I was at work in the office early as usual to type the newsletter. £25 11s 6d came in today. We spent £14 on 3½ sheets of 4d stamps (840) for the newsletter; I gave Freda £1 for cleaning the office this afternoon (and the car this morning), and I paid £10 11s 6d into the Current Account.
After tea I collected Mum and Mrs Ridout for the Bible Study, Mrs Townsend and Jane came too. I spoke on Who is Jesus?
I hope there will be a good response to the newsletter. I wrote:—
Friday, 6th September, 1968
My dear friend,
It is not yet 6 o’clock in the morning and I have come early to the office to write you this all-important letter. This seems to be the only way in which I can be sure of getting a letter to you without further delay. Later this morning this letter will be copied onto a plate, printed, automatically folded, inserted in an envelope, then addressed, stamped and sealed, put in boxes for the Post Office, and finally sent on its way to you to reach some of our friends at least by Saturday morning.
It has been almost three months since we sent out the last partners’ letter, and I believe we have seen this work of God grow more during that time than during the whole of the previous year. We have been almost overwhelmed by the huge response to our last book, Britain’s Royal Throne. Letters have been pouring into the office running into thousands per week, hundreds daily in fact, so you will understand the delay in writing this letter.
Never in all my life have I felt so optimistic, so utterly convinced, that there must before long be a move of God throughout the nation. This work is bearing fruit. There is every evidence that the message we have thundered across this nation during the last five years, the message of coming revival or inevitable judgment, is at last being taken to heart by some of God’s people. More and more people are beginning to help the work financially. I have never felt quite so encouraged as I do today.
However, we must do more. There is so very much more that can be accomplished if only God’s people — you who make this work possible by your tithes and offerings — will pray and give and sacrifice, so that the work can expand. We have never had so many doors open to us.
We must soon consider the possibility of radio broadcasting. We must increase our newspaper advertising — our half-page advertisements in national magazines [Time and Tide and The National Message] have brought hundreds of new people into the work in recent months. We urgently need a multi-tape recording unit. More office equipment is having to be purchased, extra staff are having to be taken on. Above all, if the demand is to be met, we must greatly increase our output of literature, tons of which is going out to the whole of Britain and throughout the Commonwealth, alerting our people to the perils of this hour and the need for national repentance. Thank God, hundreds are responding.
We must have an immediate reprint of Britain’s Royal Throne. Only a very few copies remain of the first edition and we are, by faith, ordering a further 15,000 copies. This second edition will, we trust, be an improvement on the first. There will be one or two new footnotes added to the text, slight improvements in the wording, and one or two minor errors rectified. How many people noticed, for instance, that in the photograph facing Page 55, we accidentally omitted the name of Prince Andrew?
Other books too are out of print. We have to re-print Jesus Is Coming Very Soon, this time as a much larger book and illustrated with many dramatic photographs of this end-time in which we live. The addition of high quality photographs to our books has greatly increased their appeal, judging by the letters we have received.
Then we feel very definitely that we should recommence publication of Focus magazine. Our intention is to print in full, or as fully as possible, the messages we preached in our Plymouth Crusade last year. Even now, hearing one or two of the tapes, we marvel at what God spoke through us as we preached His Word, and all that Christ has done as a result of that Crusade.
Perhaps you can help us in this. If you have a tape-recorder and also a typewriter and would be willing to take down these Crusade sermons direct from the tape, please let me know. It would be a tremendous help to us.
I am especially asking you to pray for me. There is so much I feel the Lord would have us do, and I sincerely and humbly ask that you will pray for me, perhaps more than you have before, for the needed strength and guidance and help from the Lord. The work here carries great responsibility. My day begins at 5.45am and I am usually in the office just after 8.00am when I begin dealing with your letters before my staff arrive. Apart from a break for lunch of about 45 minutes, we work right through until about 6.00pm and then often in the evening until 10.00pm or later. It is usually around midnight before we retire. So we work a six-day week and often up to 14 hours a day!
Would you help us again, please, with the most generous gift you can send? We need immediately £3,500 for the printing already put in hand. If you cannot make an outright gift but have savings you could lend, would you make us a loan? We could repay this any time you wanted. If you have a Bank Account and could send a regular gift by Banker’s Order this would also help tremendously and would save on postage. (By the way, the new two-tier postal system will add 20% to our already colossal postage bill unless we send letters by the slower delivery).
Please write soon — I will personally see your letter.
God bless you,
BRIAN WILLIAMS