The Watchtower — April 1, 1951

Preaching in the Islands

THIS good news of the Kingdom must be preached in all the world, and in this world there are many islands inhabited by people who love living, like all other creatures on the earth. But even in these islands away from the hustle and bustle of the big continents the peoples have their problems. Because of their isolation men of influence gain power and soon control of these islands is centered in the hands of a favored few. If the government of the island works in the interest of the people, they are generally content. But as is so often the case when the controlling few are interested in themselves and not in the majority of those living on the islands, discontent and unrest are evident. No matter where one travels in the world, he sees the need of God’s kingdom.

The president of the Watch Tower Bible & Tract Society, N. H. Knorr, and his secretary, M. G. Henschel, both ministers of the gospel in the organization of Jehovah’s witnesses, recently made a trip to the beautiful island of Bermuda. They left on Saturday morning, December 2, 1950, about 11:30, and by 3:15 that afternoon they were circling over the coral-formed islands, dotted here and there with pink-, blue- and green-colored houses and cottages, with their spotlessly white roofs. These islands of some 40,000 people thrive quite well on the tourist trade. Of course, there is a little farming; store businesses, construction and other occupations keep the people employed also. The large naval and air bases also figure in the local economy.

The visitor is impressed by the picturesque, narrow walled roads, the small English cars, the beautiful flowers, the clean sandy beaches and rough pitted rocks along the coast, and the steep incline of the hills. About on the hillsides are surfaced water catchments, for all drinking water in Bermuda comes from the clouds. The only thing that mars the beauty of the islands is the brown cedar trees which were struck with a blight some two years ago.

About four years ago the Watch Tower Bible & Tract Society sent two ministers, graduates of the Watchtower Bible School of Gilead in South Lansing, New York, to look after the spiritual needs of the small congregation of Jehovah’s witnesses in Bermuda. Like all other Jehovah’s witnesses, these two young men were very active in preaching the good news of the Kingdom, and they encouraged the inhabitants of the island to engage in home Bible study and get acquainted with the wonderful teachings of Christ. This was not to the liking of the principal religionists and it is reported that through their endeavors the government was influenced to arrange for the deportation of the two ministers. The two young men were sent back to Britain. This left the congregation of Jehovah’s witnesses without qualified ministers to take the lead in instructing and training other persons in Bible study.

It has long been the desire of Jehovah’s witnesses in these islands to have the Society send a qualified servant to look after their interests. It was to see if this could be accomplished that the president of the Society made the trip to Bermuda. He discussed the matter of sending another representative into the Bermuda islands with some of the officials of government, immigration authorities and lawyers, the latter being very much interested in the case of Jehovah’s witnesses and the deportation of the young ministers. It is the earnest hope that the way will be opened again for someone to go there to represent the Society, look after the congregation of the Lord’s people, and visit other interested persons in the principal settlements of the Bermuda islands.

A fine meeting was held with the theocratic publishers and interested persons. They were greatly encouraged on hearing about the Lord’s work in other parts of the world and they were also delighted with the Scriptural admonition that was presented to them by the two visitors.

The stay seemed much too short, but we visitors from Brooklyn were glad we were able to meet with those in Bermuda who are pressing on and preaching the good news of the Kingdom. The publishers, though they be few, are determined to continue the service come what may, and their enthusiasm is a joy to see. We certainly know that they are not alone in the world proclaiming the message of the new world. On this island they seem alone, but Jehovah knows those who belong to him.

On December 4, when it was time for us to leave, a very bad storm had blown up in the Atlantic. While the winds were heavy in Bermuda, they were much more severe toward New York where we were to go. It had been our hope to fly from Bermuda to Nassau, Bahamas, but the British airline serving that route was not in operation because of a strike. So we had to fly back to New York city and then down to Miami and from Miami to Nassau, in order to make the next appointment on Tuesday evening. Flying was rough that night and the plane did bounce around, but we arrived in New York in time to make connections with our midnight plane going out of Newark, New Jersey, to Miami, Florida.

The stopover in Miami was very brief—5:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. There was a little time for rest and sleep at the home of the company servant. The opportunity of meeting with some of the brothers was afforded us and we also looked over two of the Kingdom Halls which were beautifully designed and well constructed by the local publishers. The halls are really inviting to the public and very comfortable in every respect.

BAHAMAS

At 2:00 p.m. we were away by plane for Nassau in the Bahamas group, a short hop over the Gulf Stream. Nassau is the principal city. When we arrived at the airport, we were met by some anxious brothers who knew there were no flights from Bermuda to Nassau due to the strike and who wondered how we would come.

The public talk, “Can You Live Forever in Happiness on Earth?” to be delivered that evening in the Mothers’ Club Hall, was well advertised during the week. Some brothers had come over from Florida the day before and had assisted in the advertising. The inhabitants of these islands are mostly colored people, and to find quite a number of white brothers walking the main street of the city with placards and distributing handbills caused a slight sensation. The people just had not seen that many white witnesses on the streets before. The residents in the city of Nassau are, of course, well acquainted with the missionaries who live there, three in number, but to be strengthened with four more was enough to cause considerable comment.

Throughout the numerous islands of the Bahamas group there are only a little more than 68,000 inhabitants, including the principal city of Nassau with about 17,000 inhabitants. Many buildings of Nassau take one back fifty years or more and one enjoys the simplicity in an old world atmosphere. It is partly for this that the tourists of America go to the city of Nassau to spend their vacations. Beautiful mansions are found along the seaside. The unusual blue waters of the Atlantic Ocean around the Bahama islands are very inviting. The waters are strikingly clear and one can peer down into the watery depths for a considerable distance. The travelers were told that numerous glass-bottomed boats take the tourists around to show them the gardens at the bottom of the sea.

That Tuesday 7:30 p.m. came quite quickly and it was not long before the hall was filled and people were standing on the front porch and finally had to overflow into the street. There were 350 persons present and they paid rapt attention to the heart-cheering message concerning God’s kingdom. Many questions were asked after the meeting and booklets were distributed to all those desiring a copy. A number of prominent men were in attendance; they were anxious to make further inquiry. The local paper the next day made favorable comment on the lecture.

The convention continued the next day with 123 brothers from different parts of the main island and other islands attending. Arrangements were made for serving the interested people on the other islands by sending a representative of the Society from place to place and giving them a sort of circuit servant’s attention. It is hoped that not many months will pass before companies can be started, not only on New Providence, the main island where Nassau is located, but also on Great Bahama, Great Abaco, Eleuthera, Cat Island, Andros Island, Great Exuma, Long Island and others. There are persons who are definitely interested on all of these islands, but they need the help of a minister calling on them regularly in order to answer their questions and get them started in the field service. To this end a visit was made to the acting colonial secretary concerning sending more missionaries into the islands. Word has come through since that visit to the effect that they have approved entry of another missionary to work in the city of Nassau.

On one of the days we were in Nassau a new governor was installed in office. He came there from Britain. There certainly were parades and big doings in the town while our assembly was in session at the Kingdom Hall. One of the newspapers commenting on the arrival of the governor said: “The ceremonies this afternoon were very rich and approximated those of the landing of the Duke of Windsor a number of years ago. The governor comes at a time when we have an empty public treasury, but also at a time when expectations for a bumper tourist season loom very high. He comes also at the Christmas season when most hearts are brimming with the coming holiday expectations. And so for the first few weeks he will find the going quite smooth. With the coming of the winter season and the controversial affairs of the House of Assembly, His Excellency might expect no less and no more than former governors have received, namely, plenty of hard work.”

Certainly the problems of state in all the nations of the earth cause rulers great anxiety and worry. In this troubled, old, selfish world things are not going to get easier, but more difficult, because we are getting nearer and nearer to that final day of judgment, the battle of Armageddon. The rulers of the world are trying to hold together the kingdoms of this world in one organization, the United Nations, and meanwhile Jehovah’s witnesses calmly and peacefully go about their work of educating the people in the Bible and showing them that the only hope is God’s kingdom. Many people are being comforted in Nassau and the islands of the Bahamas group. The report shows that in 1946 three publishers reported field service in Nassau. Thereafter Gilead graduates were sent in to do missionary work and the local publishers became better organized. In 1950 an average of 74 publishers reported and at this time there are 110 reporting.

CUBA

Thursday afternoon was the time for departure. Again the plane that we travelers were to take was late on leaving Nassau and therefore late in arriving in Miami, where connections were to be made for Havana, Cuba. Approximately 100 brothers came out from Miami to greet the travelers and the two traveling brothers were delighted to see them, but due to the lateness of the plane and the Pan American Airways’ trying to get us onto the very next plane for Havana, we were rushed through immigration and customs, with tickets changed and baggage checked within ten minutes’ time. So it meant just a wave of the hand in bidding the group good-by. It did our hearts much good to see them, though, and we wished that we could have remained a few minutes to tell them about the good things that had happened over in Nassau. However, this was not possible and soon the big plane was off into the darkness of the night, racing down the concrete ribbon and rising gracefully into the sky on the way to Havana. It seemed that we were just about settled down in our seats when it was time to fasten safety belts again and in a matter of minutes we were rolling onto the Rancho Boyeros airport of the principal city of Cuba.

Here in Havana the brothers certainly had worked up a reception committee. Never had we seen anything like it. Seven hundred of the Havana publishers and some early arrivals at the convention were gathered at the airport earlier in the afternoon, but they waited until 7:00 p.m. that night to give us greetings. Their enthusiasm radiates, bubbles over and falls on one like a shower. The Cuban brothers were certainly expressive in showing their joy in having the president of the Society and his secretary there with them and we were certainly delighted to be in their midst. This zeal of the Cubans is not only expressive in this form, but in their door-to-door witnessing and their back-calls and Bible studies it is manifested, and it brings results.

It was in 1946 that the president made his last visit to Cuba and at that time there were 2,250 publishers regularly engaging in the field service. But in 1950 there were 6,619 on the average and they now have a peak of 7,820 ministers proclaiming the good news. The Society has had as high as 54 Gilead graduates at one time doing missionary work in Cuba during the past few years. Due to the tremendous increase in company publishers and local pioneers, practically all of these missionaries have been moved out to other assignments.

On this beautiful island of Cuba, almost anything will grow. As a matter of fact, one can put a post in the ground and it will begin to sprout leaves. Cuba has a population of approximately 4,800,000 people. It is easy to see that, with 7,820 publishers in the land, the people are being witnessed to very regularly. In fact, companies spring up as rapidly as flowers and plants. In 1946 there were 69 companies in all of Cuba; now there are 178.

The branch servant worked out a heavy schedule for us. In the one week’s time it was arranged to have three separate conventions in Cuba—one in Havana, the second in Santa Clara and the third assembly in Holguín, in the eastern part of the island. All of these conventions were well advertised. Four hundred and ten thousand handbills were distributed; 6,000 placards were used. Five thousand nine hundred personal invitation letters were mailed to persons of good will. The newspapers carried excellent reports and the brothers saw to it that write-ups were furnished to the newspapers concerning the work of Jehovah’s witnesses and especially the Yankee Stadium meetings of last summer. The Havana daily papers El Mundo, Avance Información, Prensa Libre and El Nuevo Pueblo wrote excellent articles about the convention and the coming visit of President Knorr. The newspaper El Mundo, which has the largest circulation of any Cuban newspaper, wrote an excellent article about the coming assembly and the past New York international convention and described the great educational work that Jehovah’s witnesses are carrying on. In closing, this newspaper stated: “We will have to arrive at the conclusion that this is the most intensive educational campaign of all times ever effected with such a feeling of altruism.”

In an endeavor to further the advertising, all the major radio stations in Havana were visited and given news releases. One of the largest stations in the country, CMQ, a 25,000-watt station, put on a nationwide broadcast of an interview with one of the brothers. Another station, CMBC, broadcast an interview between two brothers and this was heard countrywide. On December 8 at 5:30 in the evening Brother Knorr, through an interpreter, was interviewed by one of the major radio stations, Station RHC. This program went out over a chain hookup from one end of the country to the other. In the interview Brother Knorr stated the purpose of his visit and that he was very glad to be in Cuba again. After the interview and on this very same nationwide broadcast, the branch servant, Brother Papadem, gave a six-minute talk on the coming convention and he invited the people of Cuba to attend any one of the three assemblies. All of this was free broadcasting and in the public’s interest.

The biggest assembly in Cuba was held in Havana on December 9 and 10 at the Sociedad de Pilar. It was operated just like the assembly in New York. There was an excellent cafeteria about four blocks away at Club Latino and this was tied in by direct wire connections with the convention hall. The new Spanish books and booklets released at Yankee Stadium were printed in sufficient supply and sent to Cuba so that the brothers attending the convention could get “Equipped for Every Good Work” in Spanish. This was announced by Brother Henschel when he spoke at one of the meetings. Brother Knorr presented “This Means Everlasting Life” in Spanish, as well as introducing the new Watchtower in Spanish, La Atalaya, the January 1 issue now a 32-page magazine exactly like the English edition. All the conventioners were overjoyed with these releases.

Even though the Cuban publishers are moving ahead with great speed, the matter of 10-percent-increase quota and 34-percent-increase peak was presented to all the publishers from one end of the country to the other. If Cuba is going to reach its 34 per cent increase as a new peak for 1951, they will have to get up to 10,057 publishers for the year. Even with all the marvelous increases going on in Cuba, this announcement made them really open their eyes. Ten thousand and fifty-seven seemed quite a distance away for the small group of 7,800 publishers, but they are going after it with all the zest and zeal and determination they have, just as they handle any other work that is given them to do. They are trusting in the Lord that there are many “other sheep” in the island who need to be found and by His undeserved kindness they are going to try to find them and feed them and aid them in being publishers for the Kingdom.

At all three assemblies the same fine spirit of co-operation and determination to take care of the Kingdom interests was well demonstrated. In Havana at the public meeting there were 3,493, and 124 were immersed. Two days later the public meeting at Santa Clara showed there were 2,223 present, packing out the theater that was used. At the immersion there they baptized 74. At Holguín the theater they had obtained was packed out with 2,142 and early in the morning 76 were baptized. So, for the convention report of Cuba, it is indeed a pleasure to report that 7,858 people attended these gatherings with 274 being baptized. This was the greatest assembly of the Lord’s people for this island.

Traveling from one city to the other was accomplished by plane or auto and it meant keeping on the go constantly. It certainly was good to hear the experiences, such as that related by a schoolteacher. His wife was not enthusiastic about his taking up this “new religion”, but the more he studied the more he wanted to get out in the work. Finally he decided to be a pioneer in addition to taking care of his teaching position. His wife insisted that he could not do it because of his health, but after he became a pioneer his health improved and he gained over 30 pounds. Before many months had passed the wife was publishing too and entering into the same joy of the Lord that he had. And so it goes with many experiences from one end of Cuba to the other.

To climax the whole convention spirit, one of the brothers spoke on behalf of Brother Knorr for ten minutes over radio station RHC and its nationwide hookup, telling the people of Cuba about the three assemblies and the work accomplished by Jehovah’s witnesses world-wide. Brother Knorr was invited to make this speech in Havana, but he could not return because of appointments in Jamaica. He had to fly from Camagüey to Kingston on Friday. Undoubtedly the three assemblies will aid the publishers of the Kingdom greatly in Theocracy’s increase in Cuba.

We reserve for our next issue the account of the trip on to Jamaica, and the further preaching accomplished in the beautiful islands of the West Indies.

“Earthquakes in One Place After Another”

LAST August 15 the severest earthquake of the twentieth century, the “biggest of the present generation”, the “most drastic natural upheaval in a populated place that the world ever has known”, was centered in northeastern India, Assam, Nepal and southern Tibet. So violent was that quake that all seismographs throughout the world joined the rhythm in a wild and dizzy dance. Many were completely knocked out. The one at Istanbul, Turkey, was broken, and at Boston College, on the opposite side of the globe, the seismograph ran right off the recording paper. When the shock-wave reached Milwaukee, Wis., 11,000 miles away, the water in a deep well set a new record by jumping 54 inches. Radio and press services flashed out the news, and the people instinctively knew that once again a catastrophe of great magnitude had struck.

Somewhere beneath The Himalayas, the world’s highest mountain range, there was a slipping of the subterranean rock, which in turn threw 30,000 square miles of earth’s surface into convulsions. Some of the rivers of the region disappeared; others changed their courses. The Brahmaputra, one of the greatest rivers in the world, put on a strange and terrible act, as the tilting and rocking of the land caused it first to recede and then to rush down in mad fury. At places it overflowed its banks and swept across open country like an ocean. Its tributary, the Subansiri, spread ruin through 1,500 villages. Whole mountains tumbled down, burying villages and stopping up rivers in the valleys below. Then when the artificial lakes that were thus formed burst through the earthen dams they roared down the valleys, taking everything with them: massive trees, mighty jungles and all creatures in them. What a frightful sight—the bodies of dead elephants, tigers, monkeys and other wildlife, as well as human victims—all borne on the crest of the raging waters!

At other places great chasms opened up and subterranean waters were added to the peril. Granaries were destroyed, leaving many areas threatened with starvation. Fish by the thousands in the streams were either buried in landslides of mud or suffocated by sulphurous gases from the earth’s fiery internal regions. Spouting volcanoes reddened the skies for days as they joined in this rebellion of nature, which was rated as “one of the greatest natural catastrophes” in Assam’s history. It is almost unbelievable, but majestic Mt. Everest, the highest peak in the world, was literally raised up another 198 feet in altitude!

All communications were completely cut off. Roads and streams literally vanished and large sections of railways were left dangling in the air. Telephone and power lines over a great area were knocked out. Panic broke out throughout northern India and Burma, including Calcutta, and thousands either ran screaming through the streets in their terror or huddled together in prayer to their demon gods. And as nearly 200 tremors and aftershocks continued daily to rock the country for more than a month, the lives and activity of the already fear-stricken people were further numbed.

Counting some of the cost, damage to the tea plantations alone amounted to $4,000,000. Thousands of houses were destroyed, 50,000 head of cattle were killed, about 5,000 people lost their lives, and 5,000,000 others suffered from the month-long series of quakes. But the tabulation of such cold figures tells very little of the pain and misery and woe wrought by these superhuman earthshaking forces.

IS THERE AN EARTHQUAKE EPIDEMIC?

As the story continued to trickle out bit by bit from the remote regions of The Himalayas, reports of earthquakes from other quarters of the world were heard. On August 17 a sharp quake rocked islands in the Philippines. Then on August 23 a moderate shock was registered in lower California, and on September 9 a strong shock hit the northern part of Chile. Just the year before, on August 5, 1949, Ecuador suffered a tragedy similar to Assam’s, in which it is estimated 9,000 were killed and 20,000 were made homeless. Four of Ecuador’s cities were demolished and the staggering damage ran into millions of dollars. The year before that other quakes killed 5,000 persons.

Earthquakes are not a modern scientific invention or discovery, for ancient records show that such events have occurred since earliest times. Man’s oldest book, the Bible, tells of several quakes, in both the Hebrew and the Greek Scriptures. (Amos 1:1; Zech. 14:5; Isa. 29:1, 6; 1 Ki. 19:11; Matt. 27:54; 28:2; Acts 16:26) The profane writings of Aristotle, Pliny, Seneca, and others, likewise mention such catastrophic events, and since their days many, many others have occurred. To list the major ones:

Year Location Killed Year Location Killed

1703 Japan 200,000 1875 Venezuela 16,000

1737 India 300,000 1896 Japan 22,000

1755 Lisbon 50,000 1908 Italy 75,000

1783 Italy 50,000 1915 Italy 39,000

1797 Ecuador 41,000 1920 China 200,000

1822 Turkey 22,000 1923 Japan 143,000

1828 Japan 30,000 1927 China 100,000

1868 Peru 25,000

These figures reveal some startling facts. For example, it is very noticeable how few and far between major quakes were prior to World War I compared with the timetable since. This point is corroborated by the Jesuit Father Joseph Lynch of Fordham University in his book Our Trembling Earth (1940), for in showing how there has been an “alternation of storm and calm” he lists (pp. 151, 152) only eleven major quakes as occurring in 3,358 years of Italian history, ending in 1908.

The relative number killed is amazing too. The Encyclopædia Britannica (vol. 7, p. 852, 1940 edition), after giving the death toll of major quakes prior to 1914, observes: “Figures such as these may be exaggerated [especially the 18th century figures], but there can be no mistaking those for the Japanese earthquake of 1923.” Even then, if the exaggerated figures of past centuries are accepted at full value, the above figures show the average annual death rate was greatly accelerated from and after 1914—from 4,000 killed per year it leaped to 40,000! Death and horror in concentrated form is mankind’s portion since 1914.

AN IMPORTANT PART OF “THE SIGN”

By now you want to know what this accelerated trend in earthquake frequency has to do with 1914 and World War I? Well, the association of the two is not just a coincidence. The timing of these momentous events was both foreseen and foretold nearly 2,000 years ago. “Tell us, When will these things be, and what will be the sign of your presence and of the consummation of the system of things?” (Matt. 24:3, NW) This was the question the disciples asked Jesus; and it was an important one, too. Daniel the prophet had already given a chronological timetable showing that the consummation or the “ending together” of all that pertained to this present world would begin 2,520 years after Jerusalem’s last king was dethroned in 607 B.C., namely, in the fall of 1914.a Consequently, in answering the question, Jesus enlarged on that prophecy by telling what events would happen as a visible “sign” for all to see during that consummation.

You can read the whole account in Matthew 24, Mark 13 and Luke 21, and as you do take special note of what it says about earthquakes. “For nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom [global wars have occurred only since 1914], and there will be food shortages [history’s worst shortages have come since then] and EARTHQUAKES in one place after another. All these things are a beginning of pangs of distress.” (Matt. 24:7, 8, NW) Thus it was prophetically foretold that earthquakes, not alone or independently, but together with the other events mentioned, would constitute a visible sign marking the consummation of the old world and the nearness of the new.—2 Pet. 3:6, 7, 13.

So much for the prophecy. What are the actual facts? No one can deny that 1914 ushered in a dreadful and crucial period and one which continues to the present. Global wars more ghastly in their magnitude and consequence than all the previous wars of history put together! Unsurpassed food shortages! Pestilences and diseases that even modern medicine cannot cope with! World-wide moral and social delinquency, and on every hand, on every level of society, in every nation, fear, distress and perplexity fill the minds and hearts of the people with woe and sorrow! Lumped together, Jesus declared, they would constitute an undeniable sign provided earthquakes were also present in one place after another. So what are the facts in this regard?

“IN ONE PLACE AFTER ANOTHER”

The accompanying tabulation of earthquakes since 1914 was taken from the World Almanacs and the annual yearbooks of the Americana, Britannica and Collier’s encyclopedias, and include only those figures actually reported. They are by no means complete, yet are sufficient to reveal an indescribable picture of horror and suffering. Just think of it, in this short period of time more than 848,450 persons were slaughtered, more than 577,876 were injured, and 4,636,169 were made homeless. Hundreds of cities were destroyed, thousands of buildings were wrecked, and billions of dollars were lost in property damage!

Compare this period with former times and you will see there is nothing in man’s previous miserable history to equal it. “In 2,000 years of recorded history, earthquakes have probably taken 10,000,000 lives,” so declared Robert K. Plumb in the New York Times (August 20, 1950), under the featured section, “Science in Review.” This means the average annual death toll for 1,965 years was less than 4,700, to compare with an average of more than 24,200 killed annually for the last 35 years, since 1914. Or draw a comparison between the last and any other 35-year period. Pick out the previous worst period, the years including the quakes in 1703 and 1737, their exaggerated figures notwithstanding. For that period the total of 500,000 killed is completely eclipsed by the nearly 70 per cent greater total dead heaped up since 1914. And when it comes to property damage, disrupted communications, suffering on a global scale, etc., due to quakes since World War I, there is likewise nothing in past history to match this period.

Do you know that these quakes here listed since 1914 are only a very small fraction of those that have occurred? “On the average, there are probably about 150 large earthquakes a year.” (Our Trembling Earth, p. 3) “At the present time, instrumental records are being used to locate an average of from 600 to 700 earthquakes a year. Of these, from 50 to 100 may be literally world shakers capable of causing catastrophe if the luck of location places a large center of population near at hand.” (Cause of Catastrophe, by L. Don Leet, 1948, pp. 34, 36) Counting the smallest tremors some scientists estimate there are 1,000,000 quakes per year.

Science does observe a strange change in the behavior of earthquakes since World War I. Says the magazine Scientific American, September 1950: “Major quakes used to occur in clusters, each period of activity being followed by a rest period. Thus there was violent activity between 1904 and 1907 and then quiescence for 10 years, except for two quakes in 1911 and 1912. Four more active periods, separated by quiet intervals, occurred between 1917 and 1948. But the periods of activity became progressively shorter and closer together. Since 1948 the pattern has entered a new phase, with approximately one great quake a year.”—Italics added.

The foretold SIGN is here, every part of it, earthquakes included. It is a warning that we are in the “last days”. There is no question that Jehovah God can carry out his declared purpose to shake the Devil’s present system of things until it is completely destroyed. Just think of the power at Jehovah’s command! A Hiroshima-type atom bomb is equivalent to 20,000 tons of TNT, but “what”, asks the New York Times, “is an atomic bomb compared with the earth’s crust when it twitches like a cow or a horse that wrinkles its skin to rid itself of flies?” Why, do you know, the Assam quake last summer equaled the power of 1,100,000 atom bombs or 1,100 theoretical hydrogen bombs! Yet, that eruption is nothing in power to compare with that which the Maker of the atom will release at Armageddon when He shakes terribly this whole earth.—Ps. 46; Isa. 2:19; Nah. 1:3-6; Hab. 3:6.

35 YEARS OF EARTHQUAKE SORROW

Year Killed Injuredb Property Damage

1915 39,000 6 large cities razed

1917 2,500

1918 300 1,000 $34,125,000 loss

1919 5,372 400

1921 14 300 10,000 homeless

1922 900 500 buildings destroyed

1924 952 47 $15,000,000 loss

1930 11,782 228 7,941 buildings destroyed

1934 20,049 225 200,000 homeless

1936 537 116 $500,000 loss

1937 38 hundreds

1938 484 200,000 homeless

1939 80,350 100,000 50,000 buildings destroyed

1,200,000 homeless

1940 1,738

1941 84 263

1942 11,009 2,000 $2,500,000 loss

1943 4,850 29 villages destroyed

1945 4,000 40,000 homeless

1947 639 1,500 buildings destroyed

[Footnotes]

Who Sees the New World’s King at the Temple?

“And the temple sanctuary of God that is in heaven was opened, and the ark of his covenant was seen in his temple sanctuary. And there occurred lightnings and voices and thunders and an earthquake and a great hail.”—Rev. 11:19, NW.

1. Where is Jehovah King? Why is this comforting?

JEHOVAH is King in his temple. He is immortal and will reign forever and ever. What a comforting fact that is, since Christendom’s attempt to rule as king has miserably failed and that religious system is now dead in God’s sight! All further dependence upon Christendom for good, stable government of the earth is foolish and vain.

2. According to Revelation 11, what follows his beginning to reign?

² The source of all rightful government is the Universal Ruler, Jehovah God. Jesus Christ taught his disciples to pray for His government. At the time of its setting up there must come a vision of the Supreme Universal Ruler at his temple. This is made plain to us in The Revelation. It points to the year 1914 and says: “Loud voices occurred in heaven [where the government is established] saying: ‘The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he will rule as king for ever and ever.’” Faithful Christians are pictured as responding to this all-important event with the words: “We thank you, Jehovah God, the Almighty, the one who is and who was, because you have taken your great power and begun ruling as king. But the nations became wrathful [so they did in 1914], and your own wrath came, and the appointed time . . . to bring to ruin those ruining the earth.” It is at his temple that he reigns. In ancient days he reigned over his chosen people Israel, and then his presence at the temple was symbolized by the ark of his covenant. So now that he has taken his power to reign over earth as well as heaven, the vision of him at his temple must follow. “And the temple sanctuary of God that is in heaven was opened, and the ark of his covenant was seen in his temple sanctuary. And there occurred lightnings and voices and thunders and an earthquake and a great hail.”—Rev. 11:15-19, NW; Ps. 99:1-3.

3. Who sees the temple vision, and how do we know this?

³ Who now sees the temple vision? Isaiah’s prophecy, Isa chapter 6, answers the question for us. In 774 B.C. the prophet had a vision and he pictured the class within our generation who have had the temple vision since A.D. 1914. It was Isaiah who uttered the words to God’s faithful people: “Ye are my witnesses, saith Jehovah, and my servant whom I have chosen.” Isaiah himself was one of the witnesses of the Most High God. He therefore prefigured Jehovah’s anointed witnesses in this day. (Isa. 43:10, AS) So let us examine the facts concerning Isaiah’s temple vision and compare the facts of today with them.

TIME AND CIRCUMSTANCES

4. What marked the year when Isaiah saw the vision?

⁴ “In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the LORD sitting upon a throne, high and uplifted, with the skirts of his robe filling the temple.” (Isa. 6:1, AT) Uzziah’s death marks the year of the vision as 774 B.C. Israel’s human king who once sat on the “throne of Jehovah” at Jerusalem dies for lawlessly invading the temple, but the real King is seen enthroned in his temple. Uzziah died in a house separate from the temple and royal palace, as a man cursed by God with the fatal disease of leprosy, while his son Jotham ruled for him inside Jerusalem. (2 Chron. 26:21-23) Thus the reign of Jehovah the true King at the temple counterbalances the death of the presumptuous king under divine curse.

5. Was that the year Isaiah was consecrated to the prophetic office? What are the indications on this?

⁵ That year was not the year Isaiah was called or consecrated to the prophetic service. The five preceding chapters of his prophecy show he was active as prophet before that memorable year. The “days of Uzziah” in which Isaiah prophesied must have been days before, possibly years before his death, for Isaiah wrote records on the reign of Uzziah. (2 Chron. 26:22) This is likewise true of the modern Isaiah class of whom a remnant exists today. The apostle Paul wrote his letter to the Hebrews about 61 (A.D.) and already then he speaks of the Isaiah class, at Hebrews 2:13, 14. There he quotes Isaiah’s words at Isaiah 8:18, where the prophet says: “Look! I and the young children whom Jehovah gave me.” (NW) Paul then shows that Jesus became the head of this Isaiah class by descending from heaven and becoming flesh and blood the same as these God-given children, his followers, were. In fact, the Christian Greek Scriptures apply to Jesus and to his disciples of the first century the commission which Isaiah received at the temple and which he recorded at Isaiah 6:9, 10. This proves that the Isaiah class existed in the first century and that it partly fulfilled the prophecy already nineteen centuries before our day.

6. On whom does the final fulfillment of the vision occur? When?

⁶ But the final fulfillment of Isaiah’s vision takes place upon the remnant of Jehovah’s anointed witnesses, the Isaiah class of our time. It takes place after Jehovah began to reign in 1914 by enthroning his Son Jesus Christ as King with an iron rod to dash the nations of this world to pieces at the coming battle of Armageddon. Later, in 1918, Jehovah appeared at the temple by sending his King, the promised “messenger of the covenant”, there to judge all those who profess to be of the house of God. (Mal. 3:1; 1 Pet. 4:17) So the facts show that the temple vision occurred in 1919.

7. How did Uzziah come to be smitten with the plague that killed him?

⁷ What, then, in 1919 compares with King Uzziah’s death? Uzziah was a king of David’s line and built up great prosperity in Israel during a long reign. God had inspired King David to say He would raise up a ruler like ancient Melchizedek, the king of Salem. Like Melchizedek, this ruler of David’s line would be a priest as well as a king seated upon the “throne of Jehovah”. He would be the Messiah or Christ, through whom all people of the earth would be blessed with a perfect government. Uzziah, inflated with pride after long prosperity, presumed now to add to his regal office the duties of the high priest of Israel, as if he were of Melchizedek’s line. He presumed to be the Messiah or Christ, to whom Jehovah had sworn with an oath in David’s prophecy, at Psalm 110:4: “Jehovah hath sworn, and will not repent: Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek.” (AS) Uzziah was thus worse than Korah and his 250 fellow rebels who challenged Moses and Aaron and presumed to burn incense to Jehovah like the high priest and his sons, for Korah and his men were of the tribe of Levi, the same as Moses and Aaron. (Num. 16:1-40; Ex. 30:1-10, 34-38; Jude 11, 12; Num. 18:7) So Jehovah struck Uzziah with leprosy, and he could no longer attend the temple or sit on the throne. The prophecies mention an earthquake in Uzziah’s days, but whether this occurred at the time of his sacrilegious act we cannot be sure.—Amos 1:1; Zech. 14:5; also Josephus’ Antiquities of the Jews, book 9, chapter 10, ¶4.

8. What class once prospered like Uzziah, and till when?

⁸ In like manner the religious clergy of Christendom appeared to prosper in divine favor up till A.D. 1914. That year the times appointed for worldly nations to dominate the earth ended. Then Jehovah God took over his power to rule the earth as King and installed his Son in the throne. So the question arose, Who is the Messiah to govern the earth? Who will fulfill the blessed predictions concerning the Messiah? The clergy of Christendom assumed to play the Messiah’s role, for they rejected the Kingdom message which the remnant of Jehovah’s witnesses proclaimed.

9, 10. (a) How did Protestantism assume to play the Messiah? (b) How did Catholicism?

⁹ Catholicism and Protestantism claimed to be in line for God’s kingdom. Their clergy acted as religious rulers and claimed to be the ones to establish the Kingdom and to fulfill the prayer, “Thy kingdom come,” by trying to convert the world to Christ. In 1914 the nations of Christendom engaged in global war for world domination. Christendom’s clergy sided in with them. They made themselves the handmaids of the political rulers of this world and not of the Christ enthroned in the heavens. So they blessed the armies which were really fighting against Messiah’s rule of the earth. Toward the end of that first world war the League of Nations was proposed and early in 1919 the Federal Council of Churches of Christ in America issued this statement: “The time has come to organize the world for truth, right, justice and humanity. To this end as Christians we urge the establishment of a League of Free Nations at the coming Peace Conference. Such a League is not merely a peace expedient; it is rather the political expression of the kingdom of God on earth. The League of Nations is rooted in the gospel. Like the gospel, its objective is ‘Peace on earth, good will toward men.’ Like the gospel, its appeal is universal. The heroic dead will have died in vain unless out of victory shall come a new heaven and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.—2 Peter 3:13. The church can give a spirit of goodwill, without which no League of Nations can endure.”

¹⁰ On Catholicism’s side, the then pope of Rome tried to use the German emperor and his military machine as the “sword of the church” to pave the way for restoring the Holy Roman Empire. In furtherance of his own Messianic ambitions, the pope in 1929 closed a deal with the Fascist dictator Mussolini whereby temporal power on earth was restored to the pope and Vatican City was created as a political state. Had the pope appreciated that Jehovah God was now reigning by his true Messiah since 1914, he would not have gone in for temporal power. He would have linked himself up with the reigning Messiah instead of with worldly political rulers. In view of the pope’s leaning to the Teutonic Allies in World War I the Treaty of London was signed by Great Britain, France, Russia and Italy in 1915, debarring the pope from any diplomatic action in regard to peace or questions arising from the war.

11, 12. So what did the clergy now assume to offer to God, and how?

¹¹ Having reached the height of her prosperity in 1914, for she has never been prosperous since, Christendom’s clergy presumed to offer up incense to God at his temple. Jehovah’s witnesses then acted like high priest Azariah and his eighty priests who resisted King Uzziah’s blasphemous act and who drove him out of the temple after he was smitten. So Jehovah’s witnesses pointed to God’s kingdom by his true Messiah and protested against the course of the clergy and showed from the Scriptures that it was spiritual harlotry. The clergy conspired to kill this remnant of God’s “royal priesthood” and to assume the functions of such a priesthood themselves. (1 Pet. 2:9) By using world war to suppress the witness which was being given to the Kingdom by the remnant, the clergy killed Jehovah’s “two witnesses” in fulfillment of Revelation 11:3-10. They used the war beast, not a peace beast, to try to clear the Kingdom witnesses out of the way. (Rev. 11:7; 13:1-3) Like the rich man in Jesus’ parable, the clergy class wore royal purple and now they tried to display their priestly linen of self-righteousness, amid all their worldly prosperity. (Luke 16:19-31) But in assuming to offer incense to God at his temple, they were not like the apostle Paul who offered the true incense properly.

¹² Paul wrote: “God . . . always leads us in a triumphal procession in company with the Christ and makes the odor of the knowledge of him perceptible through us in every place! For to God we are a sweet odor of Christ among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing; to the latter ones an odor issuing from death to death, to the former ones an odor issuing from life to life. And who is adequately qualified for these things? We are; for we are not peddlers of the word of God as many men are, but as out of sincerity, yes, as sent from God, under God’s view, in company with Christ, we are speaking.” (2 Cor. 2:14-17, NW) The clergy offered incense, not of the knowledge of Jehovah and his kingdom by Christ, but of propaganda filled with worldly politics and promising Messianic blessings through an alliance of nations.

13. Since when have they been smitten and tormented like Uzziah? How?

¹³ For this the plague of God has come upon them. They are shown to be cursed and doomed to a disgraceful death. In Israel leprous King Uzziah was driven out of the temple by faithful Azariah and his eighty priests. Like the rich man in Jesus’ parable he died to his privileges and was subjected to torments. Like the great chasm barring the rich man from Abraham’s bosom, King Uzziah’s plague barred him from the holy temple and the royal “throne of Jehovah”.a In 1918 the clergy of Christendom succeeded in killing Jehovah’s “two witnesses” at the climax of World War I. Because of such a flagrant act of contempt for God’s kingdom by Christ they were smitten with a death-dealing spiritual plague from God. They betrayed themselves to be unclean in his sight, spiritual adulteresses with this world, and hence enemies of God. They have ever since stayed in this accursed state. They have been rejected from God’s service at his temple and have no sound hopes of a place in the heavenly kingdom with Christ Jesus.—Jas. 4:4; 2 Cor. 6:14-18.

EFFECT OF THE VISION

14. When and how did they die? But how were the remnant then favored?

¹⁴ Just as foretold in Revelation 11:11, 12, the anointed remnant of Jehovah’s witnesses were revived from the death state into which the enemy had forced them. God did not let them be destroyed during World War I. He revived them by his spirit in 1919. But the religious clergy died as to God’s true service, like the rich man in Haʹdes. It was then that the remnant caught the vision of the postwar service for God at his temple. Isaiah, picturing them, said: “I saw the Lordb sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and his train filled the temple.” (Isa. 6:1, AS) As a comparison of Bible prophecy with historical facts shows, Jehovah God as represented by his Messenger of the covenant, his King, came to the temple in 1918. That was therefore “the appointed time for the judgment to start with the house of God”. (1 Pet. 4:17, NW) Hence the remnant as well as Christendom which professes to be God’s house were brought to the temple. But Christendom did not get the vision; she was disclosed to be leprous because of her sin of rebellion against the Kingdom. As for the anointed remnant, they discerned with greater appreciation that Jehovah God was now reigning by his enthroned King Jesus Christ. The wrath of the nations which they vented in waging World War I and in persecuting the witnesses of God’s kingdom was proof of that fact. So they appreciated it was now a time of judgment for them. “Jehovah is in his holy temple; Jehovah, his throne is in heaven; his eyes behold, his eyelids try, the children of men.” (Ps. 11:4, AS) His high and uplifted throne indicates that he is the Supreme Authority of the universe, the rightful Sovereign and Judge of all creatures.

15. By whom was he attended at the temple? How was this most fitting?

¹⁵ Isaiah describes the vision of Jehovah throning at his temple: “Over him stood seraphim, each having six wings, with two of which he covered his face, with two he covered his loins, and with two he hovered in flight.” (Isa. 6:2, AT) It being a time of judgment, it was very fitting that Jehovah should be attended by seraphim, for the name of these spirit creatures means “fiery ones; burning ones”. This quality about them reflects that “Jehovah thy God is a devouring fire, a jealous God”, that is, toward his enemies. (Deut. 4:24, AS; De 9:3; Heb. 12:29) Execution of his judgment as by fire as well as the cleansing of his faithful remnant as by fire was at hand. The seraphim were most respectful of Jehovah’s person. Keenly sensing his holiness, they covered their faces and lower limbs with their wings, just as officials in the most dignified Oriental court in ancient times would do in the king’s presence. Because of their closeness to the Sovereign of the universe they were all the more self-effacing in order not to distract from his personal glory. But here Isaiah, a creature lower than the angels, was beholding with wide-open eyes the sight of the Most High God. It is now a solemn thought for us to reflect that Jehovah God is at his temple of judgment attended by these fiery seraphim. It is a most dignified, solemn, awesome circumstance.

16. What is the import of what the seraphim are saying?

¹⁶ “And one cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, is Jehovah of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory.” (Isa. 6:3, AS) In thus continually crying out this refrain on God’s holiness, these seraphim match the four living creatures whom John saw in his vision of Jehovah on the celestial throne. “And as for these four living creatures, each one of them respectively has six wings; round about and underneath they are full of eyes. And they have no rest day and night as they say: ‘Holy, holy, holy is Jehovah God, the Almighty, who was and who is and who is coming.’” (Rev. 4:1-8, NW) Their saying “holy” three times makes this quality very emphatic. It shows that the Almighty God is inherently devoted to righteousness, incapable of doing anything wrong. This holy quality vindicates him against all the false charges that Satan the Devil has leveled at Jehovah God. For this reason his temple must be a clean, holy place and those who want to serve him there must also be holy in a godlike devotion to what is right, pure and good. That is why, too, the earth over which He has taken his great power to reign by Christ must be made a holy place. The earth is his footstool, and it will be made glorious, for it was with prophetic import that the seraphim kept calling to one another, “The whole earth is full of his glory.”

17. How will earth be filled with his glory? With what result?

¹⁷ That refrain is what the seraphim are now saying at the temple. So this unholy world cannot go on forever. Jehovah is of purer eyes than to view with approval the hypocritical religiousness of Christendom. His holiness distinguishes him from the false gods of the worldly nations. The worldliness of Satan’s dominion cannot touch and soil him. For more than 230 times in Scripture he is called “Jehovah of hosts”. His mighty hosts are like him in their heartfelt devotion to righteousness, so that he can well use them in executing his judgments against all unrighteousness of this world. Not yet is our earth full of his glory, but it will be full of it as a result of the oncoming “war of the great day of God the Almighty”. As he said to Moses: “All the earth shall be filled with the glory of Jehovah.” (Rev. 16:14-16, NW; Num. 14:21, AS) His majestic splendor will be everywhere throughout the earth, and all the living will know he is King. “For the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of Jehovah, as the waters cover the sea. But Jehovah is in his holy temple: let all the earth keep silence before him.” (Hab. 2:14, 20, AS) One of the grand results of this knowledge will be that earth’s inhabitants will not hurt or destroy one another, as they do now in this unholy world. (Isa. 11:9, AS) Already amid the gloom of this world Jehovah’s witnesses are catching up his glory light from the temple and are reflecting the glorious knowledge of God to the people who are sitting in darkness and longing for light.—2 Cor. 3:18; 4:6, NW.

CLEANSING OF LIP

18. What effect does proclaiming God’s holiness have?

¹⁸ The proclamation of the holiness of the God of the righteous new world is very powerful. It causes a shaking, disturbing the self-complacency of creatures who trust in their own righteousness. With the proclamation of the seraphim intoning in his ears the prophet Isaiah says: “And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him that cried, and the house was filled with smoke.” (Isa. 6:4, AS) This would unsettle any who stepped over the threshold to approach God. It would make them concerned about their heart condition. Happily for us, we have a forerunner who has entered into the great temple of God for us, namely, Christ Jesus, the great Priest-King after the likeness of Melchizedek. (Heb. 6:19, 20) The righteousness of his sacrifice makes up for our inborn imperfections and sinfulness. Yet we must search our hearts, to see that they are holy in their devotion to truth and righteousness. Those of the house of God must especially do so.

19. What does the filling of the house with smoke denote?

¹⁹ The filling of the house or temple with smoke denotes the presence of the living God there with a glory to which human creatures cannot approach. It is as when Moses set up the tabernacle of worship in the wilderness at Mount Sinai: “then the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of Jehovah filled the tabernacle.” Centuries afterward when King Solomon dedicated the temple at Jerusalem and the priests brought the ark of the covenant into the Most Holy, “the cloud filled the house of Jehovah, so that the priests could not stand to minister by reason of the cloud; for the glory of Jehovah filled the house of Jehovah.” (Ex. 40:34, 35, AS; 1 Ki. 8:10, 11, AS) Later the apostle John got a foreview of our own time and saw the temple sanctuary in heaven and seven angels come out with seven plagues of judgment to be poured out upon mankind after 1918 (A.D.). He tells what happened: “And the sanctuary became filled with smoke because of the glory of God and because of his power, and no one was able to enter into the sanctuary until the seven plagues of the seven angels were finished.” (Rev. 15:5-8, NW) Assuredly this is a God who will shortly make even the scientists of this electronic age with all their atomic release of power stand in awe of his glorious judgments. Let us never forget that he is at the temple for judgment proceedings.

20. What was the purpose of letting Isaiah see this? What was its effect?

²⁰ For Isaiah of old, it was as if he were Israel’s high priest and seeing past the inner curtain of the temple and beholding the glory of God. Isaiah was privileged to see this that it might impress him and make him feel his lowly condition in God’s sight. So the opening of the eyes of understanding of the remnant of the Isaiah class in this generation to behold corresponding things was likewise meant to impress them with how far short they come of the divine glory. But for gazing with his eyes on such a glorious sight in the Most Holy of God’s temple was Isaiah smitten with a lethal plague as Uzziah was? No; even though he was not a priest of the tribe of Levi. He had come upon this vision, not by presumptuousness, but because of a faithful heart. The effect of it he tells us: “Then said I, Woe is me! for I am undone [or, dumb; lost; destroyed]; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, Jehovah of hosts.”—Isa. 6:5, AS.

21, 22. (a) What did Isaiah feel in danger of and why? (b) Correspondingly, how did the remnant feel? Why were they in danger?

²¹ A realization of his natural condition swept over Isaiah. He felt he was now to be destroyed for his unworthy condition. In the case of the remnant in 1919, they did not feel now too sure of their saved condition, of having ‘made the calling and choosing of them firm’. They were not yet ready to “go home” to heavenly glory, but yet had a work to do in which to prove their faithfulness. They might have been destroyed in that crucial year, if Jehovah had not shortened the days of world tribulation for the sake of his chosen ones but had carried the war begun in heaven against Satan’s organization straight through to its complete destruction.

²² Isaiah 12:1 indicates Jehovah was angry with the remnant of his witnesses for their fear and failure during World War I. So had he acted on his displeasure it might have been disastrous for them. They were of “unclean lips” like Isaiah. “The fear of Jehovah is clean” (Ps. 19:9, AS); but they had let fear of man and of human organizations affect their lips and silence their message to a large extent. They were not exalting the holiness of Jehovah or filling the whole earth with the knowledge of his glory, as the seraphim were doing. The remnant dwelt mainly in Christendom, which, though professing to be God’s house, was of unclean, hypocritical lips. Through contact with her the remnant had many soils and were infected with many of her traditions and practices even yet. On this basis the remnant of God’s chosen ones might have been destroyed with the world at that time when judgment began at God’s house. But his shortening of the days of tribulation upon Satan’s organization made for their being spared and also for all the other sheep to be spared who have since then been gathered to the fold of the Right Shepherd.—Matt. 24:21, 22; John 10:16, NW.

23. What issue was meant to be impressed upon the beholder of the vision? Because the vision is at the temple, what does it indicate?

²³ The fact that Jehovah’s kingdom is set up is what makes the situation so serious for the Isaiah class. The fact of its establishment had to be impressed upon them and then their obligations be made forcefully clear to them. This is indicated by Isaiah’s cry of dismay: “For mine eyes have seen the King, Jehovah of hosts.” The leprous king of Israel died, but here the holy, living King of all the earth was on his throne at his temple of judgment. So it is not a time to mourn over the dead King Uzziah or his modern counterpart. It is a time to worship, serve and announce the real, living King, attended by his hosts of seraphim, cherubim and angels. It is a time to say: “Praise Jah, you people, because Jehovah our God, the Almighty, has begun to rule as king.” (Rev. 19:6, NW) The government of earth belongs, not to man, but to Jehovah God, and he reigns in holiness. Earth’s domination is a part of the issue of universal sovereignty. This issue now faces all mankind, and the remnant were made to see that this was the paramount issue. Since it is at the temple that Jehovah makes his appearance as King, it shows that he is concerned about pure worship of the true God. The King is God, and God is the King. Hence his is a theocratic kingdom and is the only rightful government for all man. His government must enforce true worship on the earth.

MEANS OF CLEANSING

24. What body members needed cleansing? Why was stress laid on them?

²⁴ Gratefully we acknowledge today how the cleansing of the modern Isaiah class was performed by Jehovah’s undeserved kindness. “Then flew one of the seraphim unto me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar: and he touched my mouth with it, and said, Lo, this hath touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin forgiven.” (Isa. 6:6, 7, AS) For the Isaiah class to be restored to the favor of the King their lips had to be cleansed. “He that loveth pureness of heart, for the grace of his lips the king will be his friend.” (Prov. 22:11, AS) The message those lips spoke must be pure, uncompromising, free from fear of men and religious traditions and human philosophies and selfish eulogies of men. It was necessary for God to fulfill his promise to “turn to the peoples a pure language [literally, a pure lip], that they may all call upon the name of Jehovah, to serve him with one consent”. (Zeph. 3:9, AS) They were to be witnesses of Jehovah as Universal Sovereign and so must offer to him the “sacrifice of praise, that is, the fruit of lips which make public declaration to his name”. (Heb. 13:15, NW) The need of preachers, ambassadors, prophets, proclaimers was involved here. That is why stress was laid on the condition of the lips. At that time most of the remnant were volunteering to distribute free Bible tracts, several hundred were full-time pioneer publishers, the elective elders of congregations were mainly the public speakers, and many were mere meeting attenders. But now all must be active witnesses with their lips clean from fear.

25. How was the cleansing effected, and why with appropriate means?

²⁵ Isaiah’s vision shows that our cleansing was not by human means, but was by seraphic or superhuman means. Humans, themselves unclean, could not accomplish the needed cleansing. Jehovah’s use of the seraph reminds us of how, when Lazarus in the parable died to his beggar condition, the angels carried him to the bosom position of Abraham. The golden tongs which the seraph used to pick up the red-hot stone or live coal were from the golden lampstand in the holy compartment of the temple. (1 Ki. 7:49; 2 Chron. 4:21; Ex. 25:38; 37:23; Num. 4:9) So they were part of the equipment of illumination. To cleanse our lips concerning what they say and how they say it there must be spiritual enlightenment, as symbolized by the golden lampstand. The live coal which was applied to the lips was from no ordinary fire, but was from the fire under the altar of sacrifice in the temple court, which fire was not to be let go out. (Lev. 6:12, 13) The altar represents Christ’s sacrifice. So the live coal came from the right place to purge the lips as by fire. It pictured the cleansing message, which destroys the traditions and precepts of men and imparts fearlessness, zeal, so that the Kingdom message becomes a burning fire within one’s bones. Said Jesus: “You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you.” (John 15:3, NW) It is in harmony with this that, when Jehovah commissioned Jeremiah as his prophet, he put out his hand and touched Jeremiah’s lips and said to him: “Behold, I have put my words in thy mouth.”—Jer. 1:9, AS; Isa. 51:16.

26. What was the remnant’s sin, how was it covered and for what purpose was their cleansing?

²⁶ Any uncleanness of lip in these days following 1914 when Jehovah began to rule as King is wrong and is a sin. Hence when the seraph touched Isaiah’s lips with the red-hot coal he said: “Lo, this hath touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin forgiven.” (AS) Or, as Rotherham’s translation brings out more fully the sense of the seraph’s words, “And thy sin [shall] by propitiation be covered.” The sin of the remnant was covered by the propitiatory sacrifice of Jesus, represented by the altar from which the seraph took the red-hot coal. So instead of being struck with a death-dealing curse like presumptuous King Uzziah, the remnant were graciously forgiven through Christ because of their repentance and were not destroyed. The cleansing of their lips was not a preparation of them to go home at once to heaven. It was a preparation of them for earthly service at a most critical time in human history. So they were preserved to use their cleansed lips with freeness of speech in this day of judgment.—1 John 4:17, 18, NW.

27. So what must be the remnant’s course henceforth?

²⁷ How grateful we can be for this cleansing! It has made us different from all of Christendom, which grows worse and worse in uncleanness of lip. We must never suffer a relapse, by yielding to fear of creatures again, but must go on to perfection of knowledge, faith, ability for service. Our one-time “iniquity” or wrongness has been taken away by God’s royal message for this “time of the end”, for it has acted as a corrective of what we think and say. This is the blessed effect of our vision of him at his temple and of our humbling ourselves before his glorious face.

Know this, that in the last days critical times hard to deal with will be here. For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, self-assuming, haughty, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, without gratitude, with no loving-kindness, having no natural affection, not open to any agreement, slanderers, without self-control, fierce, without love of goodness, betrayers, headstrong, puffed up with self-esteem, lovers of pleasures rather than lovers of God, having a form of godly devotion but proving false to its power; and from these turn away.—2 Tim. 3:1-5, NW.

[Footnotes]

Commissioning of Witnesses in the Time of the End

1, 2. (a) What questions concerning Jehovah’s witnesses does the temple vision answer? (b) When did the call to service come? How?

WHEREAS the “appointed times of the nations” ended in 1914, it is now 37 years that we have been in the “time of the end” of Satan’s world. (Dan. 12:4; 11:40) During all this time Jehovah’s witnesses have become increasingly active and prominent. Why? Who commissioned them and gave them their message? Has their witness accomplished its purpose after all these years? Or must it be classed as a failure? All this was answered in Isaiah’s vision at the temple. It was after he had been cleansed of his unclean-lip condition that he heard a call to service, not from human sources, but from divine. “And I heard the voice of the Lord,a saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” (Isa. 6:8, AS) It was a call from the Most High God, whose name alone is Jehovah. The call came in 1919, the first postwar year following World War I, and it came through the Bible which Jehovah at his temple was making understandable to his devoted people.

² The call was rendered specially sharp in the two-part article in The Watchtower of August 1 and 15, 1919, entitled “Blessed Are the Fearless”.b It was sounded with still more emphasis at the international assembly of Jehovah’s witnesses at Cedar Point, Ohio, September 1-8, 1919. The invitation to service from Jehovah at his temple was given as a general call, and the opportunity was opened for anyone who heard to respond. Like Isaiah, the remnant were free to respond in 1919. Just why the religious clergy of Christendom failed to see the vision, hear the divine invitation to service, and respond, Isaiah’s vision makes very clear.

3. “Whom shall I send?” Who asks this, and why?

³ “Whom shall I send?” It is Jehovah that asks this, because he is the One that does the sending of his witnesses and ambassadors. He was the One that sent Jesus his Son to this earth to prove himself “the faithful and true witness”. On many occasions Jesus testified to his being sent. (John 3:17, 34; 5:36; 7:28, 29; 8:42) So Jehovah the Sender was greater than Jesus the one sent forth. (John 13:16; 14:28) Isaiah of old had children. Jesus is the Greater Isaiah to whom Jehovah has given children, namely, his anointed followers, and these, too, Jehovah sends forth to preach and bear witness. To carry the genuine divine message to others they must be sent or commissioned by Jehovah. Hence Paul, who was one of those sent, asks: “How, in turn, will they hear without someone to preach? How, in turn, will they preach unless they have been sent forth?” (Rom. 10:14, 15, NW) Without the ordination with which the Most High God sends his representatives a person does not come in God’s name. But being sent by God’s authorization he does not have to ask permission from anyone to preach.

4. Who are meant by “us” in his words, “Who will go for us”? Why?

⁴ Jehovah links someone else up with him at the temple when he adds: “And who will go for us?” The pronoun “us” here includes the same ones as are meant when God spoke at creation and said: “Let us make man.” Also: “The man is become as one of us.” And at Babel: “Let us go down, and there confound their language.” (Gen. 1:26; 3:22; 11:7) So by the plural pronoun “us” Jehovah was meaning, not himself and the seraphim at the temple, but himself and his only-begotten Son who became the man Christ Jesus and by whom He had created all things. Hence the glory which Isaiah saw at the temple represented primarily the glory of Jehovah and secondarily that of his Son. This glory the Son shows forth when Jehovah sends him as His “messenger of the covenant” to the temple for judgment work. As it is written: “The Lord, whom ye seek, will suddenly come to his temple; and the messenger of the covenant, whom ye desire, behold, he cometh, saith Jehovah of hosts. And he will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the sons of Levi, and refine them as gold and silver; and they shall offer unto Jehovah offerings in righteousness.” (Mal. 3:1, 3, AS) At his glorious coming to the temple in 1918 he took up the work of judging and cleansing his devoted remnant upon the earth, that these might go for him and for Jehovah with the “pure language”.

5. How did Isaiah respond? Who responded like him? When? Why?

⁵ The service is not forced upon anyone, but is open for volunteers. The type of service is not disclosed at first, but whatever it turns out to be, it is Jehovah’s service and is at his ordination. As a proper example to us Isaiah responded: “Then said I, Here am I; send me.” (Isa. 6:8) So, too, in 1919, the “faithful and discreet slave” class volunteered their service. It was then a case of acting dead to divine service, like the leprous King Uzziah, or of rousing oneself to activity and answering the invitation and being sent. It took faith, love and courage to answer the divine call to service in this world’s “time of the end”. As Isaiah with lips cleansed felt qualified to respond, so the cleansed, forgiven remnant felt qualified and humbly offered their services.—Matt. 24:45-47, NW.

“GO, AND TELL THIS PEOPLE”

6. Did God require them to be ordained by clergy? What shows whether?

⁶ Did Jehovah turn down the volunteers for this final witness to the world because they were not ordained by the clergy of Christendom? Not if judged by his ready acceptance of Isaiah’s services. He did not ask whether Isaiah was a priest, a Levite, a single or a married man, a schooled man or a common laboring man. He let him hear the open invitation and then respond with appreciation of his purification for God’s use. Likewise he accepted the voluntary services of the remnant now purified with the Kingdom message. The facts to date show he has wondrously used them as his anointed witnesses to the nations, so that all the world marvels at them, even though it hates and persecutes them.

7, 8. What were they commissioned to do? How do they rightly do this?

⁷ Check now with your own observations and see whether they have done what Isaiah was commissioned to do: “And he said, Go, and tell this people, Hear ye indeed, but understand not; and see ye indeed, but perceive not. Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and turn again, and be healed.”—Isa. 6:9, 10, AS.

⁸ Isaiah was sent to the people, that is, the people of Israel. To go he must get away from home, wife and family, although one instance is reported of where he took his son Shear-jashub along at God’s command. (Isa. 7:3) The divine service had a claim higher than family obligations. And so as he could arrange his domestic affairs he would leave his home and go to the people and tell them what God told him to tell. He built up a company of disciples or pupils. (Isa. 8:16) The people were not sent for, but God sent his spokesman to them. The Greater Isaiah and his disciples, that is, Jesus and his apostles, showed that it is the right way for those sent by God to go to the homes of the people. So the Isaiah class remnant today do not stand on invitation by the people, nor are they sought out by the people of Israel’s modern counterpart, Christendom. Jehovah takes the initiative and sends and commands them to go to the people. Since they are under a vow of dedication to him and since they have volunteered, they must go, and the authorities of Christendom have no right to stop them.

9. Did what Isaiah was told to say contain the gist of the message, or show what? What recording of it shows its importance?

⁹ What Isaiah was here told to tell the people was not really the content of his message but was to be the effect of it. What he actually told them is contained in the remaining sixty chapters of his prophecy. The Greater Isaiah, Jesus Christ, applied to himself what Isaiah was here told to tell. Explaining why he talked to the people in parables of the Kingdom, Jesus informed his disciples: “Looking, they look in vain, and hearing, they hear in vain, neither do they get the sense of it; and toward them the prophecy of Isaiah is having fulfillment which says: ‘By hearing, you will hear but by no means get the sense of it; and, looking, you will look but by no means see. For the heart of this people has grown thick, and with their ears they have heard with annoyance, and they have shut their eyes; that they might never see with their eyes and hear with their ears and get the sense of it with their hearts and turn back, and I heal them.” (Matt. 13:13-15, NW) One of Jesus’ apostles, Paul, applied this same prophecy to himself to show how it foretold the effect of his work upon the people of natural Israel. (Acts 28:25-28) The fact is, this commission to Isaiah is quoted six times in the Christian Greek Scriptures. So all together it occurs seven times in the entire Bible, which makes it a significant statement of prophecy for our own day.—Matt. 13:14, 15; Mark 4:12; Luke 8:10; Acts 28:25-27; Rom. 11:8; John 12:39, 40.c

10. Does our not winning over Christendom spell failure? What does the commission answer on this?

¹⁰ If, after these 31 years since 1919, Jehovah’s witnesses have not succeeded in winning Christendom to their side, they are not to be blamed and their work is not to be summed up as a failure. In the first century Jesus and his disciples did not win the people of Israel to Christianity; they won only a small percentage, a few thousand. But this does not spell failure for their work, but spells rather the exact fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy. Jehovah’s words at the temple sound as if his witnesses must command the people not to understand what they hear and not to perceive what they see; and as if his witnesses are commanded to make the people’s hearts fat, make their ears heavy and shut up or besmear their eyes. But Jehovah does not force the people this way; otherwise, he would be responsible for their dire fate. He merely makes the people hear and see his witnesses in action. Then by his prophecy he foretells the effect of it upon the people or how they will not respond favorably. In support, see how Matthew 13:14, 15 quotes it. (Page 216, ¶ 9)

11. How have the remnant been used to fulfill the commission?

¹¹ In the same way the remnant in this time of the end do not force the people of Christendom into this unfeeling, unresponsive spiritual state. What the remnant really do is, not make, but show up the people or prove the people to be just as Jehovah foretold at Isaiah 6:9, 10.d So today, 31 years after Jehovah’s witnesses were revived and sent forth in 1919, how many people of Christendom see and hear and believe? Not the vast majority, by any means! Nor millions! Failure this? No! But surely cause for discouragement and quitting? Contrariwise, the prophecy of Isaiah 6:9, 10 has proved true. If Jehovah’s witnesses had compromised their message and tickled the people’s ears, they would not have realized the fulfillment of the prophecy toward their witness work.

12. Had Christendom responded to the message, what would have resulted? But since not, what?

¹² Had Christendom acted favorably upon their testimony she would have turned to Jehovah and his kingdom and had been healed. But today the conditions in Christendom show she has not received divine healing. She is in a most malignantly diseased condition, mentally, morally and spiritually. She faces a destruction and desolation as inescapable as that which came on ancient Jerusalem both in 607 B.C. and A.D. 70. It is not for failure on the part of Jehovah’s witnesses to tell his straightforward message. In sending his witnesses Jehovah had a kindly purpose, namely, to announce the Kingdom of salvation and to give advance warning of the evil to follow a rejection of that kingdom. This shows how vitally important the message we bear is. Rather than be healed by it, Christendom rebels against it and, like the rich man in Haʹdes, she feels tormented by it. Just as to Babylon, we can now say to her: ‘We would have healed Christendom, but she is not healed.’ (Jer. 51:9) Doomed as surely as plagued King Uzziah, she hastens away from Jehovah God to her doleful death.

13. Who get the good effect of the message? So what do they do?

¹³ All the same, the message does have a good effect too, just as it is written: “He sent his word, and healed them, and delivered them from their destructions.” (Ps. 107:20) The spiritual remnant themselves have been affected by the Word this way, and now, too, a great flock of “other sheep” of the Right Shepherd. With softened hearts they receive the message proclaimed by the witnesses. They let it sink deep into open ears of understanding, and with eyes of faith they see how Jehovah is using his witnesses to accomplish his work. So they abandon doomed Christendom, turn to Jehovah and associate with the theocratic organization of His witnesses and get healed.

FOR HOW LONG?

14. What question did Isaiah ask? How did God answer for him and for us?

¹⁴ Would you not wonder how long you should go on witnessing in the face of the hardheartedness of Christendom? Isaiah got the answer for us. “Then said I, Lord,e how long? And he answered, Until cities be waste without inhabitant, and houses without man, and the land become utterly waste, and Jehovah have removed men far away, and the forsaken places be many in the midst of the land.” (Isa. 6:11, 12, AS) Thus without setting a date, Jehovah does set the practical limit for our work amid the people of unhealed Christendom. We must carry on until Christendom is reduced to the devastated state described here prophetically and which was illustrated in the devastation of Jerusalem and Judah in 607 B.C. Isaiah did not personally bear witness until that event. He died over a hundred years before then. But his fellow witnesses did testify till then, Jeremiah continuing to prophesy in prison in Jerusalem even while the city was under siege by the Babylonians. Released at the city’s fall, Jeremiah continued to preach after that until the remaining people fled in terror to Egypt, taking him forcibly along, so leaving the land forsaken of man and domesticated beast.

15. (a) How will Christendom be thus desolated? (b) What must we do till then and thereafter?

¹⁵ The time is getting closer when the “ten horns” of the beast, backed by the whole body of that beast, will turn on Christendom’s whorish system of Babylonish religion and will wreck it. All her religious systems will be affected. Their adherents will be taken captive or destroyed by the worldly elements that fight against religion and God’s kingdom, so leaving organized religion desolate. That will be the beginning of the battle of Armageddon, but at the grand climax Jehovah’s heavenly hosts under his King Jesus Christ will execute his righteous judgments against all the ungodly elements, religious, political, social and commercial. This divine execution will rid the earth of them. This is what Christendom will have come on her for shutting her eyes, dulling her ears and fattening her heart toward the testimony of the witnesses whom Jehovah sent. So despite the siege conditions which the anti-God forces may bring upon Christendom, we must carry on with the Kingdom message and declare the “day of vengeance of our God”. After she falls at Armageddon, we must do like Ezekiel, preach the Kingdom and the divine vengeance upon all systems outside of Christendom, till the “war of the great day of God the Almighty” destroys them and his universal sovereignty stands vindicated forever. By his help, strength and protection there will be no stopping us till then. His command to us will be carried out fully.

16, 17. What did Jehovah finally say regarding a tenth in the land, and how is this fulfilled?

¹⁶ After such a message of divine vengeance, our stirred emotions impel us to ask, Will any get through alive? Jehovah through Isaiah gives us the assurance of such. In the closing words of his commission to that prophet at the temple he says: “Yet still shall there be in it a tenth, though it again be consumed,—like an oak and like a terebinth which, when felled, have a stock in them, a holy seed shall be the stock thereof.”—Isa. 6:13, Ro; AS.

¹⁷ That “tenth” appears to be the faithful spiritual remnant of Jehovah’s witnesses, who were pictured by the faithful Jewish remnant that returned to the land of the formerly unfaithful Judah and Jerusalem and renewed the pure worship of God there. The remnant, who are the last of God’s “holy nation” on earth, are a “holy seed”, “a sacred race” (Mo). Just as an oak or a turpentine tree which is felled leaves a stump that will sprout again at the scent of water, so this holy seed will remain like a stock in the earth and will sprout again after the devastations of Armageddon. (Job 14:7-9) Surviving with them will be the great flock of “other sheep”, who have turned to Jehovah and his kingdom by Christ and who have been healed, to correspond with Ebed-melech and the Rechabites who survived Jerusalem’s first destruction with Jeremiah. Thus Jehovah’s pure worship will sprout again under most favorable conditions after Armageddon and will spread to the ends of the earth. Then ‘the whole earth will be full of Jehovah’s glory’, just as the seraphs at the temple foretold.

18. In view of His commission, what is the course for us?

¹⁸ In view of our divine commission from the temple there is no stopping for us as his witnesses until Armageddon strikes Christendom and the opportunity for her adherents to repent is up. On we go, then, proclaiming the message, while we “consider the patience of our Lord as salvation”, both for ourselves and for those who hear us.—2 Pet. 3:15, NW.

[Footnotes]

What “things” did Isaiah say “because he saw his glory”? Well, John quotes Isaiah here twice, first quoting Isaiah 53:1 concerning the “arm of Jehovah” and then quoting Isaiah 6:10 concerning the temple vision. At Isaiah 53:1 the “arm of Jehovah” is Christ Jesus. At Isaiah 6:10 the speaker at the temple is Jehovah, but he includes his Son with him when he says: “Who will go for us?” that is, for me and my Son. Thus we see that the prehuman Jesus was associated with Jehovah in his glory at the temple, and hence John could rightly say Isaiah here saw his glory and spoke about him, “the arm of Jehovah.” Certainly Jesus the Greater Isaiah had not sent himself, but Jehovah at the temple did so, for John here applies Isaiah 6:10 to Jesus as the Sent One toward whom this prophecy was first fulfilled, after Jesus had ridden into Jerusalem and offered himself as King and had cleansed the temple. At that time Jesus was not in “his glory”, but the Jewish leaders had vilified him and had conspired to kill him.

The same was true where Matthew 13:14, 15 applies Isaiah’s prophecy to Jesus, for there, too, the religious leaders had formed a conspiracy to destroy him. (Matt. 12:14; John 11:57) The glory of Jesus with his Father at the temple comes at the final and complete fulfillment of Malachi 3:1-4 in the year 1918, when Jehovah sends him as his Messenger of the covenant to judge and purify His consecrated people. Especially since his resurrection, Jesus is the reflection of Jehovah’s glory.—Heb. 1:2, 3; 2 Cor. 4:6. Also see page 215, ¶ 4.

African Chieftain Recognizes Shepherd’s Voice

● Hearing that there was to be a great assembly of the people from different places at the kraal [native community] of one of the Paramount chiefs and that he was to be present also, I arranged with some brothers to witness to the people gathered there. While witnessing an official whom I knew arranged for me to be among the speakers that were to address the assembly the following Sunday. Sunday we came and gathered outside the kraal’s yard. There was an attendance of more than 600 people. We were surprised to see representatives of various creeds and denominations present. The first to deliver some talks were the Abafundisi [local religious cult]. They dealt with the resurrection of Christ, as it was Easter Sunday with them. I was then called upon. I stood up and gave my talk, “Peace on Earth, When?” First of all I noticed that they were surprised that I had chosen this topic instead of one having to do with Easter. Afterward they all attentively listened and some of them nodded their heads. When I looked at the Paramount chief I noticed that he was smiling—it was apparent that he is a man who likes Bible facts. It seemed that the time would not allow me to finish my talk. While I was still talking, the chief indicated that I should be given more time. After I concluded two others spoke. After that the chief stood up and summarized the talks. First he thanked me for coming and for telling his people the truth. He then told the audience that I was the only one who was able to convince those who, like himself, love the Bible truth. He then discounted what the Abafundisi told the people by stating that the Bible showed that these were misleading the people. He also gave us an invitation to speak at a great gathering that was to be held at his royal kraal.

—Mbabane, Swaziland

“Droop Not Your Hands”

NO ONE can deny it, Jehovah God has a people in the earth who are called by his sacred name! Not those of mighty, proud and contemptuous Christendom, but a despised and persecuted minority are the ones bearing the sacred name, Jehovah’s witnesses. Upon these the hostile world looks down because they are not politically, religiously, socially or commercially powerful. They are a “poor people”, comparatively speaking, humble in spirit and poor in material goods. (Zeph. 3:11, 12, AS) However, as the world situation grows continually more critical, the work of these witnesses takes on an ever wider scope and a far greater importance.a

What if the world does not love us, but hates and oppresses us? With conditions flourishing in a paradise state among God’s devoted people this is no time to be sad and mourn because the world mistreats us. Listen to what Jehovah says: “Sing, O daughter of Zion; shout, O Israel; be glad and rejoice with all the heart, O daughter of Jerusalem. Jehovah hath taken away thy judgments, he hath cast out thine enemy: the King of Israel, even Jehovah, is in the midst of thee; thou shalt not fear evil any more.” (Zeph. 3:14, 15, AS) The Kingdom is here! Our enemies have been cast out. Jehovah reigns in our midst!

At this world’s “time of the end” the cry of all these Bible prophecies is for action: “Fear not, droop not your hands, O Sion.” (Zeph. 3:16, Mo) Christ Jesus the enthroned King does not droop his hands out of fear of the Devil’s organization. Neither can we, his subjects, let our hands hang down in helpless inactivity. Instead, “lift up the hands that hang down” is the command, and hold high the message of life that God has placed in our hands!

Today persons of good will who are meek and teachable out of all nations, tribes, peoples and tongues are hearing this message and are adding their glad voices to the mighty chorus. (Rev. 7:9, 10, NW) Hundreds and thousands have already responded. How many thousands more will yet seize hold of this grand privilege before Armageddon?

The names of the wicked enemies who belong to this world are destined to rot, but the name and praise of Jehovah’s witnesses will live forever on the luminous pages of eternity to the honor of their Almighty God. “Jehovah thy God is in the midst of thee, a mighty one who will save.” (Zeph. 3:17, AS) So never let the name of Jehovah suffer reproach because of wrong personal conduct. Never let his praise be lessened or silenced because of laziness, fear or treachery on your part. Until we reap the full share in the vindication of Jehovah’s name at his victory on Armageddon’s battlefield, “droop not your hands,” but raise them ever higher in praise to him and his reigning King!

[Footnotes]

An Interesting Chronological Chart

Since the issuance of the book The Time Is at Hand in 1889 the Watch Tower Bible & Tract Society has not published a consecutive chronology from man’s creation onward. In recent years, especially since the revising of our dates back from Jerusalem’s destruction and reconstruction in the 7th and 6th centuries before Christ, some have evidenced the desire to have such a chronology available for ready reference. So on the next two pages we seek to date events of importance to students of God’s Word and incorporate material that has appeared in various recent publications of the Society. The reader will note that many dates are approximate, and these, of course, are subject to revision as we get better evidence concerning the time of the events thus involved.

[Chart on page 221, 222]

(For fully formatted text, see publication)

CHART OF OUTSTANDING HISTORICAL DATES

Symbols: “a” for “after”; “b” for “before”; “c” for “circa or “about”

DATE EVENT REFERENCE

4025 B.C. Adam’s creation (in the fall) Gen. 2:7

a 4025 B.C. Adam writes Doc. No. I, Gen. 1:1-2:4 Gen. 2:4

a 4025 B.C. Edenic covenant made, first prophecy Gen. 3:15

b 3895 B.C. Cain slays Abel Gen. 4:8

3403 B.C. Birth of righteous Enoch Gen. 5:18

3338 B.C. Birth of Methuselah Gen. 5:21

3151 B.C. Birth of Lamech Gen. 5:25

b 3096 B.C. Adam writes Doc. No. II, Gen. 2:5-5:2 Gen. 5:1

3096 B.C. Death of Adam, within his 930th yr. Gen. 5:5

2969 B.C. Birth of Noah Gen. 5:28, 29

2490 B.C. God’s pronouncement as to mankind Gen. 6:3

c 2420- Noah begins to build the ark Gen. 6:14

c 2370 B.C. Noah writes Doc. III, Gen. 5:3-6:9 Gen. 6:9

2369 B.C. Flood on earth—Noah 600 years old Gen. 7:6

2368 B.C. Birth of Arphaxad Gen. 11:10

a 2239 B.C. Building of the Tower of Babel Gen. 11:4

2020 B.C. Death of Noah, within his 950th yr. Gen. 9:28, 29

2018 B.C. Birth of Abraham Gen. 11:26

a 1919 B.C. Judgment of Sodom and Gomorrah Gen. 19:24

1881 B.C. Death of Sarah, age 127 Gen. 23:1

1878 B.C. Marriage of Isaac and Rebekah Gen. 25:20

1868 B.C. Death of Shem, within 600 years Gen. 11:11

1858 B.C. Birth of Esau and Jacob Gen. 25:26

1844 B.C. Death of Abraham, within 175 years Gen. 25:7

1818 B.C. Esau marries Judith, the Hittitess Gen. 26:34

1774 B.C. Jacob marries Leah and Rachel Gen. 29:23-30

c 1761 B.C. Jacob wrestles angel, is named Israel Gen. 32:24-28

a 1739 B.C. Esau writes Doc. No. X, Gen. 36:2-9 Gen. 36:9

1657 B.C. Death of Joseph, age 110 Gen. 50:26

1593 B.C. Birth of Moses Ex. 2:2

c 1514 B.C. Moses at the burning thornbush Ex. 3:2

c 1490 B.C. Moses writes the book of Job

c 1454 B.C. Death of Joshua, age 110 Jos. 24:29

c 1192 B.C. Birth of Samuel 1 Sam. 1:20

c 1100 B.C. Samuel writes Judges Judg. 21:25

c 1090 B.C. Samuel writes the book of Ruth Ruth 4:18-22

b 1082 B.C. Samuel writes 1 Samuel 1:1—24:22 1 Sam. 25:1

1070 B.C. David’s 3d anointing, over all Israel 2 Sam. 5:3-5

a 1069 B.C. The Ark brought into Jerusalem 2 Sam. 6:15

Kingdom covenant made with David 2 Sam. 7:12-16

1037 B.C. Death of King David, age 70 1 Ki. 2:10, 11

c 1010 B.C. Solomon writes Song of Solomon Ca. 1:1

c 1000 B.C. Solomon writes Ecclesiastes Eccl. 1:1

980 B.C. Abijam succeeds Rehoboam 1 Ki. 15:1, 2

978 B.C. Asa succeeds Abijam 1 Ki. 15:9, 10

917 B.C. Jehoram succeeds Jehoshaphat 2 Ki. 8:16, 17

c 917 B.C. Joel writes the book of Joel Joel 1:1

909 B.C. Queen Athaliah usurps throne 2 Ki. 11:1-3

903 B.C. Jehoash succeeds Ahaziah 2 Ki. 12:1

866 B.C. Amaziah succeeds Jehoash 2 Ki. 14:1, 2

c 852 B.C. Jonah writes the book of Jonah Jonah 1:1, Jonah 1:2

826 B.C. Uzziah becomes king 2 Chron. 26:1-3

c 811 B.C. Amos writes the book of Amos Amos 1:1

774 B.C. Jotham succeeds Uzziah 2 Chron. 27:1

759 B.C. Ahaz succeeds Jotham 2 Chron. 28:1

745 B.C. Hezekiah succeeds Ahaz 2 Chron. 29:1

742 B.C. Hosea writes the book of Hosea Hosea 1:1

a 732 B.C. Isaiah writes the book of Isaiah Isa. 1:1

716 B.C. Manasseh succeeds Hezekiah 2 Ki. 21:1

c 716 B.C. Micah writes the book of Micah Micah 1:1

661 B.C. Amon succeeds Manasseh 2 Ki. 21:19

659 B.C. Josiah succeeds Amon 2 Ki. 22:1

b 632 B.C. Nahum writes the book of Nahum Nah. 1:1

c 632 B.C. Nineveh falls to Chaldeans and Medes Nah. 3:7

628 B.C. Jehoahaz succeeds Josiah 2 Ki. 23:31

628 B.C. Jehoiakim succeeds Jehoahaz 2 Ki. 23:36

c 628 B.C. Habakkuk writes the book of Habakkuk Hab. 1:1

617 B.C. Zedekiah is made king 2 Chron. 36:10

607 B.C. Fifth month (Ab 7-10) temple razed 2 Ki. 25:8-10

Jerusalem destroyed Jer. 52:12-14

c 607 B.C. Obadiah writes the book of Obadiah Obadiah 1

520 B.C. Haggai writes the book of Haggai Hag. 1:1

516 B.C Zerubbabel completes second temple Ezra 6:14, 15

468 B.C. Ezra and priests return to Jerusalem Ezra 7:7

443 B.C. Nehemiah writes the book of Nehemiah Neh. 5:14

c 442 Malachi writes the book of Malachi Mal. 1:1

332 B.C. Greece, 5th world power, rules Judea Dan. 8:21

A.D. 32 John the Baptist beheaded Matt. 14:10

A.D. 33 Nisan 16. The resurrection of Jesus Matt. 28:1-10

c A.D. 41-50 Matthew writes “Matthew” Matt. 28:15

A.D. 61 Luke completes writing Acts in Rome Acts 28:30

A.D. 65 Paul writes 2 Timothy from Rome 2 Tim. 4:16-18

c A.D. 65 Jude, Jesus’ brother, writes “Jude” Jude 1, 17, 18

c A.D. 96 John on Patmos writes Revelation Rev. 1:9

A.D. 1456 Bibles began to be printed from movable type

[It should be noted by the reader that many early Bible events occurred within years that ran from fall to fall. The Jews even today have a “civil year” that runs from fall to fall. After the Exodus in 1513 B.C. “sacred years” were inaugurated which counted from spring to spring. “Regnal years” of the kings of Israel, Judah, Babylon and Persia likewise ran from spring to spring. Where a king died before he completed his last “regnal year” his successor completed his term as an “accession year”. However, the successor did not reckon the beginning of his own first “regnal year” until the next spring. This chart seeks to adapt the above years” to our present B.C. and A.D. system of reckoning and recording of “years”.]

Questions From Readers

● Have not Watchtower publications been in error in saying the food of John the Baptist was insect locusts? Does not reference to his locust diet refer to the beans or seed pods which appear on the sugar locust tree?—W. B., Canada.

The locusts which John the Baptist ate in the wilderness were not the beans or carobs which grow on the sugar locust tree, but were the real insect locusts. In the original Greek text the word for locust at Matthew 3:4 is akrís. This word never means the locust tree bean pod, but exclusively the insect. That is why the New World Translation renders Matthew 3:4 as follows: “Now that very John had his clothing of camel’s hair and a leather girdle around his loins; his food, too, was insect locusts and wild honey.” In the Greek Septuagint translation of the Hebrew Scriptures this word akrís is the word used for locusts in the plague upon Egypt, at Exodus 10:4, 12-14, 19. Also in connection with the locust plague at Revelation 9:3, 7 akrís is used. And akrís is also the word used at Leviticus 11:22, which tells the Israelites that they could eat the insect locusts as a clean food. The word for the locust tree beans or carob pods was a different Greek word, kerátion, and this was what the prodigal son ate, according to Luke 15:16, NW.

● What is meant by the statement at Ecclesiastes 12:7, “The spirit shall return unto God who gave it”?—J. D., Canada.

In this text spirit means the power of life. God withdraws this life from the dying sinner, and no one can restore that power of life except Jehovah God, who originally gave it to Adam. (Gen. 2:7) Psalm 104:29, 30 (Ro) states: “Thou hidest thy face, they are dismayed, thou withdrawest their spirit, they cease to breathe, and unto their own dust do they return: thou sendest forth thy spirit, they are created, and thou renewest the face of the ground.” In the case of dead human creatures held in God’s memory, he will restore to them the power of life in a resurrection. Those who died willfully wicked will not be remembered at the time of resurrection. They will be as the brute beasts that perish.—Prov. 10:7; Eccl. 3:18-21; John 5:28, 29, NW; 2 Pet. 2:12.

● Your Society’s book “Equipped for Every Good Work” gives, on page 82, some Talmudic legends about Jesus, which legends our pastor says are untrue. Can you give me the source of your information?—F. J., Pennsylvania.

These legends are verified in the book The New Testament and the Talmud (96 pages) by Julius Feldman, professor, in its Chapter VII, entitled “Traditions and Legends”, on pages 67 and 72. The author tells how editions of the Talmud have been expurgated in order to eliminate some of these gross legends in order to avoid offending Gentile Christians too deeply and thereby stirring up pogroms and suchlike persecutions against the Jews. But the unexpurgated early editions of the Talmud contain such legends, from which source the book’s author got them. The above book has doubtless gone out of print, but you may locate it in a well-stocked public library.

● Genesis 1:26 reads, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.” Could not this mean that the form of God’s spiritual body is the same as the form of man’s physical body?—H. D., California.

Deuteronomy 4:15-20 shows that God’s form is not known by men, so there is no need for men to try to represent it by any earthly creature. See also Isaiah 40:18, 25. To try to represent the Creator in the form of visible man or other earthly creation, rather than glorify him as the invisible and almighty God, is foolish, as Paul shows: “Although they knew God, they did not glorify him as God nor did they thank him, but they became empty-headed in their reasonings and their unintelligent heart became darkened. Although asserting they were wise, they became foolish and turned the glory of the incorruptible God into something like the image of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed creatures and creeping things.”—Rom. 1:21-23, NW.

Furthermore Paul wrote: “‘The first man Adam became a living soul.’ The last Adam [Christ] became a life-giving spirit. And just as we have borne the image of the one made of dust, we shall bear also the image of the heavenly one.” (1 Cor. 15:45, 49, NW) From this it is apparent that the image of Adam was not the same as the image of the resurrected Christ, a spirit creature. The appearance of Christ resurrected as a spirit creature was unknown to Christians. They knew he was in God’s “express image”, or “the exact representation of his very being”, but they did not consider that “express image” or “exact representation” to be in the form of man, which was known to them. They also knew that eventually they would see God and be like him, whenever they would be raised as spirit creatures to reign with Christ: “Beloved ones, now we are children of God, but as yet it has not been made manifest what we shall be. We do know that whenever he is made manifest we shall be like him, because we shall see him just as he is.”—Heb. 1:3; 1 John 3:2, NW.

From all this it is clear that the writers of the Christian Greek Scriptures did not consider the form of men to be the same as God’s form or as the resurrected Christ’s form. Hence it seems certain that when Jehovah said to the Logos (Christ’s title before becoming a man on earth), “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness,” he was not referring to any literal form or appearance. The Logos underwent great change to be made into man’s likeness. (Phil. 2:7) So we hold to the previously published explanation that man was made in their image and likeness in that as Jehovah’s attributes are justice, love, wisdom and power, so man was created with these same attributes, which set him apart from all other earthly forms of life and equip him to exercise dominion over them and to visibly represent Jehovah on earth. Since the divine attributes are also possessed by the Logos, the Creator could rightly speak of such things to the Logos as “our image” and “our likeness”.—Gen. 1:28; 5:3; Ps. 89:14; Prov. 2:6; 3:19, 20; Dan. 2:20; 1 John 4:8.

Announcements

SUBJECTION TO SUPERIOR AUTHORITIES

Law-abiding, orderly men and women heed the commands of the Supreme Authority of the Universe and his King and thus come under “subjection to the superior authorities”. (Rom. 13:1, NW) Their command governing the personal conduct and worship of all creatures desiring life is set forth in these words, ‘Love Jehovah your God with your whole heart, soul, mind and strength, and your neighbor as yourself.’

During the month of May, Jehovah’s witnesses will demonstrate their subjection to the superior authorities, by obeying the command to love and serve their neighbors by offering them the knowledge so necessary to gain the way to life and approval from the supreme authorities by means of the book “This Means Everlasting Life” and a self-covered booklet. You too, dear reader, will want to obey the superior authorities; and this is the opportune time and occasion. Join in with Jehovah’s witnesses. Tell your friends and neighbors, acquaint them with this life-giving message by simply telling them what the book contains, and ask them to read it for themselves. Feel free to write in and ask any question you may have in this regard, then send us a report on the results of your efforts to assist others to gain everlasting life by being in subjection to the superior authorities. The accepted contribution for the above book and booklet is 35 cents.

CAN YOU LIVE FOREVER IN HAPPINESS ON EARTH?

Knowledge that life everlasting in happiness and unending youth is possible should and does make informed persons most joyful. Many may skeptically say, “It isn’t possible!” How this is made possible and why it is available now to men of all kinds is presented in a 32-page booklet entitled “Can You Live Forever in Happiness on Earth?” You too would like to see this come about and actually enjoy it, wouldn’t you? For your eternal welfare read the information in this booklet as it is set before you in plain, simple and easy-to-understand language. This knowledge brings with it peace of mind, contentment and satisfaction. You too can possess this knowledge. Obtain a copy, read the factual evidence it contains and be encouraged by its refreshing and wholesome truths. Sent postpaid, 5c per copy.

“WATCHTOWER” STUDIES

Week of May 6: Who Sees the New World’s King at the Temple? ¶1-23.

Week of May 13: Who Sees the New World’s King at the Temple? ¶24-27; and Commissioning of Witnesses in the Time of the End.