In the fourth year of his ministry as Passover approached, Jesus, accompanied by companions including the “twelve disciples,” whom he had been training for their eventual mission as apostles to take the gospel to the world, journeyed to Jerusalem to keep the feast of Passover (Matthew 20:17-18). En route and after they arrived at their destination, Jesus spent several days teaching his disciples and crowds in the Temple, as well as disputing with Jewish leaders, many of whom wanted to kill him because they opposed his teachings.

On an occasion during this interval, his disciples asked him, “… what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age?” (Matthew 24:3). Jesus proceeded to foretell a number of things that would happen from that time to the end of the age at the time of Christ’s second coming.

Among the statements Jesus made on this occasion is the following: “And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come” (Matthew 24:14). Herbert W. Armstrong was a minister of the Church of God who founded a Church, the Worldwide Church of God, which eventually grew to include more than 100,000 members, scattered over many countries. The radio and television broadcasts of the Church, which emphasized a message frequently focused on the coming Kingdom of God, was propagated in several languages over many nations, and the Church’s magazine, The Plain Truth, reached millions worldwide.

Following Mr. Armstrong’s death in 1986 a number of ministers and others associated with the Worldwide Church of God began to teach that there was no longer any need for that Church nor any other to preach the gospel, because the gospel had been preached worldwide. This raises a significant question not only for individuals who had been members of the Worldwide Church of God, now defunct, but for anyone who wants to understand Jesus’ prophecy concerning this subject, and whether God’s Church now has an obligation to preach the gospel. This is the subject addressed in the message “Should the Church Preach the Gospel?”