The Watchtower — October 15, 1951

Education That Brings Success

A WORLDLY saying of much wisdom relates: “All that glitters is not gold.” Sometimes it is interesting to remember this when men give way to much boasting. And have you ever heard of such boasting as is evident in this twentieth-century “brain age”?

Men are highly respected for sake of degrees they hold from great universities. Among nations, scientific achievement, particularly along military lines, rockets those with the greatest “know-how” into positions of leadership.

Yet what can be said for the harvest this age has reaped? Its two world wars do not stand out as great intellectual achievements. It is difficult to see the wisdom in the mass global fear caused by the inventions of modern science. Do the children, as claimed, reap the benefit of the most progressive learning of all time? Juvenile crimes are more outstanding than ever. High school narcotic rings steal the headlines. As the Bible warned, widespread ‘disobedience to parents’ has paralleled the high tide of youth woes. (2 Tim. 3:2) And what of man’s loftiest study, knowledge of his Creator? Godlessness through evolution and communism runs wild. “Trial marriages” are seriously considered and the collapse of family life lurks nearby.

When very similar conditions prevailed in the ancient land of Israel, when it was riddled with ‘cursing, lying, murder, theft and adultery’, Jehovah God assigned the cause, declaring: “The LORD has a quarrel with the inhabitants of the land; because there is no fidelity, no kindness, and no knowledge of God in the land.” (Hos. 4:1, AT) What would you give as the cause for these same evils in the modern world?

In the first place, just what does this “wise world” accomplish with its much boasted wisdom? True, great nations can store their resources, then conduct global aid programs to less fortunate peoples. With their knowledge of engineering, men can blueprint mighty structures, blast their foundations out of solid rock and scrape the sky with their pinnacles. They can draft large armies and equip them for daring exploits behind skilled commanders. Yes, and they can inherit thrones or be elected into political offices, dwell in palaces and exert much influence. But are all these things so much? If these are the sole measurements of success, then man is still little ahead of the insects and lower animals.—Prov. 30:24-28.

Ironically, this world’s learning seems to operate in reverse. A child of four or five asks who made the flowers. Told that God created them, he believes it because he reasons that he cannot duplicate them with his little hands. This and other things he learns. He is taught to respect God’s great power, to pray to Him and to feel safe because God is able to defeat all evil. But later on the same child grown older falls into the clutches of college professors who proceed to shred away this simple faith, forcing him to give it up to satisfy the greedy appetite of the evolution theory. Gone then, too, his sense of security, and the young man becomes part of a sea of humanity living in dread of atomic war or some other form of mass annihilation. After seventeen or eighteen years of “education” he finds he knows less than at the age of four or five!

So some may suggest that parochial education is the answer. But not so. Consider the “church states” prevalent in Latin America and the degrading immorality and mass ignorance marking those poor peoples. Even in the United States, tests indicate that “Sunday school” education has not taught a practical knowledge of God’s Word. To the parents of His typical nation, Israel, God commanded:

“These words you must learn by heart, this charge of mine; you must impress them on your children, you must talk about them when you are sitting at home and when you are on the road, when you lie down and when you rise up. You must tie them on your hands as a memento, and wear them on your forehead as a badge; you must inscribe them on the door-posts of your houses and on your gates.”—Deut. 6:6-9, Mo.

Similarly, the apostle Paul admonished Christian parents of the first century to ‘go on bringing their children up in the discipline and authoritative advice of Jehovah’. (Eph. 6:4, NW) Of course, such training must be accompanied with proper parental examples in Christian teaching and living. The harvest for such course will be another life devoted to learning of God and publicly helping friends and neighbors to do likewise—truly a helpful contribution to the world.

“Is that any way to become successful?” the scoffing world will challenge. Would the scoffers consider Christ Jesus successful, then? Evidently not, yet his teaching has introduced the only means of salvation to everlasting life in a new world open to mankind. Note what his apostle, Paul, taught: “Did not God make the wisdom of the world foolish? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world through its wisdom did not get to know God, God saw good through the foolishness of what is preached to save those believing.”—1 Cor. 1:20, 21, NW.

And by “the foolishness of what is preached” will those who survive the coming world crisis be preserved for life in God’s new world. To help all those who would win this goal of true success, the good news is phrased simply for them, but backed with the power of God’s Word. The experience of the apostle Paul proves this wise.—1 Cor. 2:1, 4, 5.

Certainly it was in God’s power that Jesus taught, when he spoke as no man before him had (John 7:46), carrying on Christian education from city to city, village to village, house to house and in public places and wherever a crowd could be gathered. (Luke 8:1; Acts 20:20; Luke 5:1-3; Matt. 5:1, 2) Also, he and his followers patiently instructed in private homes and answered Bible questions. (Matt. 9:9, 10; Luke 10:38-42) The book of Acts brims with such experiences.

This vital activity of Christianity has not vanished. In the year 1950, Jehovah’s witnesses, Christian ministers, spent more than 54,000,000 hours in this same kind of work world-wide. They conducted over eighteen and a half million return visits upon interested parties and held 234,952 home Bible studies. Evidence of their success lies in ever-increasing throngs of new ministers, new hearts made glad, persons with a new world hope of everlasting life. This way of learning for true success yet remains open to encourage still others.

Jehovah’s War of Armageddon

PEOPLE the world over fear another global war. They fear it because of having already experienced two world wars. They fear it because atomic weapons will be used. They fear it because there seems no way of escaping it. But what the majority of the people do not realize is that something far more terrible than another international war is impending. (2 Pet. 3:7, 10) As General of the Army Douglas MacArthur, on September 2, 1945, the day after the surrender of the Japanese, aboard the battleship “Missouri”, warned: “Men since the beginning of time have sought peace. . . . Military alliances, balance of power, leagues of nations, all in turn failed, leaving the only path to be by way of the crucible of war. We have had our last chance. If we will not devise some greater and more equitable system, our Armageddon will be at our door.” No “more equitable system” has been devised. The nations are having their “last chance”. Armageddon is at the door!

Now let this fact be fully appreciated by all: Armageddon will be altogether different, separate and distinct from any prospective World War III, touched off and prosecuted by mere men. Armageddon will not be a war between Eastern and Western blocs of nations. It will not be communism against capitalism. It will not be a revolt of the laboring masses against the ruling classes. No, Armageddon will be the battle of God Almighty, the great and terrible war, when Jehovah completely destroys the nations and kingdoms that oppose and fight against his glorious theocratic rule.—Zeph. 3:8, AS.

Armageddon will not be any local war limited to the literal valley of Megiddo in Palestine. Har–Magedon, or Armageddon, means the “mountain of the assembly of troops”, and it refers in a symbolic way to the capital organization of Zion where Jehovah God has enthroned Christ Jesus as earth’s rightful ruler. That great historical event took place in the year 1914, conclusive proof concerning this having already appeared in the columns of The Watchtower.—Ps. 45:3-7.

So it is against the established kingdom under Christ that the nations under the control of the Devil and his demons now gather together for an all-out final, but futile, assault. Says the psalmist: “Why do the nations rage, and the peoples meditate a vain thing [conspiring to continue their rule]? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against Jehovah, and against his anointed [King], . . . He that sitteth in the heavens will laugh: the Lord will have them in derision. Then will he speak unto them in his wrath [at Armageddon], and vex them in his sore displeasure: Yet I have set my king upon my holy hill of Zion.”—Ps. 2:1-6, AS.

THE GATHERING STORM

They do not realize it, but the hurried efforts of the rulers since 1914 in forming leagues of nations, creating confederacies, drawing up hemispheric pacts and international agreements, and pooling their strength in what they call a United Nations—all of such schemes having welded the nations together into a solid bloc in opposition to Christ’s kingdom—are in direct fulfillment of divine prophecy long ago recorded. And just as surely as we have seen the nations form these confederacies, just that surely will we see them dashed to pieces at Armageddon! “Associate yourselves, O ye people,” the prophet declared, “and ye shall be broken in pieces.” “Gird yourselves, and ye shall be broken in pieces.” “Take counsel together, and it shall come to nought.”—Isa. 8:9, 10.

Have you observed the overwhelming flood of demonic propaganda constantly increasing in volume since World War I, great swelling words booming forth as from the throats of inflated bullfrogs?

As foretold in Bible prophecy, such propaganda is inspired by the demons, the purpose being to line up everyone on the Devil’s side for the universal war of Armageddon. “And I saw three unclean inspired expressions that looked like frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon and out of the mouth of the wild beast and out of the mouth of the false prophet. They are, in fact, expressions inspired by demons and perform signs, and they go forth to the kings of the entire inhabited earth, to gather them together to the war of the great day of God the Almighty. And they gathered them together to the place that is called in Hebrew Har–Magedon [Armageddon].”—Rev. 16:13, 14, 16, NW.

The greatest battle of all ages is fast approaching and the opposing forces of wickedness have but a short time to prepare for it. Hence Jehovah mockingly tells them: “Proclaim ye this among the nations; prepare war; stir up the mighty men; let all the men of war draw near, let them come up. Beat your plowshares into swords, and your pruning-hooks into spears: let the weak say, I am strong. Haste ye, and come, all ye nations round about, and gather yourselves together. . . . Let the nations bestir themselves, and come up to the valley of Jehoshaphat; for there will I sit to judge all the nations round about.” (Joel 3:9-12, AS) They obey. The greatest armaments race in all history is in full swing.

Soon their total regimentation will be complete, and they will feel invincible, secure and peaceably entrenched. But that is where they will make their greatest blunder, as the apostle Paul declares: “Whenever it is that they are saying, ‘Peace and security!’ then sudden destruction is to be instantly upon them just as the pang of distress upon a pregnant woman, and they will by no means escape.” (1 Thess. 5:3, NW) Jehovah, a warrior without a peer, well knows the value of surprise, and He makes full use of it, not in a cowardly sneak-attack, but by first giving complete warning, and then striking the obstinate enemies when and where they least expect it. “Concerning that day and hour nobody knows, neither the angels of the heavens nor the Son [Jehovah’s Chief Field Marshal], but only the Father.”—Matt. 24:36, NW.

Jehovah’s “D-day” of Armageddon may be strictly a military secret, but the suddenness and surprise of it will convince even the enemy that this is it. Armageddon will break as suddenly as the flood that deluged the earth in Noah’s day; as suddenly as the bolts of fire that came down from heaven and licked up the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah in Lot’s day. (Luke 17:26-30) Satan’s forces will be as surprised as when Joshua’s army ambushed the cocky inhabitants of Ai; as surprised as the slumbering Midianites when Gideon’s little band in the dead of night smashed the pitchers and shouted, “The sword of Jehovah and of Gideon”; as surprised as when David’s men circled the Philistines and came upon them from the rear. (Josh. 8:1-23; Judg. 7:19-22; 2 Sam. 5:22-24, AS) As in these past instances, so also now, Jehovah God is maneuvering the enemy into a position where their destruction will be so sudden and complete Jehovah will be vindicated for all time as the greatest warrior in the universe, supreme in wisdom and almighty in battle.—Ex. 15:3; Ps. 24:8, 10, AS.

HOW FINAL WAR WILL BE FOUGHT

This old world has had a long time to develop and bring forth good fruits, but all she has produced is wild oats and bitter grapes of wickedness. Now harvesttime has arrived. “Put ye in the sickle; for the harvest is ripe: come, tread ye; for the winepress is full, the vats overflow; for their wickedness is great. Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision! for the day of Jehovah is near in the valley of decision.” (Joel 3:13, 14, AS) It is Christ Jesus and the host of holy angels with him that will trample underfoot and squeeze the very life out of Satan’s forces, even as ancient treaders of the winepress made pulp out of grapes. Crowned as Ruler of the new world, with flaming vengeance streaking from his eyes as he rides to victory upon a white war mount, Jehovah’s Vindicator will tread “the press of the wine of the anger of the wrath of God the Almighty”. (Jer. 25:30, 31, AS; Rev. 19:11-16, NW) In this execution work the “King of kings and Lord of lords” will have associated with him myriads upon myriads of holy angels, even all the armies of heaven, numbering no less than 200,000,000.—Ps. 68:17; Rev. 9:16, NW.

What a terrible slaughter that will be! All the angelic host of heaven laying siege against both the visible and invisible hordes of wicked ones! How such supernatural warfare will be waged we do not know, but the Bible tells something of the horrifying results. “This shall be the plague wherewith Jehovah will smite all the peoples that have warred against [heavenly] Jerusalem: their flesh shall consume away while they stand upon their feet, and their eyes shall consume away in their sockets, and their tongue shall consume away in their mouth.”—Ezek. 38:21-23; Zech. 14:12, AS.

It is true that this global sphere will remain forever, yet the cosmic forces deployed against the Devil’s organization will rock this earth to its very foundation. (Ps. 46:2, 3; 104:5; Eccl. 1:4) Upheavals of the ocean floor will in turn cause roaring tidal waves to sweep inland with frightful consequences. Raging storms so fierce as to blacken out the light of the sun, while at the same time burning missiles, perhaps showers of molten meteors, and electrical storms will light up the heavens. Whether atomic energy in some form will be released in that battle is not certain, but the Creator of the atom, if He chooses to do so, will certainly convince proud and haughty men of science that their A-bombs and planned H-bombs are mere firecrackers in His sight.—Joel 3:15, 16; Hab. 3:1-19.

Just think of it, the greatest earthquake of the twentieth century, the one that struck Assam and northern India in 1950, was equivalent to the simultaneous explosion of 1,100,000 atomic bombs, each equal to 20,000 tons of TNT, and yet no one over a few hundred miles away felt the earth tremble beneath their feet. However, at Armageddon, Jehovah declares, he will shake terribly this whole earth. What immeasurable power that will be, changing the very face of the continents!—Isa. 2:19, 21.

HISTORICAL PREVIEWS

In addition to these direct prophecies, Jehovah says he will go forth and fight at Armageddon “as when he fought in the day of battle” long ago. Such occasions of the past were typical pictures of the final war. “For Jehovah will rise up as in mount Perazim, he will be wroth as in the valley of Gibeon; that he may do his work, his strange work, and bring to pass his act, his strange act. Now therefore be ye not scoffers, lest your bonds be made strong; for a decree of destruction have I heard from the Lord, Jehovah of hosts, upon the whole earth.”—Isa. 28:21, 22; Zech. 14:3, AS.

As Jehovah washed the wicked system of things in Noah’s day right out of existence, so the present system he will destroy. The mighty military forces of the first world power, Egypt, Jehovah trapped and drowned as if they were rats. Again, in a single night, Jehovah slew the so-called invincible forces of Sennacherib the boaster, all 185,000 of them! When Joshua’s forces were fighting in behalf of the Gibeonites, Jehovah simply opened the heavens and threw down great hailstones, killing more that way than were slain with the sword. Concerning the rout of Sisera and his heavily mechanized army we read: “They fought from heaven; the stars in their courses fought against Sisera. The river of Kishon swept them away, that ancient river, the river Kishon.” A repeat performance on a global scale is due at Armageddon, “that men may know that thou, whose name alone is JEHOVAH, art the most high over all the earth.”—Josh. 10:6-14; Judg. 5:20, 21; Ps. 83:9-18; Isa. 37:33-38.

On another occasion Jehovah threw such confusion and terror among the hordes of Ammon, Moab and Mount Seir that they rose up and cut each other to pieces until they were all dead men. This too will be repeated at Armageddon: “And it shall come to pass in that day, that a great tumult from Jehovah shall be among them; and they shall lay hold every one on the hand of his neighbor, and his hand shall rise up against the hand of his neighbor.”—2 Chron. 20:1-24; Zech. 14:13, AS.

WILL YOU BE AMONG THE SURVIVORS?

In this impending war modern atomic weapons will surely prove disappointing to all who put their trust in them; likewise all human devices for protection. The prophecy says that even if they dig into the earth for concealment, as in bombproof cellars, or try to make a get-away into heavenly heights, as in supersonic jet planes, or attempt to flee under the sea’s surface, as in snorkel-equipped submarines, yet they will be overtaken and destroyed. “Neither their silver nor their gold shall be able to deliver them in the day of Jehovah’s wrath.”—Amos 9:1-4; Zeph. 1:18, AS.

The carnage and destruction of Armageddon will be so awesome that it will defy human description. Already the carrion birds and wild beasts of the forest and zoos have been invited to banquet upon the many millions of carcasses of men, women and children of the high and mighty as well as of those who slavishly serve them.—Jer. 25:33, AS; Ezek. 9:5, 6; Rev. 19:17, 18, 21.

Well, does this mean there is no hope for survival? No, not at all. For Jehovah has faithfully promised to spare alive and protect those who are fully devoted to Him, such as were pictured by Noah, Lot, Rahab, and their households. Instead of trusting in the princes of this world, these seek righteousness and meekness and put full confidence in Jehovah, and to them the promise is made: “It may be ye will be hid in the day of Jehovah’s anger.”—Ps. 146:3; Prov. 3:5, 6; Zeph. 2:3, AS.

Making the Mind Over for New World Living

“And quit being fashioned after this system of things, but be transformed by making your mind over.—Rom. 12:2, NW.

1. How is Jehovah shown ahead of all modern thought in this world?

JEHOVAH God is away ahead of all modern thought in this world. Modern man is first catching up with the marvelous powers and faculties with which Jehovah endowed lower animal creations and insects, such as flight by birds, jet propulsion by sea animals, wireless telegraphy from insect antennae, blind flying by the radar equipment of bats, heatless internal lighting by certain insects and fishes, and other marvels. But Jehovah’s irreducible lead in thought over man is shown, not only in His living earthly creation, but also in his written Word, the Holy Bible. Modern thinkers of the world may disdain the Bible as an old-fashioned book, not suitable or equal to this day of scientific advancement. But just the same it is science and modern thought that are producing further difficulties for man with no solution by man, whereas the Bible is meeting up with no disproof but is being fulfilled as truth. Although it is over eighteen centuries since the last of the Bible’s sixty-six books was written, yet it tells us reliably of things yet a thousand years in advance of our day. What it describes for mankind at that distant time is an earth everywhere transformed into a paradise, with all men and women living on it lifted up to human perfection in body and mind, with all persons dead in the graves rescued from the terrible enemy death, and with the last effort of the foes of universal peace put down by their absolute destruction and with endless peace, health and happiness stretching ahead for loyal mankind under the blessing of Jehovah and his Christ.

2. From the time standpoint, how is predicting not hard for him?

² To predict thus a thousand years in advance is nothing for Jehovah God. To him a thousand years are but as one day, and his purpose never fails. The critical shaping of affairs today was foretold by him nearly six thousand years ago. Certainly his mind outstrips all modern thought of men who today are at their wits’ end.—Ps. 107:27.

3. Why is everything men reason out and attempt failing?

³ Men of this world are gifted with that faculty of consciousness which we call “mind”. Evidently they are not using their minds rightly. That must be why nothing they reason out and attempt is succeeding, but everything is breaking down, leaving them wondering, confused and nonplused. The whole system of things which worldly men are trying to bring into line with modern thought is fashioned according to wrong thinking, and the longer the system goes, the farther it angles away from the absolute truth.

4. Why must this present worldly system fail, in view of whose success?

⁴ That is a sweeping statement. Nevertheless it is correct, for this present worldly system is not according to God’s mind. That is why the system must go, and that shortly. It is now on its way out! Almighty God will have all things in the universe according to his way of advanced thinking. To short-sighted, low-minded man he says: “My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith Jehovah. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. For as the rain cometh down and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, and giveth seed to the sower and bread to the eater; so shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.” (Isa. 55:8-11, AS) It is high time to find out Jehovah’s thoughts.

5. Why “quit being fashioned after this system of things”?

⁵ Today we can appreciate more than ever the goodness of Paul’s advice to the Christians at Rome: “Quit being fashioned after this system of things, but be transformed by making your mind over, that you may prove to yourselves the good and acceptable and complete will of God.” (Rom. 12:2, NW) If to prove to ourselves God’s will we have to have our minds made over, it is evident that this system of things is not according to God’s will. Hence we have to quit being fashioned after this system, in order to prove to ourselves what is God’s good, acceptable and complete will. This system of things may pride itself on being much farther advanced than the ancient world which ended in the flood of Noah’s day forty-three centuries ago. Nonetheless it is exactly like it in the same respects for which the Flood came and swept it all away. It may even be worse in these respects, because it is older, that antediluvian world running for only about 1,656 years, whereas this present system of things is 4,319 years old now.

6. Despite modern advancements, what likeness is there between this present system of things and the pre-Flood world?

⁶ What, then, is the likeness between the two? This: the continual bent of mind toward evil, a continual bent of thinking contrary to the will of the Creator, Jehovah God. As the reason for deluging the ancient world with destruction we have this testimony from the Lord God himself. We read: “When the LORD saw that the wickedness of man on the earth was great, and that the whole bent of his thinking was never anything but evil, the LORD regretted that he had ever made man on the earth.” (Gen. 6:5, AT) And after the deluge was over and when Noah was offering his first sacrifice to God on the cleansed earth, God indicated that mankind would fall again to that low mental state. He said: “Never again will I curse the ground, though the bent of man’s mind is indeed towards evil from his youth; never again will I destroy every living creature as I have done.” (Gen. 8:21, Mo) Our comparison of our day and its system of things with the system of things before the Flood is not overdrawn. Jesus compared the two periods of time, saying: “Just as the days of Noah were, so the presence of the Son of man will be.”—Matt. 24:37, NW.

7-9. With what description did Paul precede his admonition against being fashioned after this system of things? and is his description fitting for our day?

⁷ Before instructing us not to be fashioned after this system of things, the apostle Paul described the low mental, moral and spiritual state in which it was in his day. Since Paul’s day it has had over eighteen centuries to grow worse. As we read his words, let us honestly consider whether this system of things is any better today than back there:

⁸ “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. Therefore God in keeping with the desires of their hearts gave them up to uncleanness, that their bodies might be dishonored among them, even those who exchanged the truth of God for the lie and venerated and rendered sacred service to the creation rather than the One who created, who is blessed forever. Amen.

⁹ “That is why God gave them up to disgraceful sexual appetites, for both their females changed the natural use of themselves into one contrary to nature, and likewise even the males left the natural use of the female and became violently inflamed in their lust toward one another, males with males, working what is obscene and receiving in themselves the full recompense which was due for their error. And just as they did not approve of holding God in accurate knowledge, God gave them up to a disapproved mental state, to do the things not fitting, filled as they were with all unrighteousness, wickedness, covetousness, injuriousness, being full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malicious disposition, being whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, insolent, haughty, self-assuming, inventors of injurious things, disobedient to parents, without understanding, false to agreements, having no natural affection, merciless. Although these know full well the righteous decree of God, that those practicing such things are deserving of death, they not only keep on doing them but also approve those practicing them.”—Rom. 1:22-32, NW.

MAN’S MENTAL BENT

10. How did man’s mind become bent toward evil?

¹⁰ When God created the first man Adam and put him in the paradise of Eden, he did not make the bent of man’s mind originally toward evil. Mankind’s inclination toward evil mentally is because of being born from Adam after he had inclined away from God’s will and toward evil. We inherited that leaning from him. And Satan the Devil, who is the “god of this system of things”, has bent down ever harder on men to make them lean farther away from God. Today, in this “time of the end”, he is exerting greater pressure than ever to put men where they cannot straighten up again.

11. What is the mind? and who understands it perfectly?

¹¹ The mind is that part of our make-up from which thought originates. It is that faculty of our consciousness with which we gather information and then reason and reach certain conclusions. It operates according to a certain law or rule of action, so that, if the mind is turned to evil, it follows that rule of operation in the evil direction and moves farther and farther into it. The inclination of the bent of mind grows greater, especially with the pressure from the wicked “god of this system of things”, and so there is an advance from bad to worse. God, who endowed man with mind, knows how the mind operates better than the best college psychologist or psychoanalyst of today. God instantly detects the bent of man’s mind and he knows what it will lead to. That is why he gives warning to us against the consequences that are sure to follow.

12. What advance testimony proves Jehovah’s foreknowledge of what the bent of mankind’s mind leads to?

¹² For forty years the Israelites were away from contact with idolatrous Egypt, and now they stood with just the Jordan river between them and the Promised Land. At this point Jehovah God ordered Moses to compose a song of testimony against them for their future reference, to show that he foreknew what their mental disposition would lead them to at last and that he had forewarned them. “For,” said he, “I know their imagination which they frame this day, before I have brought them into the land which I sware.” (Deut. 31:21, AS) Or, more modernly translated: “I know what their temperament will lead to, even now, before I bring them into the land, which I promised them on oath.” (AT) This testimony written in advance served to judge and condemn them when it was fulfilled. That is why God’s Word, which foretold thousands of years ago the present moral, mental and religious state of this world, stands as a condemnation of this world and shows that God was justified in declaring so long in advance that it would come to a disgraceful end. It proves that the great Creator knows far in advance what the bent of mankind’s mind will certainly lead to. His description of human conditions in these last days is accurate.—2 Tim. 3:1-13, NW.

13. Why are Christians commanded to transform themselves rather than change or convert this world?

¹³ Do you profess to be a Christian? Then you are under every obligation to heed Paul’s entreaty not to be fashioned after this system of things, or else prove yourself a hypocrite or an apostate. Suppose you are not a Christian and you find yourself naturally fashioned after this system. Then if you want to escape being destroyed with this system you must heed Paul’s entreaty without delay and quit being fashioned after it. Do not be misled by the foolish slogan that has been invented to tickle a self-conceited person’s vanity: “You can change the world!” Do not waste your time either with the similar slogan which says: “Change the world before it changes you.” Instead of following some man’s foolish philosophy, remember God’s wise instruction which tells you you cannot change this world. God knows the bent of mind of this system of things and he pronounces it doomed. All the prayers you might offer to him to convert Joseph Stalin, and Mao Tse-tung, and other dictators and political leaders of this world, will go unanswered and the world will get worse. You, with all your praying and moral philosophizing, cannot change this world. The Devil is the “god of this system of things” and has been cast down from heaven and is filled with great anger and is bringing woe on earth and sea. Can you change him? Of course you cannot. This world, which lies under his power, is unchangeable. It must and will be wiped out. (2 Cor. 4:4; Rev. 12:7-12, NW) The way for you not to be changed by this world is, not by religiously trying to change it, but by doing what the inspired apostle says: “Be transformed by making your mind over.” This you must do even while you are in the midst of this world and before it ends. You must do this before the world ends, or else you will end with it. So this course is your only safeguard.

HOW?

14, 15. By what course would we never succeed in making our minds over?

¹⁴ How are you to bring about this transforming, this making of your mind over? You cannot do so by taking up a course in the psychology of this world, for such psychology is all conformed to this doomed world and it has no real mental remedy for you. Since the mind is that faculty of our consciousness with which we gather information and think, then for it to be made over we must gather information other than what this world has brought us up on, thus giving us a certain mental cast or structure. This world professes to be wise and brainy in this twentieth century, but it is built and operated according to ignorance. This has come largely through willfulness due to selfishness. By this we mean ignorance of God’s truth, his will and his purposes. Paul shows this when he gives us another entreaty not to be fashioned after this world and its nations, saying: “That you no longer go on walking just as the nations also walk in the unprofitableness of their minds, while they are in darkness mentally, and alienated from the life that belongs to God, [why?] because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the insensibility of their hearts. Having come to be past all moral sense, they gave themselves over to loose conduct to work uncleanness of every kind with greediness.”—Eph. 4:17-19, NW.

¹⁵ If we pattern our lives after this system of things and its nations, then, whether willfully or unknowingly, we are patterning ourselves after those who are in mental darkness and alienated from godly living because of the ignorance in them and because of their unfeeling hearts. Is that the kind of people we want to copy? If we do, then our minds will never be made over, for those people have a blinding veil over their eyes and are being misled by the Devil into destruction. As the apostle tells us: “If, now, the good news we declare is in fact veiled, it is veiled among those who are perishing, among whom the god of this system of things has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, that the illumination of the glorious good news about the Christ, who is the image of God, might not shine through.”—2 Cor. 4:3, 4, NW.

16. Why do we need God’s Word to make our minds over?

¹⁶ What we want is to be transformed with a hope of endless life in happiness in the new world now so close at hand. In this behalf we need to fill our heads with information from the great Fountain of life, Jehovah God. We need knowledge to replace ignorance. We need light to replace darkness. And such knowledge and light we get by means of God’s Word, the Holy Bible. It is this Word which sanctifies us. That is, it separates us from this world and brings us close to God. This was why Jesus prayed for his followers and said: “Sanctify them by means of the truth; your word is truth.” (John 17:17, NW) The reason why God’s Word sanctifies you or sets you apart from this world is because it is different from what this world thinks, says, writes and teaches.

17. Whose spirit must we resist, and to the influence and workings of whose spirit must we open our hearts?

¹⁷ So tear away Satan’s blinding veil which he has put over our eyes by means of this world. With unprejudiced eyes and honest hearts come to God’s Book and earnestly and prayerfully study it to learn the enlightening truth. Rather than let this world overawe us with its big show of worldly wisdom and the boasted antiquity of its traditions, philosophies and institutions of education and learning; and rather than be influenced by its spirit, we should open our hearts to the influence and workings of God’s spirit, his illuminating active force. If we thus turn from this world to Jehovah God, the Source of light, then our minds will be set free from the bedarkening traditions and philosophies of worldly men. This freedom is what we are promised in these words: “When there is a turning to Jehovah, the veil is taken away. Now Jehovah is the spirit; and where the spirit of Jehovah is, there is freedom. And all of us, while we with unveiled faces reflect like mirrors the glory of Jehovah, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, exactly as done by Jehovah the spirit.”—2 Cor. 3:16-18,

18. Why cannot God’s spirit be left out of this matter of making us new?

¹⁸ We cannot leave out of consideration the power of God’s spirit in this matter of making us new, making us different from what we were when we were part of an ignorant world. The apostle again makes this point strong when he tells us of the change which was brought about in himself and in Titus. He says: “Even we were once senseless, disobedient, being misled, being slaves to various desires and pleasures, carrying on in maliciousness and envy, hateful, hating one another. However, when the kindness and the love for man on the part of our Savior, God, was manifested, owing to no activities in righteousness that we had performed, but according to his mercy he saved us through the bath that brought us to life and through the making of us new by holy spirit. This spirit he poured out richly upon us through Jesus Christ our Savior.” (Titus 3:3-6, NW) Telling how that same invisible active force from above worked through him in transforming others into Christians, the apostle points to them as a letter of recommendation of his good work and says: “You are shown to be a letter of Christ written by us as ministers, inscribed not with ink but with spirit of the living God, not on stone tablets, but on fleshly tablets, on hearts.” (2 Cor. 3:1-3, NW) It is this spirit that makes the information contained in God’s Word understandable to us, since it probes into all its sacred secrets and makes them plain to us. “For it is to us God has revealed them through his spirit, for the spirit searches into all things, even the deep things of God. Now we received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is from God, that we might know the things that have been kindly given us by God.” (1 Cor. 2:10, 12, NW) So we need God’s spirit.

19. Why must we get acquainted with God’s Word if we want his spirit to work in our lives?

¹⁹ But we cannot expect the spirit of God to work upon us automatically to change us mentally and bring about a transformation of our lives. We have to do something about it to show we really want to be different. From the sacred Record we see that God’s spirit does not operate apart from his Word. Hence if we want this spirit to work in our lives we must get acquainted with God’s Word. This is the only thing that gives us information and instruction different from what this world has to offer. It is only this Word that gives us a vision of the true God and of what his adorable qualities are and what he purposes to do to clear himself of all the false charges laid against him and to change living conditions for the lasting good of mankind. It was when we were in ignorance that we thought and acted like the rest of the world. We did not know any better and we were on the same low mental level as they were.

20. So to make our minds over we need what things working together?

²⁰ So for the making of our minds over we need first of all God’s Word in all its fullness and power, unadulterated by the religious traditions and ignorant philosophies of men. We need to come to the Bible and be taught by God through its pages and with the assistance of his theocratic organization. As we come, we need to pray in David’s words: “Make me a clean heart, O God, and put a new, steadfast spirit in me; banish me not from thy presence, deprive me not of thy sacred spirit.” Then God will help us by his spirit and his organization to understand his Word.—Ps. 51:10, 11, Mo; AT.

AN ALIVE WORD

21. How is the Word of God alive?

²¹ With something new in our heads we can begin to alter our ways of thinking and our ways of life. With God’s Word in our heads and hearts we really have a new powerful influence at work within us. It is no dead Word that has lost its interest, its truth, its practicalness, its interpretation of the events of our day, and its protective power against the degradation of these immoral times. It has vitality, it carries conviction, it can show what is in us better than any psychologist of this world can. It is no dead letter; its judgment will surely be executed. Just as the apostle Paul warns us: “The word of God is alive and exerts power and is sharper than any two-edged sword and pierces even to the dividing of the soul and spirit, and of the joints and their marrow, and is able to discern the thoughts and intentions of the heart.”—Heb. 4:12, NW.

22. What change of personalities is now possible?

²² With that dynamic Word of God in us we have a new force actuating our minds to correct our thinking and our lives. If we no longer care to be fashioned after this detestable world, but want to be Christlike, real Christians, then we simply must have this new stimulus, which works in the right direction for our betterment, our transformation. To quote the apostle: “You should put away the old personality which conforms to your former course of conduct and which is being corrupted according to his deceptive desires; but . . . you should be made new in the force actuating your mind, and should put on the new personality which was created according to God’s will in true righteousness and loving-kindness.” (Eph. 4:22-24, NW) You have new knowledge, and this knowledge you got from God’s Word with the help of his spirit and his organization.

23, 24. What is this new personality going to be like? and how is it going to be renewed or made a new personality in actual fact?

²³ What you will now be transformed into will be in accord with this knowledge, and so it will be a change into what God wants you to be. “Strip off,” says the apostle, “the old personality with its practices, and clothe yourselves with the new personality.” But what is this new personality going to be like? How is it going to be renewed or made a new personality in actual fact? Continuing, the apostle tells us: “The new personality which THROUGH ACCURATE KNOWLEDGE is being renewed according to the image of the one who created it, where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, foreigner, Scythian, slave, freeman, but Christ is all things and in all.”—Col. 3:9-11, NW.

²⁴ Your being made a new personality which stands out different from this world results from knowledge, accurate knowledge of the great Creator. His Word reveals him to you and shows you how he conducts himself, what he thinks, and what his principles or rules of action are. It is a glorious vision that you get of him by means of his illuminated Word. By looking at him through your accurate knowledge, you can be made new and become an image of him by reflecting what he is, imitating him in conduct and thought, expressing yourself like him, and meeting his requirements of you.

25. In what respect are we no longer worldlike, but godlike?

²⁵ Thus you can be changed from one stage of glory of likeness to him to another stage, and his holy spirit will work in you in this behalf. You will no longer resemble inwardly a Greek-speaking Gentile or a Jew. You will no longer pride yourself on being circumcised or feel unclean because of not being circumcised. You will no longer be an out-of-place foreigner to the holy nation of spiritual Israel. No, but to them and among them you will be no longer a nomadic uncivilized, barbaric Scythian or an underprivileged slave or a special-privileged freeman. You may be these things outwardly in the flesh, but in your mind and in your personality you will be a Christian. It is this fact that enables Jehovah’s witnesses in their international assemblies and in their international organization to get along together in peace, harmony and brotherly affection. We no longer let national traditions, pride, rivalries, political differences and social standing twist our heads and divide us. In this respect we are no longer worldlike, but godlike, for God shows no partiality.

Keeping the Mind Renewed

1. Why is it not easy to keep the mind renewed and live in harmony with it?

WE MAY get new knowledge in our heads and have new ideas, but it is not easy to keep the mind in this new state and to order our lives in harmony with it. Not in this world in which the “god of this system of things” is on the loose together with all his demons. And not now while we are in imperfect flesh with its downward inclinations toward sin, selfishness, forgetfulness and disregard for God. The apostle Paul, even though he was favored with such uplifting visions and revelations, did not find it easy to keep in the new way of living according to the knowledge he had of God’s revealed Word. He had a continual battle, and it was not all in the mind, so that we should say, “The battleground is in the mind.” He had the bodily imperfections, the passions and the groveling tendencies of his flesh, to contend with the same as we have today. And as he describes the battle he had with himself, not to speak of the battle with the Devil’s organization on the outside, we can see described our own battle with these bodies of ours which are dying because of inherited sin:

2. How did Paul describe the battle we have with our bodies?

² “For the good that I wish I do not do, but the bad that I do not wish is what I practice. If, now, what I do not wish is what I do, the one working it out is no longer I, but the sin dwelling in me. I find, then, this law in my case: that when I wish to do what is right, what is bad is present with me. I really delight in the law of God according to the man I am within, but I behold in my members another law warring against the law of my mind and leading me captive to sin’s law that is in my members. Miserable man that I am! Who will rescue me from the body undergoing this death? Thanks to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So, then, with my mind I myself am a slave to God’s law, but with my flesh to sin’s law.”—Rom. 7:19-25, NW.

3. Whence comes “sin’s law that is in my members”? and how does the “law of my mind” combat it?

³ Take note of these apostolic expressions, “law of my mind” and “sin’s law that is in my members”. A law is a rule of action or conduct according to which a person or thing will operate or move. Jehovah God the Creator did not put sin’s law in mankind. It was our first human parent Adam under influence of the Devil that put it in human flesh and he passed it on to us as an inheritance. Unless controlled or resisted, that law of sin is bound to rule you and move you. What possible way is there of controlling or resisting it? It is by the ‘law of the mind’. Not the old mind, for this is sinful like the world, but the new mind which tends to make you an image of God the Creator of your new personality. This new mind dictates a new rule of action and conduct in your life. But since you have a new mind in an old body with an old brain, there is where the conflict arises. Due to your new process of thinking the ability to wish for better things is present with you, but the ability to do what you wish in a perfect way does not reside in you. This is because you are imperfect and the law of sin wants to have its way in and through your body and mind. Hence you find yourself often serving sin’s law with your flesh. But your comfort is that you do not find pleasure in having thus sinned, but your mind clings to God’s law and approves it and is set on doing it.

4. What more is required than knowledge, and why?

⁴ According to the inborn law in our minds, our minds desire or find it easy to gravitate to sin and selfishness. To supplant this with a better law, we have to have our minds made over with new knowledge and with what this knowledge now dictates and advises. It is not enough just to have knowledge in our heads. Many clergymen in Christendom and the members of their religious flocks have knowledge of the Bible, but they do not act according to this knowledge. It is no guiding law in their lives. But after we have gathered knowledge from God’s Word, we must work at our minds which are filled with this divine knowledge. Against the sinful inclinations within us and against the tendency to mental laziness and forgetfulness, we must cultivate proper mental habits. In this way we really develop a ‘law of the mind’, a certain mental cast or mold, a mental rule of action, and this becomes a controlling force in our lives.

5. Upon what must we set our minds? Failure to do so means what?

⁵ With our blessed knowledge from God’s Word we must train our minds in right ways of thinking and in right processes and efforts. Otherwise, we can become persons whose minds have gone bad again, “men completely corrupted in mind, disapproved as regards the faith,” as Paul speaks of them. (1 Tim. 6:5; 2 Tim. 3:8, NW) Our everlasting existence depends upon our establishing a righteous ‘law of the mind’. Our eternal destiny depends upon what we fix our attention on. “For,” as we read at Romans 8:5-7 (NW), “those who are in accord with the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those in accord with the spirit on the things of the spirit. For the minding of the flesh means death, but the minding of the spirit means life and peace; because the minding of the flesh means enmity with God, for it is not under subjection to the law of God, nor, in fact, can it be.” If we get our minds off the truth and let them be corrupted again with the things of the Devil’s visible organization, it means the finish of us. “Their finish is destruction, and their god is their belly, and their glory consists in their shame, and they have their minds upon things on the earth.”—Phil. 3:18, 19, NW.

6. Remembering what warning example, why fear corruption of mind?

⁶ It is right that we fear lest our minds should be corrupted while we are in this world in which the great Serpent is slyly crawling around and misleading the people. The apostle expressed that fear when he said: “I am afraid that somehow, as the serpent seduced Eve by its craftiness, your minds might be corrupted away from the sincerity and the chastity that are due the Christ.” (2 Cor. 11:3, NW) We remember that originally Eve had a healthy mental process or law, according to God’s revelations in the garden of Eden. But the Devil, alias the Serpent, came along and tried to put unhealthful ideas into her head. Instead of repelling them, Eve entertained them and this breakdown of the righteous law of her mind led to her being tempted into sin. She thought more on the desirability of eating forbidden fruit than on the truth of God’s word and his warning against eating. Following the righteous law in her mental processes, fixing her thoughts on God’s word as being the truth even if it made the Serpent a liar, would have spared her from being tempted and being drawn into temptation and sinning.

7. Where does enmity against God start?

⁷ If we, today, while the same Tempter is still about, establish the righteous ‘law of the mind’ and resolutely stick to the thinking processes of the new mind, it will keep us from entering into temptation and sinning. Enmity against God starts in the mind. The apostle tells us who have been reconciled to God: “You . . . were once alienated and enemies because your minds were on the works that were wicked.” He says that before we gave ourselves in obedience to God “we all at one time conducted ourselves in harmony with the desires of our flesh, doing the things the flesh and the thoughts willed, and we were naturally children of wrath even as the rest”.—Col. 1:21 and Eph. 2:2, 3, NW.

8. How must we think in order to obey the greatest commandment?

⁸ When we were in that ignorant mental state we did not love God with our minds. The greatest of the commandments that was ever given to men requires us to love God with all our mental powers. Jesus pointed out what this greatest commandment is when he quoted it from God’s Law and said: “You must love Jehovah your God with your whole heart and with your whole soul and with your whole mind.” (Matt. 22:37, NW; Deut. 6:5, AS; Luke 10:27) What we think on habitually greatly affects and influences us and induces us to take a certain way. To be thinking one way and yet be doing another thing outwardly is hypocrisy. We must think lovingly toward Jehovah God. That means thinking to please him by obeying him and taking faithful care of everything that honors his name and furthers the interests of his kingdom.

9. What judgment comes against double-minded ones?

⁹ We cannot wholeheartedly serve God with a double mind. The psalmist rightly expressed it: “I hate them that are of a double mind; but thy law do I love.” (Ps. 119:113, AS) “I hate men who are half and half, I love thy law.” (Mo) Jesus hates them, too, and says to the many modern Laodiceans: “So, because you are lukewarm and neither hot nor cold, I am going to vomit you out of my mouth.” (Rev. 3:16, NW) If you are of a double mind, dividing your attentions between this world and God and not making your mind over wholly to the image which God approves, it will in course of time betray itself without fail. That will mean your rejection. You will become corrupted mentally with infection from this world and you will enter into temptation. That is the very thing that has happened to Christendom. Your love of God with all your thinking processes is what you owe Him. He commands it. It is your safeguard.

PROGRESSIVE THINKING

10, 11. Because of what mental processes and attitudes do many of those in the truth have difficulty?

¹⁰ The whole world is sick mentally, and public and charitable institutions caring for mental cases are crowded. It is because they do not have the sound, healthful doctrine of God’s Word, and the clergy are physicians and psychologists of no value and are miserable comforters. (Job 13:4; 16:2) It is hard to keep well mentally in a world which today is suffering a breakdown in every way. Many who have accepted the truth of God’s Word are having difficulty, particularly because it is hard for them to break off former mental habits. Their minds are continually turned inward upon themselves, introverted, as they say. They have a great inferiority complex, and they are keenly aware of their mistakes. They are painfully conscious of their foolish actions before others, their errors of speech and conversation, their embarrassments, their display of weakness, the criticisms others make of them, the rebukes others give them, the offenses others commit against them. They take these matters to God in prayer, but then they draw no mental relief from this. Why? Because they do not cast their burdens upon Jehovah God and leave them there with him, but carry them away with them and keep them saddled on their backs.

¹¹ They keep their minds bent inward on their imperfect selves, and again and again go over the things that have grieved them. Round and round their mind goes, as they turn these things over in their minds. The more they do this, the deeper these things wear into their minds. They groan within themselves and suffer a thousand deaths by reviewing these things again and yet again.

12. What do true repentance and forgiveness call for?

¹² This is not a healthy frame of mind, and it does not promote spiritual health. True repentance before God does not call for such a terribly disturbed mind as an aftereffect. Nor is true forgiveness of the offenses of others against us felt and expressed in this way. If we repent and ask God’s forgiveness, let us trust that he has forgiven us through Christ. So be at peace and try to do differently henceforth. If we have forgiven our offenders and debtors, let us not sulk and keep holding it against them. Love, says 1 Corinthians 13:5 (NW), “does not keep account of the injury.” If we remember our past sins, foolishness and failures at all, it should be, not to torment us, but to warn us and make us avoid doing such things again.—Isa. 46:8.

13, 14. How were improper mental attitudes of mourning and looking back corrected in Zechariah’s day? In Nehemiah’s day?

¹³ This is not the time to be looking back and mourning, and becoming so swallowed up in our weak selves that we lose sight of Jehovah’s theocratic organization and his glorious deeds of today. In the prophet Zechariah’s days, after the Jewish remnant had returned from Babylon to rebuild the temple at Jerusalem, certain men came to weep, moan, groan and wail at the temple for the past sins of Jerusalem and all the frightful calamities that had come upon her in this month and that month of the year 607 B.C. So they wanted to fast and spread gloom around. Then Jehovah by Zechariah told them this was now out of order, for it was now a time to rejoice over Jehovah’s restoration of his consecrated remnant and the re-establishment of his worship at the place where he had put his name. He said the former fasts of the various months from now on “shall be to the house of Judah joy and gladness, and cheerful feasts; therefore love the truth and peace”. And then he pointed their minds forward and told how ten men out of all nations and of all languages would take hold on the skirt of a Jew and would come along to Jehovah’s temple to worship.—Zech. 7:1 to 8:23.

¹⁴ Again, later, in Nehemiah’s day, when the restored remnant were inclined to grow melancholy and bemoan their past wayward course, Governor Nehemiah said to the assembly: “Mourn not, nor weep. . . . for this day is holy unto our Lord: neither be ye grieved; for the joy of Jehovah is your strength.”—Neh. 8:9, 10, AS.

15. What is the Scriptural remedy for this introverted, morbid mental state?

¹⁵ The remedy for this introverted, morbid state of mentality is to look ahead, not back. Keep the mind occupied with progressive thoughts. Keep it busy considering forward-looking plans. Keep your thoughts on the obligations ahead of you and how you are going to meet them. Remember the Bible studies for which you have to prepare, the talks you have to prepare for the public platform, the demonstrations which you have to get ready for the weekly service meeting, and all the other things that God has in reservation for you. Do not pull yourself down, do not weaken yourself, do not halt your progress by painful looking back at your sins or by looking back wishfully at the things behind. Copy the apostle: “Brothers, I do not yet consider myself as having laid hold on it; but there is one thing about it: Forgetting the things behind and stretching forward to the things ahead, I am pursuing down toward the goal for the prize of the calling above and which God extends in Christ Jesus. Let us, then, as many of us as are mature, be of this mental attitude; and if you are mentally inclined otherwise in any respect, God will reveal the above attitude to you. At any rate, to what extent we have made progress, let us go on walking orderly in this same routine. Unitedly become imitators of me.”—Phil. 3:13-17, NW.

THINGS FOR MENTAL OCCUPATION

16. Why and how must we now keep our minds renewed and forward-looking?

¹⁶ The resplendent new world is ahead, and we are nearing its portals. The Bible looks forward to it, and it turns our minds forward to it. This is no time for us to suffer a mental relapse into corruption. There is every need and there is every incentive to keep our minds renewed. Our bent of thinking must be kept in the true direction that it may result in the desirable consequences, while we swerve neither to the right nor to the left. The ‘law of our mind’ must be strengthened according to God’s Word and must be made the rule from which we do not deviate, despite the weaknesses of our flesh. This requires mental effort and watching our thoughts as well as going where we can always get our minds refreshed and renewed with the truth, the advancing Word of God. That means we must set aside time and must individually study God’s Word. It means we must attend the meetings of God’s people and join with them in considering and discussing God’s Word. It means we must join with them in lovingly and faithfully building up one another on our most holy faith. Never forsake meeting together.

17. How is God’s Word becoming newer to us? How can we think God’s thoughts?

¹⁷ God’s Word is becoming newer to us all the time, not only by newer and better translations of it in our language, but especially by the fulfillments of its prophecies and by the clearing up of its teachings under the illuminating power of God’s spirit and his use of his theocratic organization. Let us think God’s thoughts. Remember that Peter made a mistake and tried to dissuade Jesus from his course of sacrifice because, as Jesus said to Peter, “you think, not God’s thoughts, but those of men.” (Matt. 16:23, NW) We cannot penetrate into all of God’s thoughts. We cannot advise or instruct God’s mind. His is so much farther ahead and loftier than ours is. But we can receive information, secrets, revelations, from his mind. What thoughts of his he does disclose to his people by his spirit and through his Word, we can think, and by doing so we will be kept from erring as Peter did. Like a loving Father God says to us amid this adulterous generation of mankind: “My son, give me thy heart; and let thine eyes delight in [or, observe] my ways.” (Prov. 23:26, AS, margin) That means giving our hearty attention to him as he discloses himself and taking note of his ways. We can do this only by studying and keeping close to his Word and watching his dealings with his organized people. This will help transform us.

18. How can we have the mind of Christ?

¹⁸ In the same way we must observe God’s Son Jesus Christ, “the leader and perfecter of our faith.” (Heb. 12:2, NW) We may not be able to know fully the mind of Jehovah, because it is unfathomable to us; but, says the apostle, “we do have the mind of Christ.” Yes, we do have what he thinks; we share his thoughts, for he came to earth and disclosed them to us. In proportion as we are zealous and mature Christians, our thoughts are his thoughts. So we can appreciate why he spoke and acted as he did, and why he humbled himself under his heavenly Father’s hand, even down to the disgraceful death on the torture stake. If we are his faithful followers, we must follow the apostle’s counsel: “Keep this mental attitude in you which was also in Christ Jesus.” This we can do only by having the mind of Christ, his thought, and to this end we have to study God’s Word, which gives us the account of what Jesus said and how he lived and what prophecies he fulfilled and what prophecies he is now in course of fulfilling or will yet fulfill.

LIVING ACCORDING TO THE RENEWED MIND

19. What must we have, despite whose opposition?

¹⁹ Our weak, fallen flesh and all this world of wicked demons and men will oppose our giving expression to our minds by living in accordance with our new mental attitude. But we are entitled by God’s law not only to freedom of thought but also to freedom of expression. Everyone that is a real Christian must have a mind made over according to God’s will. “Consequently, if anyone is in union with Christ, he is a new creation; the old things passed away, look! new things have come into existence.” So we read at 2 Corinthians 5:17, NW. Likewise, if anyone of good will is destined for life eternal on the paradise earth after the battle of Armageddon, he must have a mind made over from what it was and it must transform him from any likeness to this corrupt world.

20. What is the purpose for renovating our minds, and how is this purpose realized?

²⁰ Let us remember why we have this renovation of our minds. Hear again the complete words of the apostle: “Be transformed by making your mind over, that you may prove to yourselves the good and acceptable and complete will of God.” (Rom. 12:2, NW) In Christendom there is great confusion as to what the will of God is, and so Christendom continues fashioning herself after this world. But we must prove to ourselves what his will is by getting a new mind, and that means getting new information, new knowledge, in our minds. If it is to disclose God’s will to us, then that information, knowledge and enlightenment must come from him, and we can get it only from his Word with the aid of his spirit and organization. When we thus prove to ourselves what it is, we come to appreciate that his will is one of goodness. There could be no better purpose that anyone could have for us. It is the only thing that is acceptable to him. We can therefore not alter his will, but must bow to it and seek to comply with it in every respect. And then as our information increases and we gain greater knowledge and study his will further, we see that it is a complete will. It covers everything we need to do in order to carry out our part in God’s life-giving arrangement and to share in vindicating his name and sovereignty before all the universe. Being persuaded in our new minds what God’s will is, we must now do this good, acceptable and complete will.

21. How and why must you “brace up your minds for activity”?

²¹ This requires setting our minds. “Hence,” the apostle Peter tells us, “brace up your minds for activity, keep completely balanced and set your hope upon the undeserved kindness that is to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. As obedient children, quit being fashioned according to the desires you formerly had in your ignorance, but, in accord with the holy one who called you, do you also become holy yourselves in all your conduct, because it is written: ‘You must be holy, because I am holy.’” (1 Pet. 1:13-16, NW) It is with the girdle of truth that we must brace up our minds for the strenuous activity that yet lies ahead. And as a protection for our heads we can have on “as a helmet the hope of salvation; because God assigned us, not to wrath, but to the acquiring of salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ”. And again for this needed girdle of truth and helmet of hope we must continue feeding upon the Word of God under the enlightenment of his spirit and with the assistance of his theocratic organization.—1 Thess. 5:8, 9, NW.

22. What new viewpoint does the renewed mind give us of sufferings for doing God’s will?

²² What a new viewpoint the new mind gives us of the activity necessary to doing the good, acceptable and complete will of God! How it imparts a glory to this activity! We are forewarned that we shall suffer for our faithful activity. But in this case, too, the mind which is made over by God’s Word and spirit helps us to see our sufferings in a different light. We view them as a great privilege, for our eyes of understanding see that they are meant to prove our integrity toward God as loyal supporters of his sovereignty and as faithful slaves of his kingdom by Christ. To face and endure such sufferings we can ‘arm ourselves with the same mental disposition that Christ Jesus had’ and so keep our integrity as he did. We must suffer because we cannot go along with this world in its policies. Our new minds will not allow us to go along with worldly policies, and so we choose to suffer. But for thus proving our integrity there is an unspeakable reward of endless joy in God’s new world of new heavens and a new earth.—1 Pet. 4:1, 2, NW; 2 Pet. 3:13.

23. What do we now resolve, and to what do we look forward?

²³ By all the evidences, oh how near that new world of righteousness is! Oh, then, let us no longer be fashioned after this world of wickedness, so near its complete end, but acquire the new mind filled with the knowledge of God’s will. Let us keep that mind renewed by faithfully doing his will, and live now as blessed proclaimers of God’s kingdom and as inheritors of his glorious new world. Then, if God favors us with survival of the battle of Armageddon and we enter the new world without dying, although we shall not have new bodies instantaneously we shall have new minds wholly in tune with the righteous new world.

Report on Japan and Korea

This article continues the report on the service tour of the Society’s president, N. H. Knorr, and his secretary, M. G. Henschel.

HAVING seen the missionary home in Tokyo and having had a good breakfast with 45 Gilead graduates, I met in the Kingdom Hall with the missionaries. Those who had been in Japan for over a year and who were able to offer some helpful suggestions to the new missionaries to familiarize them with many of the problems encountered in the field spoke out. They described the general habits of the people. Fifteen new missionaries had just arrived the previous week and five others six weeks before, and all needed a lot of help. It was pointed out that when one goes to the door in Japan he does not knock at the door, but slides it to one side and calls inside, “Gomen kudasai” (Excuse me, please!), and the householder calls back, “Hai” (Yes). Then the publisher steps inside and presents his testimony. This is done just inside the door, as one is very seldom invited right inside the house. It is not unusual for a weekly Bible study to be conducted on a person’s doorstep for many weeks until the householder really gets to know the publisher. The people are very kind and courteous, bowing politely as often as the occasion affords, and appreciating the effort put forth to teach them. They are patient while the missionary struggles through his Japanese presentation, using the wrong post-position and puzzling the people with wrongly stressed words. It makes a big impression though that the missionaries come down to the level of the people and try to speak to them in their own tongue. Bible studies are easy to obtain, but one has to be careful that the student is not pretending to be interested so he can learn to speak English. Some who have started to study with this idea in mind have later become interested in the truth; but a lot of time can be wasted, too. It is interesting to note that the majority who come into the truth are not those who already claim to be Christians, but Buddhists; so-called Christians are the most difficult to deal with.

I enjoyed their many experiences and then stressed the need of really trying to learn the language. I gave them examples of other missionaries, who in fourteen months were speaking Siamese and others Spanish, and told how the work was being done in Burma, Hong Kong and Singapore, where problems are similar to those in Japan. The Eastern mind thinks differently from the Western mind, and the missionaries must learn to be patient. You cannot give all the truth at once. Let them think over what you told them and do not be discouraged if you must explain it all over at the next study. This was a very practical meeting.

There was business to take care of downtown now, and it was warm and bright in the Japanese springtime, and I was able to get a better view of life in Tokyo. Brother Haslett in just two years handles the language well and he has no trouble in getting around or making his needs known to Japanese people. I saw that as we went through the city. Japan is a strange mixture of Oriental and Western life; kimonos and suits, oxcarts and automobiles, chopsticks and knives and forks, wooden sandals, leather shoes, kurumas (rickshas) and taxicabs, electric trams and trains, and so on. And you should see the bicycles! Not just the bicycles, but the loads they carry: furniture and all kinds of things are piled onto the back-carrier and handlebars or dragged behind on a trailer or cart. In the main shopping center of the city one pushes his way through a very cosmopolitan crowd which seems endless and is made more congested by rows of small stalls lining the sidewalk, where selling of anything from brightly colored kimonos and goldfish to leather cases and candy goes on. There is certainly no shortage of people in Tokyo or anywhere else in Japan, for that matter, and this fact made itself felt later in the week when we hung onto a strap in a filled-to-bulging tram car and tried to get in or out of an electric train during rush hours.

TOKYO ASSEMBLY

The assembly was opened on Thursday morning at the Nihonishikai Kaikan in Kanda, Tokyo, by Brother Thompson, a missionary who spoke quite fluently in Japanese for about half an hour. He used no notes. Considering that he had been in Japan for only eighteen months, he had made commendable progress in learning one of the world’s most difficult languages. This surely made my heart glad, because it showed it could be done. The Japanese brothers appreciated it, too. He will be a circuit servant for Japan beginning June 1 and will spend two weeks with each company. Where there are missionaries he will hold school for two hours each day to teach Japanese.

Following his talk on the service work the day was spent in advertising the public talk to be given on Sunday. Eighty were in attendance at this opening session. All could eat at the assembly cafeteria. Rice and Japanese tea figured prominently in the hundreds of meals served.

Then came the evening program, beginning at six o’clock with songs. A mimeographed songbook containing twenty-eight Kingdom songs translated into Japanese had been prepared and was released at the assembly. Brother Barry, another graduate of Gilead from New Zealand, spoke in Japanese for a half-hour, to the delight of everyone. Then I spoke, taking up the time assigned to Brother Henschel, who was in Taiwan, as well as my own time, using Brother Hanaoka, recently arrived from Hawaii, who did a wonderful job of translating for me every time I spoke at assemblies in Japan. I was very grateful for his help and his untiring zeal, which was an inspiration to all of us.

That evening, at the close of the meeting, amid a tremendous burst of applause, The Watchtower in Japanese was released. It was just what everyone wanted. One thousand copies of the first issue were available; each one in the audience of 128 was given a free copy and could obtain additional supplies for the field. Two thousand copies of each issue will be printed in the future, and more will be made as the demand increases. Almost everyone in attendance expressed himself that this was the most important forward step to sustain the inevitable expansion of true worship in Japan.

Setting up Japanese type is a big job, there being, for example, about six thousand characters used in the Japanese Bible; so, as the Society does not have any Japanese type anyway, an outside firm will do the printing, and although it will be a little more expensive that way it will be worth it to supply this up-to-date spiritual food. The first day of the assembly ended with everyone’s making a beeline for the magazine department. Everyone wanted supplies for the field work and copies for their Bible studies.

With the year’s subscription for The Watchtower being 500 yen (about $1.50 or 10/-), some thought that it would be difficult to get people to subscribe; but this was not the case, for even the missionaries who had been in Japan for only one week and could say only three sentences in Japanese were successful in obtaining subscriptions the next day.

The rest of the convention moved along smoothly, with Japanese publishers and Gilead graduates taking part in demonstrations and in giving talks. It was so good to see the excellent progress made by the missionaries in the language. They tried hard to learn, and they were blessed. An average of a hundred and twenty brothers attended the convention meetings, and on Sunday morning fourteen were immersed in a Japanese public bath. Brother Henschel arrived on Saturday morning and shared in the convention activities for the last two days.

The big event that everyone was looking forward to was the public meeting. The Kyo Ritsu auditorium had been hired for the public meeting on Sunday, a large, well-known building that would have more than enough room for the expected crowd. Thousands of handbills had been printed and were being distributed, and we wondered how many would act upon the invitation to attend. The talk was scheduled to begin at two o’clock. About fifteen minutes to two the people started to come in; and, believe it or not, a few people were still coming at three-thirty when the talk ended! And with the aid of my interpreter I was pleased to speak to seven hundred people. That means over five hundred were strangers or people of good will. This shows what potential there is for increase in Tokyo, not to mention all the rest of Japan. Even those converted to “Christianity” had not entertained such a hope as they gained when I spoke of living on the earth forever in the new world. This was something new to the people of Japan. Five hundred and fifty copies of the Japanese booklet The Joy of All the People were given away after the talk, and many left their names and addresses behind, desiring to study the Bible further. Kyo Ritsu Kodo was not rented in vain.

Three more talks were given after the public meeting to the 200 that remained—witnesses, Bible study persons and newly interested. They would like their love conveyed to the brothers in other parts of the world that I would visit in the near future, they said, and I was glad to agree to comply.

We returned to the Tokyo missionary home that evening, and the branch servant, keeping my nose to the grindstone, arranged an informal meeting where a discussion was held on part of the Lord’s prayer which says: “Bring us not into temptation.” At the close of this meeting the missionaries and other publishers made their way home. The convention was a great stimulant and joy, as all had time to get better acquainted with each other and to know personally with whom they were working shoulder to shoulder in this land “white unto harvest”. And there was a Filipino brother from Okinawa, representing the brothers in the company there, who rejoiced to be able to attend the convention. All of us were happy people. A new field of service had been opened, and the work was being blessed by Jehovah. All know there is still much more work to do.

ON TO NAGOYA

On Tuesday night after the convention we set out to visit the other missionary homes in Japan, to serve the companies that were established and to deliver public talks in the cities of Nagoya, Osaka and Tarumi, a suburb of Kobe. At eight o’clock in the morning our party pulled out of the Tokyo Central Station, and from there on we enjoyed the very scenic trip to Nagoya. As we traveled through Tokyo and Yokohama we could see the effects of the bombing raids of World War II on Japan. In many places the only thing standing would be a tall chimney. Everything else, where a factory had been, was flattened to the ground. On many of these sites temporary shacks or some form of homes had been built for the housing of the Japanese people. There is a great shortage of housing facilities in Japan. In other places bombed factories were being reconditioned for use again. These reminders of their defeat are ever present for the Japanese people, as well as the strict rationing of foods and shortages of many things they might like to have. They are living under adversity, but that is cause for them to think and reason on the future, and it is a help to those who are busy proclaiming the good news of the Kingdom.

It took about 45 minutes to leave the city limits. I was greatly impressed with the abundant vegetation in Japan. There is no wasted space. All the land that can be farmed is under cultivation. The innumerable rice paddies are kept in excellent condition. The ground was being prepared for the spring rains and the rice planting. Other fields were green with winter wheat. All the crops were in perfectly arranged rows and there were no weeds to be seen at all. The hills are terraced. Even the steep hills are cultivated to their peaks. Generations of farmers had done all this. As we rode along we had many wonderful views of the seashore. There are numerous tunnels. We saw the base of Fujiyama, the prized cone-shaped mountain of Japan, but we did not see the whole mountain until our return a week later. It is a beautiful sight. We saw tea estates, and to our surprise the bushes were very low, close to the ground. The way of country life in Japan is very interesting.

Wherever one goes in Japan there are people; too many people are alive to be supported by what can be produced in Japan. Cities and towns are close together, and there were not any sections where the farms stretched for miles without a break. There are tiled roofs and thatched roofs and the ever-present temples of the Buddhists and Shintoists, with their groves. Everything is colorful in the country in the spring because of the very green hills and gardens that are sprinkled with the beautiful flowers that Japan produces. There are women with brightly colored kimonos. Above the homes, suspended on long poles, large and small cloth fish (carp), constructed something like a wind sock at an airport, fluttered in the wind. These were indicative of the fact that some boys lived in the home. The Japanese were preparing to celebrate Boy’s Day, May 5. They are very proud of their sons; and the bigger fish they can afford, the better they like it.

What we saw of Japan from the train and in all of our travels was like a well-kept garden. The only evidence of destruction by war was in the cities. The rubble has been cleared away, but there are unsightly places yet to be rebuilt. At the stations some disabled veterans of the war might be seen begging, for the government cannot afford to provide them with life’s necessities, another token of the adversity brought on by the warlords of Japan, the losers of World War II.

We arrived in Nagoya at 2:20 p.m. Eight Gilead graduates assigned to Nagoya and two graduates from the Tokyo home, as well as some of the local publishers, met our party at the station. Some were in the advertising work. The group numbering 17 managed to squeeze into the bus. As we crossed town to the missionary home various places of interest were pointed out to us. Nagoya was largely destroyed during the war. For that reason it is undergoing a reconstruction program and is efficiently planned for convenience and better all-around living conditions. We were surprised at finding so many modern buildings, so many wide avenues (most of them not yet paved) and so many new buses and trolleys in Japan’s third city. It was indicative of the progressiveness of the Japanese people to better their living conditions. New streets’ being cut through many places where streets have never been before has necessitated the moving of many houses, causing much inconvenience; but the government pays most of the moving costs and the people are willing to do it in order to have a better city. A subway is planned for Nagoya as a part of their five-year reconstruction plan.

The local company publishers had made a large welcome banner and hung it over the gate of the home, and this colorful greeting met our eyes as we approached the Japanese-style house where the missionaries live. This house was one of a few in that part of Nagoya that had not been destroyed by bombs. As soon as we were located in our rooms a tour of the home was made. The house is an old Japanese house and one of the largest in Nagoya. It provides comfortable accommodations for the missionaries as well as space for the Kingdom Hall and is located convenient to transportation. Although the afternoon began to slip away rapidly, I was anxious to get a firsthand report on the work in Korea, where the Nagoya missionaries had been first assigned. Here are a few things I learned:

REPORT ON KOREA

Brother Steele told me that in their final conversation with them before the missionaries were evacuated the brothers in Korea stated emphatically that they would not stop preaching this time no matter what circumstances came their way. Information received since that day in June, 1950, gives ample evidence that the brothers have kept their word and have proved to be stable servants of Jehovah during this world’s change.

As the communist army was completing its first occupation of the city of Seoul some of the brothers tried to save some of the Society’s property out of the missionary home by taking it to their own homes. This material was lost later by confiscation, looters and destruction of the brothers’ homes. Some of the brothers decided to stay in the city and do what they could, while others decided to go south with the teeming millions of refugees. One group of four, three pioneers and a company publisher, were cornered by the communist soldiers and ruthlessly machine-gunned. Two were killed. The other two were seriously injured but somehow made their escape and finally recovered. These two pioneers are now working in Pusan, Korea’s southernmost city and the only city not devastated by the war.

The company servant of the Seoul company lost his home in the bombing and was forced to go to the country near Seoul for a place to live. During the Red occupation of Seoul a certain day was appointed for all the inhabitants to march out into the streets and fields while the soldiers searched their houses. In spite of this the brothers were able to save their Bibles and most of their preaching equipment. One man of good will who had not yet consecrated when the missionaries were there had to flee into the country also and hide in a concealed place for three months of Red control. He writes that he could carry few things with him but he did take his Bible and “Let God Be True”, studying them constantly during his hibernation. He came out a consecrated brother ready to go to work, and lost no time getting associated with the brothers after Seoul was liberated, and began his preaching work.

Another, a young sister who was baptized just before the beginning of hostilities, disguised herself as an old lady and preached from house to house under the very noses of the communists. Most of those who remained behind were preserved. One blind brother and his wife were very zealous workers but they had their home destroyed, the wife being buried by the wreckage. The blind brother was able to rescue his wife with little injury to her. Another brother’s entire family were killed by the invaders, but he was preserved.

After Seoul was liberated the brothers went to the Kingdom Hall in the missionary home on October 3 to find the house standing with only the windows out. Everything had been taken away by the Reds except the Bible literature and preaching supplies, which they had not bothered to destroy in their haste. The brothers took possession of the house and immediately began holding their meetings again. Day by day the people of good will came back to inquire of the work and of the missionaries. By the third Sunday the attendance had grown to 50 again. As they went from house to house they found the people much more receptive to the soothing message of God’s kingdom. Later a South Korean navy officer took over the second floor of the home and repaired all the windows of the house, but he allowed the brothers to continue to use the first floor for the Kingdom Hall.

The Lord provides spiritual food for his people even in war-torn Korea. A brother found a sympathetic GI whose family had sent him “This Means Everlasting Life”, and so the brothers in Korea were supplied with the book almost as soon as the missionaries in Japan. A brother has been translating this a chapter at a time for the use of the brothers, and it is encouraging to see them use the up-to-date expressions in their correspondence.

During the United Nations’ stay in Seoul the brothers were able to receive the New York Assembly Report, and this was wonderful news for them. Air-mail service was maintained for a time between Seoul and Japan. During this time the brothers reported their Kingdom service time to the missionaries in Nagoya, who in turn sent reports of the work to them.

Came December and the Chinese communist army threatened Seoul again. Many of the brothers decided to go south, but others remained in Seoul. Those remaining told the ones leaving, “We will see you in the new world after Armageddon.” The brothers who went south organized a new company in Taegu and have been reporting regularly since. Three pioneers and several company publishers are working in Pusan. Communication between themselves is difficult but they are able to send word to Nagoya. Their letters are always filled with Bible questions and experiences they are enjoying among the refugees. They all have suffered terribly for lack of food, fuel and shelter, but their requests are not for their personal comfort—only for more spiritual food. I made arrangements for them to receive copies of The Watchtower and Awake! in English and The Watchtower in Japanese by air mail. I hope they can reproduce copies of the chapters they have translated from the Society’s books.

When the brothers heard that we were visiting the Orient they sent their love, but were very sorry that we were not able to visit them. So were we.

In April when Seoul was liberated for the second time word was anxiously awaited from the brothers left behind in Seoul, and finally word was received. The brothers had terrifying and wonderful experiences, but again those remaining in Seoul were preserved. Again they had returned immediately to the Kingdom Hall the day the communists withdrew, where they found the house standing but the windows, ceilings and doors were gone. Again the remaining supplies of literature were intact, actually being the only things left.

The eight missionaries would like to return to Korea to aid the brothers there, but that is not possible now. In the meantime the Korean brothers have shown their willingness to accept their responsibility to preach the Word. Our prayers ascend to Jehovah in their behalf.

Jehovah’s Witnesses in Costa Rica

THERE have been a few witnesses in Costa Rica since about 1913 or 1914, mostly in Port Limón; but it has been since December 1943 when the Watch Tower Society sent its first missionaries here that the work has really grown. At that time there were fewer than 100 witnesses active in all of Costa Rica. Most of these were in Limón province, speaking English. In all there were six companies or congregations, one on the Pacific side at San José and four on the Atlantic side of the comparatively narrow country.

It is interesting to know that seven years ago when the witnesses moved into a particular Kingdom Hall in San José, Costa Rica’s capital, they had 60 persons in attendance the first night. Now they have this original congregation divided into three units, two using the same hall on different evenings and the third having its own meeting place in a suburb to the north of the city. The group of 60 has grown to about 400 in San José alone. From fewer than 100 witnesses in the entire country in 1943 there are now more than 1,800 active Jehovah’s witnesses preaching the good news every month. Inasmuch as Costa Rica has a population of about 800,000 this means there is one witness to every 450 people in the country

One may conclude that it took many missionaries to accomplish all that, but actually there have never been more than seven missionaries in the country at any one time. Many of the native Costa Ricans have taken up the full-time ministry and they go into the isolated parts and get the job done. Last month, for example, there were 55 of such full-time ministers active. Then, too, the good co-operation of the part-time workers among the witnesses helps a great deal.

But do not fail to consider the great inclination on the part of the people in general to hear the Bible truth proclaimed. This desire on their part, backed by action in harmony therewith, has also contributed toward the great advances by the witnesses in Costa Rica. For example, in 1947 there were two witnesses in one town and a congregation was organized. This grew rapidly. Three years later a small assembly was held in that town on a Sunday. The people came on foot, by horse and any other means of transportation they could get. One couple walked nine hours over mountain trails to get there, and others rode all day by horse to make the assembly. They even brought their small children. While we said this was a town, actually it isn’t even a good-sized village. Yet there were 235 adults and some 50 children present at this small convention. Many of these persons have now become active witnesses.

Questions From Readers

● On page 280 of the book “This Means Everlasting Life” it states: “God’s curse on the earth outside Eden lasted till the flood, but all of men’s efforts since then at cultivating the soil have failed to convert the now widely populated earth into a paradise.” Does this mean that the earth is not now under the curse pronounced at the time Adam was ousted from Eden?—U. L., Canada.

Yes, that is the point being made. When ejecting Adam from Eden God said: “Because you followed your wife’s suggestions, and ate from the tree from which I commanded you not to eat, cursed shall be the ground through you, in suffering shall you gain your living from it as long as you live; thorns and thistles shall it produce for you, so that you will have to eat wild plants. By the sweat of your brow shall you earn your living.” (Gen. 3:17-19, AT) Centuries later the Noachian flood cleansed the earth of wickedness, leaving only persons counted righteous in God’s sight and who were devoted to true worship. Jehovah gave them a good start, reissued the command to multiply and fill the earth, and placed under man’s power the animal and plant realms, with no handicapping curse on the earth: “I will never again curse the soil because of man.” However, be it noted that the mandate to subdue the earth issued to Adam was not included in that given to Noah, indicating it would not be accomplished by the mere lifting of the curse.—Gen. 1:28; 6:17; 8:21; 9:1-17, AT.

Just a few centuries later one part of the earth was compared with Eden because of its lush beauty: “Lot looked out, and saw that the whole basin of the Jordan was well watered everywhere (this was before the LORD destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah) like the LORD’S own garden.” (Gen. 13:10, AT) Nor does the following report of the spies on the Promised Land sound like a cursed earth that provided only wild plants for food: “Reaching the valley of Eshcol, they cut a branch from there with a single cluster of grapes, and it took two of them to carry it on a stretcher, along with some pomegranates and some figs.” When later presenting this fruit to the Israelite community the spies said concerning the land: “It surely does flow with milk and honey, and here is its fruit.” (Num. 13:23-27, AT) Certainly Moses was not describing a cursed earth when using these glowing terms concerning the Promised Land, whose caretaker was the Lord:

“The LORD your God is bringing you into a fine land, a land with streams of water, with springs and pools welling up in the valleys and on the hills; a land of wheat and barley, of vines, fig-trees, and pomegranates; a land of oil-producing olives and honey; a land where you may eat food without stint, lacking nothing in it; a land whose stones contain iron, and out of whose hills you can dig copper.” “The land which you are invading for conquest is not like the land of Egypt from which you came, where you used to sow your seed and water it by hand like a vegetable garden. On the contrary, the land into which you are crossing for conquest is a land of hills and valleys, watered by rain from the sky, a land for which the LORD your God cares, the eyes of the LORD your God being continually on it, from the beginning to the end of the year. If you will but heed the commands that I am giving you today, to love the LORD your God, and serve him with all your mind and heart, he will give you rain for your land in due season, the winter rain and the spring rain, so that you will gather in your grain and wine and oil, and he will produce grass in your fields for your cattle, and you will eat your fill. Take care lest you be deceived into turning aside to serve alien gods and to pay homage to them, and the anger of the LORD blaze against you, and he shut up the skies so that there be no rain, and the land yield no produce, and you quickly perish off the fine land that the LORD is about to give you. See, I am putting before you today a blessing and a curse: a blessing, if you heed the commands of the LORD your God which I am giving you today; and a curse, if you do not heed the commands of the LORD your God.”—Deut. 8:7-9; 11:10-17, 26-28, AT; see also Isa. 51:3; Ezek. 20:6, 15; 36:35; Joel 2:3.

Note that by disobedience the Edenic beauty of the land would be lost, and subsequent rebellious unfaithfulness on the part of the Israelites did cause the loss of the paradiselike condition of the Promised Land. The earth today is not ordained to bring forth thorns and thistles as a result of the curse in Eden. That curse vanished with the Flood waters. In many parts of the earth today there are natural spots of breath-taking beauty and grandeur, and other locations men have transformed into glorious parks and gardens. But for the most part men have ruined the earth and ravaged the animal and plant realms because of commercial greed or sheer destructive lust. They have forgotten or ignored God’s purpose for man and the earth, shunned Jehovah’s true worship, and brought upon themselves divine disfavor rather than blessings, just as the Israelites did. The Bible speaks of curses for disobedience, and these curses will be climaxed at Armageddon in a devouring of earth’s wicked dwellers, when Jehovah God through Christ will “bring to ruin those ruining the earth”. (Lev. 26:14-39; Deut. 27:15-26; 28:15-68; Isa. 24:5, 6; Rev. 11:18, NW) It is the curse for disobedience and false worship that Revelation 22:3 (NW) mentions: “And no more will there be any curse.” The anointed remnant of spiritual Israel have been cleansed of past derelictions in matters of worship, and their field of worship has become pure and blessed like the original Eden. In Jehovah’s due time and under the reign of Christ’s kingdom, Armageddon survivors and resurrected ones will be used to fulfill the mandate to subdue the literal earth and transform it into an earth-wide paradise filled with praise for Jehovah.—Ps. 150:1-6.

● Why did Jehovah select Israel’s first human king from the tribe of Benjamin and hold out to that one the hope of the kingship remaining in his house forever, when previous prophecy had named Judah as the tribe from which kings would come?—R. G., Cuba.

Leah was the first one to marry and bear children for Jacob, but it was so only by a deception worked on Jacob. Rachel was the one he loved and bargained for, and hence it was to Rachel’s offspring that the birthright was to go, though Jacob’s offspring by Leah were older. (Gen. 29:18-28) Sarah was the beloved wife of Abraham, and it was to her offspring Isaac that the birthright went, even though Abraham’s son Ishmael by Hagar was older. So it was with Rachel’s offspring Joseph. However, Joseph became no tribal head in Israel, but his sons Manasseh and Ephraim did. Manasseh was the older, but divine direction caused the better blessing to go to Ephraim. Of him Jehovah said: “Ephraim is my firstborn.” (Gen. 48:8-20; Jer. 31:9) However, the tribe of Ephraim later eliminated itself from this favored position by many derelictions, and the psalmist tells of Jehovah’s action: “He refused the tabernacle of Joseph, and chose not the tribe of Ephraim: but chose the tribe of Judah.”—Ps. 78:9, 67, 68.

With Joseph, by Ephraim’s failure, eliminated, Rachel’s other offspring, Benjamin, had to have its chance. That opportunity came with Saul’s anointing as king, for Saul was a Benjamite. At 1 Samuel 13:13 it speaks of the possibility of Saul’s kingdom being established forever; but we must remember that the Hebrew word here translated “forever” is ohlahm. As shown in previous Watchtowers and in the “Let God Be True” book, this Hebrew word means a period of concealed or indefinite time, not necessarily for everlasting. True, Jehovah God knew before time that the kingdom would not remain in the house of Benjamin; but it was Saul’s own presumptuous and faithless course that caused his loss of the kingship for his household and tribe. The mere exercise of Jehovah’s power of foreknowledge did not actively force Saul to act reprehensibly. On his own Saul acted contrary to the express commands of Jehovah God, fully responsible for these violations in the face of knowledge of his sins.

With the favored Rachel’s offspring having had their chance, the older sons of Leah would be in line for the blessing of kingship. Ahead of Judah were Reuben, Simeon and Levi. All three of these were eliminated by the occurrences mentioned by Jacob at the time of his blessing of his sons. (Gen. 49:3-7) Moreover, later the Levites acted in noteworthy faithfulness and were rewarded by being given the blessings of the priesthood. That would prevent any of their number from becoming king. So Judah was now next in line, and the prophecy at Genesis 49:8-12 shows he would succeed in gaining the kingship, and being the human ancestor of the King who will reign forever, Christ Jesus. Of course, in all this Jehovah was under no obligation to conform to the general practice concerning the firstborn and birthright privileges. He could have chosen whomever he wanted, right at the outset, without eliminating those first in line according to human procedures.

‘Condemned Out of Their Own Mouths’

At one of my weekly Bible studies the lady of the home asked me to come the following morning, as her priest would be coming to bless “holy” water, and she wanted me to discuss the Bible with him in their presence. I agreed, and the next morning was waiting when he came with his satchel containing the cross, robe, incense, etc. After the ‘blessing’ she introduced me to him and said she wanted to hear a discussion on the Bible. He replied that he did not have time today, but later on. She answered that he found time to come and sprinkle “holy” water, so why not sit a while and teach her something from God’s Word?

During our discussion he remarked, “You witnesses do not honor the virgin Mary”; to which I replied, “We give her the honor due any faithful mother, but we cannot direct our prayers to her, since Jesus is the only intermediary between God and men.” “Yes, you are right,” he admitted. “But she had no other children, as you claim, but always remained a virgin,” he added. When asked to prove this from the Bible he had to admit that it was not to be found therein. At last he confessed, “You people are right and really teach the Bible and we have failed in our mission, inserting formalities to make a show for the people.” When asked why he kept on teaching those things when he knew what God’s Word teaches, he said that if he made any changes the patriarchate would fight against him and he would lose his job. At that he hurriedly left and my home Bible study happily declared themselves to be Jehovah’s witnesses from now on.—J. T., Turkey.

Announcements

BEARING FRUIT MANYFOLD FROM THE RIGHT SOIL

Are you one of those Jesus mentioned in the illustration of the sower who produces fruit in abundance? If you are, it means life in the new world for you. The seed, God’s Word of truth, sown in a good heart is like a seed sown in good soil, as it is written, “As for the one sown upon the right kind of soil, this is the one hearing the word and getting the sense of it, who really does bear fruit and produces, this one a hundredfold, that one sixty, the other thirty.” (Matt. 13:23, NW) Those who receive this seed and use it in the proper way spread the life-giving Word. This work of planting seed and cultivating the soil is being engaged in by Jehovah’s witnesses, and during the month of November they will plant seed by offering to everyone three bound books on a contribution of $1. You may share in bearing fruit manyfold by taking part in this activity. Why not write in to us, or attend the meetings of Jehovah’s witnesses in your vicinity, and learn how you may share in this fruitful work of preaching his Word and kingdom?

WHAT HAS RELIGION DONE FOR MANKIND?

That is the title of the latest book published by the Watchtower Society. Its release was made in August, 1951, at an international convention of Jehovah’s witnesses held in Wembley Stadium, London, England. This 352-page book is an indispensable aid to every student of religion. Facts about the history and beliefs of the main religions of the world, both ancient and modern, are taken up in its 27 chapters. The development of religion from its origin to the present day, together with the influence exerted by religion upon nations and peoples, is interestingly shown. Have this excellent work in your possession for study and reference and thus be able to determine for yourself which religion is true and which false. Bound in gold-colored cover and stamped title, it is available on a contribution of 50 cents. Send for your personal copy.

“WATCHTOWER” STUDIES

Week of November 18: Making the Mind Over for New World Living.

Week of November 25: Keeping the Mind Renewed.