 millimeter equipment and they were giving us a fuzzy picture and poor sound, why the piano, it was just an old tin pan, we had nothing but the finest steinway pianos, and, uh, that was one reason. We didn't see it as you were seeing it, I think, in other parts of the country.

Bigger. Better. More snappy. Zippier. We need everyone in front of our program. No mention yet of the cost aspect. Believe me, it's coming. 

Now I thought out it wasn't as bad as I thought it was. But also, we had to find a way to make a better program. Now I know that the last shooting that we did , you'll see the first program of that series a week from tomorrow night. One week from tomorrow night or the first Sunday night right after this, uh, this service closes, this Festival,you will see the one about Russia. I won't take the time to tell ya, but it snapped up a whole lot. And it zips along a lot better. And I think that you will find that it's a far more interesting program. But I learned this about television. We've got a tiger on one hand by the tail and we've got a lion on this other hand by the tail, and they're pretty hard to tame. I found that people are in front of television sets , yes, but that doesn't mean they're in front of our program.

Here, Herbert Armstrong is suddenly the world's biggest business expert on Game Shows. It turns out that Herbert watched quite a bit of the "Who Wants To Be a Millionaire" version of it's day, "The $64,000 question". I'm sure he spent plenty of time watching the other sitcoms too. I wonder if any of these were on Friday nights.

I'll tell you where they are, they're in front of the $64,000 question right now. Yes, in they're in front of Toast of the Town and Groucho Marx and I Love Lucy and Dragnet. Private Secretary. And the drama shows and What's My Line and I've Got A Secret. That's where the people are. Now if we go on in a good time, those are the shows that get the attention, that's where people are. If we go on at a time when those shows are not on, not many sets are tuned in, the people have gone to bed, or something. Now that's what we're up against in television. In other words, the people are in front of Television sets, television is fantastically expensive, television offers you a fantastic opportunity, but for what. It offers us an opportunity to turn out a more interesting program then the other fellow who will get the audience away from the $64,000 question, and Lovin' Lucy, and some more of the things people like to do. And if you can't do it, and you can't meet the competition, and if I can't make this book more interesting than the $64,000 question, and what the secret is and Whose Line is This Fella, er, What's This Fella's Line, or something, then television is not offering us anything but a lot of headaches, and to spend a lot of fantastic money and get nothing. The people that don't have a good show and a good program on television are spending all kinds of money and they're getting nothing back. We have to spend as much money for time as those fellas do. Do you know what the big shows spend just for production. Now this isn't what it costs them to go on the air at all. That's all extra. But I mean, what they pay for their stars, what they pay for their state settings, what they pay for their direction. The camera shooting. Or the show itself. The average cost is between thirty and thirty five thousand dollars. Every show. Every week. Some of them have spent as high as a quarter of a million dollars for one telecast. One time. Not counting the cost of the station time. And the station time on a network runs thirty thirty-five, fourty-five, up to sixty five thousand dollars. One time. But. The $64,000 question's been reaching pretty close to sixty four million people. They have got more for their money than any of you. Now they don't have as big of a production expense as others because they don't pay the great big movie star salaries, and if you'll notice, only one man has won the $64,000 so far.

Now Herbert claims to be quite the expert on Game Shows. While people were enjoying the show, Herbert was sitting there figuring out how the game works financially. Of course, this is what you'd expect a businessman to sit down and do, when one's mind is fully concerned with money. Also, Herbert's sarcasm on the Cadillac isn't exactly minute, now is it.
 

I'll let you in on a secret. I know exactly the way the thing's gotta run. They were getting to a place where interest was going to bog down because no one would go for 64. You've got 32,000, well the next 32,000 if you win it, Uncle Sam's gonna take such a slice of it, that you are betting actually about $27,000 dollars, against $12,000 extra if you win, something like that. And the question will be the hardest of all you got less chance of winning it than the earlier ones, so it just isn't a good bet in other words, and it is a bet, that's exactly what it is, it's a gamble. You can call it skill if you want to. But they knew that someone had to go ahead and win it. What could they have picked better than an officer of the United States Marine Corps. You know everyone's pretty well got a soft spot in their heart for the Marines. The Marines are always the first to land, aren't they. They had to be the first to land on the $64,000 question. They didn't dare let that Marine lose. Now I don't mean there was anything crooked about it, I don't think there was. But I do think this, they found a Marine that they felt so sure that he would be able to answer, even though they made the question fairly tough, the question wasn't easy. But they thought he knew it well enough, it wouldn't be too hard for him, and they were pretty sure he'd win. They didn't dare let him fail. It would've been a blow to the Marine Corps, It would have been a blow to CBS, it would have been a blow to the sponsor, it would have been a terrible let down all around. He had to win. Now in the same way, just so people don't think everybody wins that gets on, they've got to have another person very soon actually get to $32,000 and go on with 64 and lose. Now you watch. The next one's going to lose, and it may be this man coming along on baseball, right now. Yeah, I look at it once in a while too. I've got to know what our competition is. Because this fellow's going along on baseball, he's such a wise-cracker, he's such a smart-aleck, he knows it all. He's just the fellow to lose, he's supposed to go Tuesday Night, well, we won't see it, we're all going to be here. But this Tuesday Night, he's going to decide whether he goes for $64, and my guess is he'll go for it and lose. He'll only get that poor little consolation prize, that's all he'll get. Just a Cadillac, that's all. Poor fellow, I feel sorry for him. What a comedown.

Here, Herbert - because he is not happy about the ratings - decides to shelve a good part of the religious aspects in favor of higher ratings aspects. This is an example of placing ratings and growth ahead of the church aspect. Perhaps this explains why the Church became the little guy in the corner no one was told about until the middle 1970s and beyond. Religion - of itself, raw and simple - was not going to grow the business. So the plan was to change it from straight religion to cloaked religion. 

Well. Now the programs are rated, all of them that are on national networks are nationally rated, and I have the ratings of the Sunday programs here. The $64,000 question is now rated number one. And they are in the summer getting around $30 to $40 million people viewing their program every week. It is the largest audience that has ever looked at any regular commercial program. Now we are looking at things at how to produce a program more people will look at. For instance, I have just been awakened since my last telecast, or during the process of it, to this fact. That through these years, I have been talking to people like you people. I have been talking to people that know something about the Bible. And are interested in the Bible. In other words, I've been talking to the religious audience. And I have just come to find out and wake up to the fact that about 90% of the general public don't understand that kind of language at all. It's over their heads. They know who the Dodgers are, and they know who the Yanks are. Now some of you people may not even know that, but they all know that. That, that's popular language. They probably know who the Cardinals are, and some more of the baseball teams. But they don't know anything about whether the 34^th chapter is to be found in Jude or not, now that's all, they just don't know. In fact, they don't know if there's any such book as Jude in the Bible. Revelation, what's that? They think it has something to do with the Notre Dame Football Team, that's about all they know. And consequently, I am finding that our telecasts have been over the heads of most people.

To get the ratings up, Herbert decided to change it all. Notice that Herbert was very perturbed that no one noticed that he had the only lion "on the face of the Earth" that can be photographed without a leash. And no one bothered to congratulate or notice this incredible feat. What's his reaction to his audience's ignorance? Sarcastic, dry humor, or not - he was going to "cram it down their throats and shame them out". Shaming people out was a business tactic Herbert used often when it came to financial let-downs or slackers. And if shaming didn't work, it turned into spiritual threats. He had no shame as to what it would take to get the reaction and the results he wanted.
 

Now from now on, we're changing everything. We're starting down a new road, listen quickly, here's what it is. On television, I'm going to talk the people's language to the people. We're going to snap it up. We have the lion on our campus, the only lion on the face of the earth that can be photographed without a leash. Not one person thought that was important enough to even mention it in a letter. Out of thousands of letters from people who have seen that program. Well, we're taking the lion and the lamb out of it. I'm going to let you see it again sometime, and I'm talking about it, and I'm really going to cram it right down their throats, I'm going to shame them out, because no one even wrote a letter about it. But otherwise, it's not going to appear on the front of the program anymore. Now the program has been dull and dead starting out. Alright, I won't tell you, but it's going to start out a lot lighter from now on. I'm going to talk the people's language. I'm going to tell them the same message, I'm not going to change that message, because God has got us here to proclaim the good news of His coming Kingdom, and that's what I'm going to tell them, but I'm going to tell them in language that they understand. I'm not going to read as many Bible passages as I did, and when I do it'll be a smaller amount, I'm just going to tell them in plain language. I'm not going to tell them about a beast and about a harlot woman,and a two horned beast and this and that, and the other kind of thing, I'm going to tell them about a resurrection of the Roman Empire, I'm going to tell them about the dictator that's coming up over there, and I'm going to tell them those things in language they understand, same thing but in a different language. I'm adding a question and answer department on the end of it that we think will get a lot of interest.

This upcoming paragraph is very telling. It's amazing how when he got in front of the camera - he would get really scared - unendurably tired - weak legged - loses all strength whatsoever. It's amazing to think about when you see the scripture talks about the power the Spirit gives - and here, he simply gets unendurable weakness. That's just my own rambling thoughts about it. Regardless, it's an interesting observation. Now it's brag time for all the stations he's on in the major networks - mixed in with a little sarcasm as always.

 

Now we're just beginning to learn how. These next telecasts are not going to be a sample of where I think we're going to go. I've got to get loosened up where I feel free like I do in front of you people here too. I'm not afraid of you people, but I get in front of those (?) lights and those cameras, and I really get scared, for some reason, I just freeze up. My hips all around, my legs, my thighs, down to my knees, I have a tired feeling that is just an absolute ache that is almost unendurable. And no strength, my legs will scarcely hold me up. The minute I get up in front of that podium there, and those lights, I don't know what does it. I can't understand it. And it's still happening, but I think we'll outgrow it. Well, alright, we're going to make the telecast altogether different. But, it's not as bad as we thought. We're beginning to get the ratings in. First, though, let me tell you about the mail. I expected a lot more mail, I expected ten times as much, well that's fantastic. We're in the summer. We started once, there were people who listen to television than any other month of the year. February is the most listened to month. It's getting a little better now, but next month will be a lot better than this. Even this month is not too good, October. November is when they really begin to listen and then December, and January, and February is the peak month. So we started at the time to experiment, that's as it should be. But, nevertheless, on twelve television stations in the United States, we are getting about two and one half times as much mail as we did on the radio network of over one hundred stations, including the great CBS and NBC stations, like, WLW , KDKA Pittsburgh, WCCO Minneapolis, KOA denver, uh, WRCA, Richmond, Virginia, and stations like that. All of those put together about a hundred and, uh, oh, a hundred six or ten stations, brought barely a little over a third as much mail as just twelve television stations are bringing, so it isn't so bad, is it. Now then, I've got our ratings. These are the official ratings as they rate the program in other in certain cities.

(Edited out Ratings)

Now on to the Print Media. It's "Prarie Farmer", a fear-mongering piece about the end of the world - and the concern isn't the fear-mongering. It's how well this tactic is producing income. Notice the end: "How much it costs per letter to get these people to write in". Whatever it takes to increase the bottom line. 

So, I find out that television's doing a lot better than we thought. And with the new program, it's going to go. But that's not all. In addition to television, we are combining big space advertising something I've never seen done in this manner before. Here is the last issue of Prairie Farmer. This is the last issue of Prarie Farmer. Another paper is due out today or Monday. But this is the Sept. 17 issue of Prairie Farmer. They gave us a bad position way back here near the back on the left hand page. I don't know whether you can see it, but maybe you can see the headline, this half page over here, “The World Coming to an End? Some believe it, others ridicule. Here's the truth about the world coming to an end.” That was bringing in about 82 pounds or 80 letters a day last week and I don't know what it's done this week, because I haven't been there to see. But it is producing – in other words, look – we take the number of letters we get and we take the number of dollars that we spend on the ad or on the broadcast or the telecast and we divide the number of letters into the number of dollars, and that tells us how much it costs per letter to get these people to write in, you see?

Now onto the LA Times, praise (Ugh) of Basil Wolverton's horrifying artworks, making some impression upstage of trying to tear up the Bible off camera, then his "tyre proofs", and more Prarie Farmer.

Well that is bringing in mail at a lower cost per letter than either television or radio, so it looks like it's a very successful thing. Now here is the same ad, a proof of it, as it was in the Los Angeles Times. Now we've run a second ad in the Los Angeles Times, I don't know whether you can see it, the distance, but here it is, with one of Basil Wolverton's, uh, illustrations up at the top. This has a man, Oh, he's mad, he just trying to tear his Bible apart, he's going, (groans) trying to tear it apart, and it says, “Can it be broken”? “Can it be broken Skeptics say it can. Christ says it cannot. Can you prove whether the Bible is divinely inspired by a Creator? Most highly educated people and men of science assume that the Holy Bible is not the inspired revelation of a supernatural God. They assume it without the scientific proof that they demand on material questions. Most fundamentalist believers assume, on faith, never having seen proof, that the Holy Bible is the very word of God. Christ is quoted as saying the scripture cannot be broken. Isn't it about time that we stopped to seek out the proofs one way or the other?” And then I go on and prove by a prophecy that no man could have written it, that no one but a God could have written it, because it came to pass, and that's a story about Tyre. And what happened to Tyre, and that's the first of a series. Now that ad is going, in what I hope is a better looking display, in the next issue of Prairie Farmer.

 More moving pictures. More perks. More illustrations. It'll cost more. More advertising. EVEN the Reader's Digest! That'll come in handy in about 17 years.

Now, what we're committed to now, the new road we're traveling, is this: We're going to talk to people on television in the language of the General Public. We're going to perk up the program, and we're going to put much more moving picture stock in it. I found where we can get all we want from NBC New York. I'm going to illustrate. Whenever I talk about a thing it's going to be illustrated and movies, right on there, while I'm talking. It's going to cost a little more money, but it's worth it. It'll get people to listen. We're going to perk up that program. There's going to be less music in it. There's going to be the questions and answers. It's going to zip right through. We're going to use the big space advertising. We have taken out a reservation for two full pages every issue in the biggest circulated magazine that has ever existed on Earth, the Reader's Digest. Two full pages every month. We're going to get this gospel over to the public. Now you know, how many million circulation do they have? I think, isn't it about 14 million, or, something like that, I've seen it, but I don't remember. About fourteen million copies of that go out. And are bought.

Now the financial push. "We don't have that kind of money right now" - several thousand dollars a page. Then, Herbert reveals his business practice. Get more radio, more television to "increase the expenses to keep it from drowning and going down." He says you call it "bad business". He calls it "saving the work". 

. Listen, do you think this greatest work on Earth is about to pull it up and quit? Why we're just starting to begin to commence to start to get ready and begin to start, that's all. Now I reserved this on faith, listen, and I'll tell you more, we don't have that kind of money right now. It costs a good many thousand dollars a page. And I have ordered two pages on faith. Well, it takes you a year to get going, and we have to get a reservation in a year ahead. Now by one year from now, we gotta have that kind of money. You keep praying for it, and we'll have it. Now let me tell you something else, Reader's Digest has two South American additions, one in the Spanish Language, and one in the Portuguese Language. Millions of circulation all over South America. They have, what is it, fourteen or seventeen different languages all over the world. And we can but advertising space of the Reader's Digest all over the world, to reach people we can't even (?) by radio. Millions of people in England read it. We're getting ready now to start this big space advertising in the London Daily Mirror, the biggest mass circulation paper on the face of the earth, as a newspaper, nearly 5 million copies every Sunday. Or every day. We will have a big ad, as big as they will sell us, in the mirror. And our advertising agency over there is working for it. Now we aren't ready to lay down and quit. Now then. To bring this thing quickly around, why then, has it been so tough? Simply because, we had to put on more radio to keep from going down, and we had to go to television, and it costs money. And we had to increase the expenses to keep from drowning and going down. You call that bad business management if you want to, I call it the only thing that can save the work.

 More money. We're getting more. But not enough more. We're having a tight squeeze. Yet the biggest leap forward ever. We even opened schools! But More money!

And we've got to have more money than ever before. Now the truth is, we're getting a little more money than ever before, but not enough more. And that's why we're having the tight squeeze. It's been a terrible tight squeeze. But the Work is increasing. Now then, look at the work, at what has been happening just this summer, when we've had our tight financial squeeze, the work has taken it's biggest leap forward than it's ever had in it's history. In this summer, we've started on the new road of television and these newspaper and magazine ads. In this summer, we have opened our offices in London, England, and now have offices over there. And this summer, we have started our newest Grade School and High School in Pasadena. Now, just don't all of you start moving out there. Because we had people move here who didn't have enough money and their children going hungry. And if some others hadn't supported them, I don't know what would've happened, and we're not going to do that. And so I warn ya, don't you ever start moving here or Pasadena, until you know that you got a job or a business that will support your family. You men, a man that won't support his family is worse than an infidel, and your first job is to support your family. Now I think it's be an advantage to get your children in one of our schools. But don't lose your heads and think that's the only thing that counts because I'm going to rebuke you sharply if you do it, and we're not going to stand for it. Another thing, if any family's started doing that and move out there shortsightedly, we won't admit their children into the school, and that's all there is to it. Before any of you move either here of Pasadena, you come and be sure you got yourself located, not only a place to live, but a place to earn a living. Otherwise, don't come. Now I've said that before and a lot of you didn't pay attention. A lot of people moved here and they stubbed their toes good. And they've made some terrible mistakes. Now if I'm hitting some of you right between the eyes, I can't help it, you made a mistake, and you oughtta repent of it, and ask God to forgive you, those few families of you who did that. You haven't used wisdom! Now let's use a little bit of wisdom in this thing. And don't try to come out to Pasadena, you can't attend church there if you do, because I tell you right now, we got people in every room in the college building that you can't even see the preacher, we put loudspeakers in there, and there isn't any more room for anybody. You're going to have to get up on the roof or someplace, we're bursting at the seams, so there's no use coming, there's no room for you. Alright, now I've blown that off,

more ratings

State of the work: Church, AC - and we're going to go from where we are to five to maybe ten million dollars a year. (Don't tell me he really wasn't thinking about the Auditorium way back then - I'm certain he was). But it's a tight squeeze. And this tabernacle will rot if we don't paint it, but we can't afford that right now.....
 

And those are facts from the business world.

Listen, we're fighting our hearts out to make every dollar you send really reach the people and I think it's not doing as bad as we thought. Now we're doing our part and our very best now you people get back of it and help us. I'm going to show you the standing, and I have the financial report, here's one of the college, and here's one of the radio church. I will just give you a couple of brief figures and I'll give you the details later. But the income for the fiscal year, we close our books June 30. The last year, From June 30 last year, to June 30 this year, little Ambassador College was growing up. What do you think it cost us? The money we took in and spent to operate the college. $394,328.66. Kind of growing up, isn't it. That's not, as they say, hay, or chicken feed, or, pennies. Well, that wouldn't operate a big university very far, that would go into the many millions. But at the same time, that's a lot of money. Now the Church. $630,323.00. In other words, we topped a million dollars in the year from June of 1954 to June 30, 1955. And we're now going at the rate of a million, two hundred thousand dollars a year. It's got to go up to five million, maybe ten million dollars a year. So this is not a little thing any more. I just want you to realize, it's big, and it's reaching millions of people. Millions of people. Now there's quite a story to be told here about england. And I'm not going to take it away from Dick Armstrong, he will tell you tomorrow morning, but we've got to do more over there than we have, the people that have promised to come to the Feast of Tabernacles are not here, and there's a reason. We're not following up our work or nothing, we've got to find a way to do it. We're getting people interested over there, and we're not following up, and they either stub their toe getting offended about something, or they lose interest or something like that. There are hundreds upon hundreds of thousands of people all over the British Isles that are beginning to get a taste of the truth, and we've got a duty to them to follow it up. Well, now that about closes what I have to say. I think the picture is very bright. But listen, brethren, even though this new road is going to take us places, it's still now. It's going to take six months of a year for it to take effect where it will bring back enough money to help us out. It's all going out now. And we're still going to have a tight squeeze. I had to tell you two and a half years ago we would have a tight squeeze six months or a year on the radio network. I suppose you think I'm always saying the same thing. Well I didn't realize then at what extent TV had cut in. But we've got our eyes open now, we've got the facts, we know where we are. Now we know we're on the right road, and it's still gonna take us six months to a year to get going. And I'm going to have to ask you to back us with your prayers as you never did before. Now I know how earnestly some of you do that. But I also know there are a good many who are slacking off. And I want you to pray for the slackers as well as for yourself. And that God will stir them up somehow. Because we cannot lay down or quit. Now there has never been an offering that's taken up that means more to this work than this one today, and again, I wish I could say it's going into this tabernacle, I'd like to put in our beautiful glass windows on the sides, close up these doors, on this side, the same as over there, all the big stone is out In front, but we can't afford to put it up. All the money's got to go into saving the work and getting this new road going. Perhaps we can't do a thing on this tabernacle for a year. It oughta be stained or painted on the outside, it's going to rot here pretty soon. We cannot spare the money. In the meantime, you've seen what Brother Hammer and associates are doing with the grounds. In fact, I'm going to have to do something about that,because I think there's a plot here to make these grounds more beautiful than Ambassador College and we just won't stand for that, now. We can't have a place in Texas more beautiful than our spot in California because we've got the most beautiful spot in California and I think this already is the most beautiful place in Texas. Well, I tell, you, God is going to make everything beautiful when we're going his way someday. Now brethren, seriously, I hope that I don't want any of you to do something you ought not to do, put in more than you ought to, I don't want you to do that. A few people do that, and I'll say to you, don't do that. But most people don't put in as much as they can and I know that there are a good many of you here that can put in checks this afternoon for at least a few hundred or several hundred dollars and perhaps some of you can put in checks that run in the thousand dollar amounts. Now if you can, this is the time we need it, it's all going out as fast as we can get it there to Pasadena, our advertising agent told me on the television night before last. He has got to have a big amount of money or else. And Mr. Mattson said it all depended on what we can do over here. And he called me, the advertising agent, to tell me. And we won't be able to stay on XTG unless the money comes in. Now, oh these are the collection offering baskets weve had. Those are California baskets that were ordered from California and came from Michigan. So Bill Homberger is a former texan, he looked after it. Alright, brethren, just say alright, I guess I can take a hint, we'll leave. Will the deacons please come forward. All the deacons. And if that isnt enough then I'll get some more. I'll have to tell you a secret these weren't made in Texas. They'd be still good if they were. But that's Texas Size.

OBSERVATIONS:

1. No call on seeking the Lord's will on any of this. It's already been decided.
2. Very little mention of God or Jesus at all. In fact, the word "Christ" was used only once - and that was just reading an ad.
3. Whenever Herbert said "Prayer", he really meant "Send in Money". 
4. At the end, what he did with his call to money was simple business math. After saying "we don't want you to do something you ought not to, he then says the majority of you can put in checks for at least a few hundred or several hundred dollars or checks that run into the thousands. In other words - getting the second tithe that the members saved for themselves right back into his pockets. 
5. This was not the talk one would expect of one who was fully reliant on Jesus Christ, who was not even mentioned hardly at all in this offertory. It was total business - a lecture one would expect from a business meeting, or a business convention. Not a church. 
6. This was business. Herbert was a businessman. His goals were not based on anything but financial - and he knew full well that people came in there with pockets full of second tithe money. As much of that as he could get, in addition to regular first tithe, he had no problems trying to obtain.