The Watchtower — April 1, 1959

How to Prove You Have Christian Faith

DOES it require handling a poisonous snake for a Christian to prove his faith? Some people think it does. At regular intervals from spring to fall a group of religious people gather at a remote place in the hills of Kentucky to pick up and hold poisonous snakes or to put them about their necks like garlands.

They point to Mark 16:18 (AV) as their reason for performing this strange rite. It says: “They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them.” This passage is not found in the oldest and most reliable Bible manuscripts. It was added long after the book of Mark was written and is therefore not a genuine part of the inspired Bible.

There is no instance in the Bible where Christ or his apostles handled poisonous snakes. On one occasion when the apostle Paul was carrying a bundle of sticks a venomous snake crawled from the bundle and coiled around his hand. He did not fondle it before the people that saw it, but he quickly shook it off into the fire. He well knew that snake handling is not the way to demonstrate Christian faith.

The way Paul demonstrated his faith was the way Christ did it—by preaching He educated people in God’s Word. He proved his faith by missionary work. When he wrote to the Christians at Rome he linked faith with public declaration of Scriptural truths by saying: “For with the heart one exercises faith for righteousness, but with the mouth one makes public declaration for salvation.”—Rom. 10:10.

James, the brother of Jesus, was another Bible writer who pointed out that faith is proved by works. He said: “Become doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves with false reasoning.” “Of what benefit is it, my brothers, if a certain one says he has faith but he does not have works? That faith cannot save him, can it? Indeed, as the body without breath is dead, so also faith without works is dead.”—Jas. 1:22; 2:14, 26.

Chief among the works that make faith alive and give proof of it is preaching the good news of God’s kingdom and the many enlightening truths of his Word. Jesus set the example in this regard, and he commanded his followers to “go, preach, saying, ‘The kingdom of the heavens has drawn near.’” (Matt. 10:7) Regarding his followers who would be living in the last days, where we now are, he said: “This good news of the kingdom will be preached in all the inhabited earth for the purpose of a witness to all the nations.” (Matt. 24:14) It is this preaching work, not snake handling, that proves Christian faith.

Kingdom Missionaries, the Bringers of the Best News

“‘When he ascended on high he led captive a multitude; he gave gifts in men.’ And he gave some as apostles, some as prophets, some as missionaries [evangelists].”—Eph. 4:8, 11, margin.

1. What would make the best news today?

EVERYBODY likes to get good news. The bringer of the good news is therefore a welcome person to the joyful receiver. Today, however, in this confused world, what is good news for one may not be good news for another. Consequently news that would please all who love life and their fellow man regardless of nationality, race or language—would that not be wonderful news, the best news? Indeed it would be; and, unbelievable as it may sound, there is such good news to be published everywhere today.

2. What are those who have such news doing with it, and what would they be called according to the ancient Greeks?

² Those who already have it find it too good to keep to themselves. Unselfishly and joyfully they are passing it on to others in all the earth, to all tribes, nations, races, colors and languages, because it is for all. They are what the Greeks of times before the Christian era would call “evangelists,” or those who “evangelize.” For example, in the Greek Septuagint, produced before the Christian era, the word “evangelize” occurs twice in the Greek text in the following passage: “I am present, as a season of beauty upon the mountains, as the feet of one preaching glad tidings of peace, as one preaching good news; for I will publish thy salvation, saying, O Sion, thy God shall reign.” (Esaias Isa 52:6, 7, Bagster) To avail ourselves of this universal good news, the best news, we desire to identify these evangelizers and their source of news.

3. What did pagan Greeks call Zeus as a news source but how long-lasting is the good news of evangelists today, and why so?

³ The ancient pagan Greeks gave their chief god Zeus (or Jupiter) the title Evangélios, meaning “Giver of good news.” (Orations [53.3] of Ælius Aristides, of the 2d century A.D.) Whatever good news Zeus ever gave the Greeks perished with him, for Zeus is no more. He proved to be a mere pagan false god, not immortal. The evangelists of the best news in this modern day of international news gathering and communication are not resorting to such a false, unreliable news source as the pagan god Zeus Evangélios. They have an everlasting news source, whose forecasts for the future have proved one hundred percent correct. He is the source of “everlasting good news,” good news that was first proclaimed thousands of years ago and that yet lives on to bring good cheer and hope to unnumbered multitudes of people today.

4. Whom did John see bearing everlasting good news, and is it reasonable that God should be the source of good news?

⁴ Nineteen centuries ago a news writer, with prophetic forevision of the present time of judgment upon the nations, wrote: “I saw another angel flying in midheaven, and he had everlasting good news to declare as glad tidings to those who dwell on the earth, and to every nation and tribe and tongue and people, saying in a loud voice: ‘Fear God and give him glory, because the hour of the judgment by him has arrived, and so worship the one that made the heaven and the earth and sea and fountains of waters.’” (Rev. 14:6, 7) It is only reasonable that the God who made all the good things that we intelligent creatures enjoy should also make good news and should thus be the source of good news or glad tidings.

5. What was that angel flying in midheaven bearing, and, because of the source, why can the good news be everlasting?

⁵ In the prophetic vision that the Christian apostle John saw, the “angel flying in midheaven” was a bringer of good news or was an evangelist. Authentic history tells us that there were actually angel evangelists. Like the angel flying in midheaven, those angel evangelists got their good news from somewhere. From where? From the one universal source of news, God the Creator. He has sustained all his creation till now, for he is the everliving God, immortal. For this reason also he can be the source of everlasting good news, hence news of the greatest value even today.—Jer. 10:10-12.

6. What is to be said as to whether God is an evangelist, and in what way is the good news everlasting?

⁶ Does this mean that God the Creator is an evangelist? Yes, the greatest of the evangelists. He is the divine Evangelist; and, inasmuch as he is the original Source of good news, he conducts a universal evangelistic organization and sends out evangelists on missions to make the hearts of men of good will glad. The good news from him is “everlasting,” because, although he gave it out thousands of years ago and early in human history, it was prophetic. It foretold the good things that were to come to fulfillment at this late date. God’s news releases have been recorded and filed in the sacred Book, the Bible.

7. What good news was released in Eden, and why will all men of good will be freed shortly by uncensored truth?

⁷ Surely, every righteous person should declare the following to be a good news-release: “I shall put enmity between you and the woman and between your seed [or, offspring] and her seed. He will bruise you in the head and you will bruise him in the heel.” (Gen. 3:15) Those words were spoken by the original Source of good news to the original source of lying propaganda. That is to say, they were spoken by Jehovah God, the Creator of man and paradise, to the Devil, who used the serpent in the garden of Eden to tell a slanderous lie to our first human mother, Eve. The news release stated that the “lying propaganda” source was one day to be crushed out. Yes, this false news intelligence was to have his head stepped on and crushed, because he is like a deadly poisonous snake. Evidently the devilish source of this lying propaganda has not yet been stamped out, because the earth is more full of lying propaganda, slander and blackmail than ever before in man’s history. Still it has not smothered God’s Edenic release of good news. To the contrary, the Seed of God’s woman has been sent on a mission to stamp out the lying newsmonger, the original Serpent, Satan the Devil. Soon all men of good will who live will know the truth without distortion and contradiction, and this truth will set them free. (John 8:32) There will then be no censorship of the truth for selfish reasons.

8. What good news was released later to Abraham, and how did Paul comment upon it?

⁸ Here is another important bit of good news. It was released over two thousand years after Jehovah released the above evangel or good news in the garden of Eden. The Christian apostle Paul makes the following comment upon this later news release and refers to the faithful patriarch Abraham as he does so. He says: “Abraham ‘exercised faith in Jehovah, and it was counted to him as righteousness’. Surely you know that those who adhere to faith are the ones who are sons of Abraham. Now the Scripture, seeing in advance that God would declare people of the nations righteous due to faith, declared the good news beforehand to Abraham, namely: ‘By means of you all the nations will be blessed.’ Consequently, those who adhere to faith are being blessed together with faithful Abraham.” (Gal. 3:6-9) The blessing of all the nations is good news, evangel.

9. How is the declaring of people righteous due to faith a blessing, and why therefore are faithful news recording and reporting vital?

⁹ When God declares certain people of the nations to be righteous, that is a blessing. It is therefore good news, for this declaring of people of the nations righteous or justifying them lays the basis for them to gain eternal life in happiness. In this particular case, God’s declaring of people of the nations to be righteous was to be due to faith in God, faith in God’s promise. Men are called upon to prove such faith in God now. So this declaring of them to be righteous because of their faith occurs now, before actual human perfection comes to men. Since this faith must be in God’s evangelistic promise, we can appreciate how valuable it is to have a true news source and to have faithful, undistorted news recording and reporting. Men need to have faithful evangelists sent on a mission by the original Evangelist, Jehovah God. Putting confidence in lying propaganda enslaves us to liars and leads to unrighteousness and death.

10. In Eden what was the argument of the lying propagandist, and what did Eve lose by not believing in God’s law?

¹⁰ Look at what a blessing the declaring of people with faith in God’s promise to be righteous means to them. In the garden of Eden the lying propagandist, Satan the Devil, slandered Jehovah God the Creator. The Devil told the woman Eve that God could not punish her by taking away the life that she had and that God was not the sole Judge of what was right and what was wrong, but that man and woman could live by their own standards of judgment of what was good and what was bad. The Devil said by means of the serpent: “You positively will not die. For God knows that in the very day of your eating from it your eyes are bound to be opened and you are bound to be like God, knowing good and bad.” (Gen. 3:4, 5) Eve quit believing or having faith in God’s law. She put faith in the Devil’s lying propaganda. For this reason she lost righteousness and put herself in the way of death, for she was in transgression against God.

11. How did Adam show a lack of faith in God, and what has resulted to all of us because of this?

¹¹ After she ate, Eve persuaded her husband Adam to eat some of the forbidden fruit. Adam knew better than to do so, yet for the sake of Eve he did not expose and denounce the Serpent’s lying propaganda but let himself be blackmailed over onto the slanderer’s side. He joined the side of God’s slanderer and showed lack of faith in God’s ability to provide help in this crisis. For his lack of faith and obedience he lost his righteousness and entered into transgression. After God called Adam and Eve to judgment and gave out his first good news-release (Genesis 3:15), he pronounced Eve and Adam unrighteous. So he sentenced them to death, to loss of life, to a return to the dust out of which Adam had been taken. From Adam and through Eve all of us have inherited unrighteousness, hence a condemned condition, a subjection to death. The news commentator, the apostle Paul, reports: “Through one man sin entered into the world and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men because they had all sinned . . . death ruled as king from Adam.”—Rom. 5:12-14.

THE DIVINE EVANGELIST

12. By what promise was Abraham’s faith specially tested?

¹² The patriarch Abraham was the twenty-first man in the line of descent from the sinner Adam. (Luke 3:34-38) Naturally, then, he inherited unrighteousness from Adam. But he also got ahold of God’s news release in Eden concerning the Seed of God’s woman, who was to bruise the Serpent in the head. Abraham accepted and believed this evangelistic news release. However, when God offered to tie him in with this promised Seed, it put Abraham’s faith in Almighty God to a test. Acting again as the great Evangelist, Jehovah God said to him: “I shall make a great nation out of you [by giving you a seed or offspring] and I shall bless you and I will make your name great; and prove yourself a blessing. And I will bless those who bless you, and him that calls down evil upon you I shall curse, and all the families of the ground will certainly bless themselves by means of you.” (Gen. 12:1-3) Such a promise called for faith.

13. In giving this promise, in what capacity was God acting, and how were the nations to be blessed by him?

¹³ The news commentator Paul says that by giving this promise Jehovah God, the Author of sacred Scripture, “declared the good news beforehand to Abraham.” God was thus acting as an Evangelist or Giver of good news, glad tidings, to all families and nations. First of all, this good news meant that now, before the Seed of God’s woman would bruise the Serpent in the head, God would do to others as he did to Abraham. What? Declare people who were of nations not descended from Abraham to be righteous because of their faith in God. This would be a blessing to them, for it would be the basis for them to gain eternal life in God’s coming righteous world.

14. Because of faith, how was Abraham blessed, and what will he have shortly?

¹⁴ Abraham had been some time in the Promised Land of Canaan when Jehovah God told him to look up to the uncountable stars and said: “So your seed [offspring] will become.” Did Abraham believe this good news? The sacred Record answers: “And he put faith in Jehovah, and [Jehovah] proceeded to count it to him as righteousness.” (Gen. 15:3-6) Thus, even before Abraham was circumcised in the flesh, he was declared righteous. Because of his faith in God as demonstrated by his righteous works, he was blessed, declared righteous. Because of this faith the patriarch Abraham, now dead for 3,802 years, will shortly have a resurrection from the dead to life on earth under God’s kingdom. (Jas. 2:21-23; Rom. 4:9-14) Thus Jehovah God rewards those who believe in him as the great Evangelist and who prove their faith by acting upon the good news that he declared beforehand to Abraham.

THE SON OF GOD A MISSIONARY EVANGELIST

15. Whom besides humans has God used as evangelists, and how did Gabriel state this fact?

¹⁵ It may strike us as a new thought, yet it is an old fact that the great Evangelist, Jehovah God, has used holy angels of heaven as evangelists or bringers of good news. Before God sent his only-begotten Son to this earth he provided a forerunner for his Son. This forerunner was John the Baptist, the son of the aged Levite priest Zechariah. In this case God made his angel Gabriel an evangelist, a bringer of good news. In the year 3 (B.C.) Gabriel appeared to childless priest Zechariah in the holy compartment of Jehovah’s temple at Jerusalem. Gabriel told him that he was to have a son by his aged wife Elizabeth and that he was to call his name John. To state his evangelistic errand, Gabriel said to doubting Zechariah: “I am Gabriel, who stands near before God, and I was sent forth to speak with you and declare the good news of these things to you.”—Luke 1:8-19.

16. How did Gabriel impart still greater good news?

¹⁶ Gabriel was entrusted with still greater good news when, about six months later, he appeared to Mary, a Jewish virgin of the tribe of Judah. He gladdened her heart by telling her that she had been chosen to become the mother of the Son of God. (Luke 1:26-38, 46-56) Nine months later an angel was selected to be an evangelist announcing the actual human birth of God’s promised Son at Bethlehem.

17. How did this angel disclose his office as evangelist?

¹⁷ Of this angelic bringer of good news from the great Evangelist we read: “There were also in that same country shepherds living out of doors and keeping watches in the night over their flocks. And suddenly Jehovah’s angel stood by them and Jehovah’s glory gleamed around them, and they became very fearful. But the angel said to them: ‘Have no fear, for, look! I am declaring to you good news of a great joy that all the people will have, because there was born to you today a Savior, who is Christ the Lord, in David’s city. And this is a sign for you: you will find an infant bound in cloth bands and lying in a manger.’” What good news that was! Yes, for the Record continues on to say: “And suddenly there came to be with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying: ‘Glory in the heights above to God, and upon earth peace among men of good-will [men whom he approves].’”—Luke 2:8-14, margin.

18. How only would the birth of Jesus prove to be good news, and what did his forerunner become?

¹⁸ However, the birth of this Son of God would be no specially good news unless he turned out to be something of benefit to all the people, so that they would have great joy. As a carpenter in the obscure town of Nazareth Jesus the Son of God brought no special joy to all the people, not even to the people of his earthly mother Mary. But things changed for Jesus after his forerunner, John, became an evangelist, a preacher of good news. “In those days John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea, saying: ‘Repent, for the kingdom of the heavens has drawn near.’” (Matt. 3:1, 2) God’s Word calls the preaching of God’s kingdom evangelizing or the bringing of good news. Hence the news reporter Luke says concerning the evangelist, John the Baptist: “Therefore he also gave many other exhortations and continued declaring good news to the people.”—Luke 3:18, NW; Yg; Ro; AT.

19. Why did John draw back from baptizing Jesus, and by his anointing what did Jesus become?

¹⁹ John the Baptist declared: “The one coming after me is stronger than I am.” “Behind me there comes a man who has advanced in front of me, because he existed before me.” (Matt. 3:11; John 1:30) This was why John at first drew back from baptizing Jesus and Jesus had to assure John that it was the right thing for John to do. In proof of this, Jesus was anointed with God’s spirit from heaven. After Jesus came up out of the baptismal waters of the Jordan River, “he saw descending like a dove God’s spirit coming upon him. Look! also, there was a voice from the heavens that said: ‘This is my Son, the beloved, whom I have approved.’” (Matt. 3:13-17) The anointed Jesus could not be stronger than John the Baptist and at the same time be less of an evangelist than John. So Jesus did become an evangelist, one commissioned and sent out by Jehovah God, who anointed him.

20. How did Jesus testify to his fellow townsmen of his change of occupation to that of evangelist?

²⁰ To testify of his change of occupation from that of carpenter to that of evangelist, Jesus came back to Nazareth and stood up to read in the town synagogue. The prophecy of Isaiah (61:1, 2) had foretold his coming as a bringer of good news, and on this occasion that book of prophecy was handed to Jesus. “And he opened the scroll and found the place where it was written, ‘Jehovah’s spirit is upon me, because he anointed me to declare good news to the poor, he sent me forth to preach a release to the captives and a recovery of sight to the blind, to send the crushed ones away with a release, to preach Jehovah’s acceptable year.’ With that he rolled up the scroll, handed it back to the attendant and sat down; and the eyes of all in the synagogue were intently fixed upon him. Then he started to say to them: ‘Today this scripture that you just heard is fulfilled.’”—Luke 4:14-22.

21. In spite of the Nazarenes, what did Jesus prove himself to be, and what did he train his disciples to be?

²¹ In proof that the good news is not accepted by all people as good, the Nazarenes grew offended at what Jesus preached. They threw him out of town and even tried to kill him. (Luke 4:22-30) But Jesus stuck to his commission as evangelist and went elsewhere, seeking those who appreciated good news from God. The Record tells us: “It came to pass afterwards, that he traveled through the cities and towns, preaching and evangelizing the kingdom of God; and the twelve were with him.” (Luke 8:1, Dy; Mark 1:14, 15) Jesus was an evangelist of God’s kingdom. He also taught and trained his twelve apostles to be evangelists of this kingdom. He sent them forth as missionaries with these instructions: “As you go, preach, saying, ‘The kingdom of the heavens has drawn near.’”—Matt. 10:1-7.

MISSIONARY EVANGELISTS

22. For doing what did Jesus’ enemies have him put to death, and how was he enabled to continue his evangelistic work and through whom as leaders?

²² Jesus died innocently for proclaiming good news from God or for being a faithful evangelist. The enemies of the good news of God’s kingdom had him killed. They accused him of wanting to make himself king in opposition to Caesar of Rome. (John 19:12-16) But Almighty God raised Jesus from the dead on the third day and had him return to heaven forty days later to sit down at the right hand of God. From there Jesus was to continue his evangelistic work, directing his evangelists on earth. Down here his twelve apostles took the lead in the Kingdom publicity work. The religious enemies of the good news kept up a bitter, violent opposition; but concerning Jesus’ apostles we read: “Every day in the temple and from house to house they continued without letup teaching and declaring the good news about the Christ, Jesus.”—Acts 5:42.

23. Were the apostles the only evangelists, and when did the answer to this question become manifest?

²³ The apostles were not the only evangelists of the Christian congregation. All the dedicated, baptized members of the congregation who had possession of the good news were under responsibility to pass it on to others, to spread the good news and thus to act as evangelists. This fact became manifest, even at a time when one would think that a news agent would quit circulating news that got him into trouble, namely, at a time of religious persecution.

24. In proof of this, what does the Record say regarding the persecuted ones?

²⁴ This was after the Jews stoned Stephen, one of seven men who were appointed to serve as special assistants to the apostles in the congregation at Jerusalem. Concerning this evangelizing under fierce persecution it is written: “Saul [of Tarsus], for his part, was approving of the murder of him. On that day great persecution arose against the congregation which was in Jerusalem; all except the apostles were scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria. But reverent men carried Stephen to the burial and they made a great lamentation over him. . . . However, those who had been scattered went through the land declaring the good news of the word. Philip, for one, went down to the city of Samaria and began to preach the Christ to them. But when they believed Philip who was declaring the good news of the kingdom of God and of the name of Jesus Christ, they proceeded to be baptized, both men and women.” (Acts 8:1, 2, 4, 5, 12) In this case, not the apostles who remained at Jerusalem, but the scattered disciples did the evangelizing. They all had the honor and joy of being evangelists.

25. Who were the Christians that were designated “evangelists,” and how was the gift of these foretold?

²⁵ All persons who become dedicated, baptized followers of the leading Evangelist Jesus Christ copy him and become evangelists and are correctly spoken of as such. Yet there were those in the first-century congregation who were especially chosen and designated as such. These men who were specially distinguished by the title “evangelist” were gifts from the Lord Jesus Christ after he had been resurrected from the dead and had ascended to heaven to the right hand of the great Evangelist Jehovah God. The giving of these living gifts in the form of men had long been foretold, at Psalm 68:18, in these words: “You have ascended on high; you have carried away captives; you have taken gifts in the form of men, yes, even the stubborn ones, to reside among them, O Jah God.”

26. With what argument does Paul make the application of this prophecy?

²⁶ The good news commentator, Paul, makes the application of this prophecy, saying to the Christian congregation or the “body of the Christ”: “Now to each one of us undeserved kindness was given according to how the Christ measured out the free gift. Wherefore he says: ‘When he ascended on high he led captive a multitude; he gave gifts in men.’ Now the expression ‘he ascended’, what does it mean but that he also descended into the lower regions, that is, the earth? The very one that descended is also the one that ascended far above all the heavens that he might give fullness to all things. And he gave some [gifts] as apostles, some as prophets, some as missionaries [or, evangelists], some as shepherds and teachers, with a view to the training of the holy ones for ministerial work, for the building up of the body of the Christ.”—Eph. 4:7-12, margin; AT.

27. How were those men properly called “evangelists,” and why, therefore, could they be spoken of as “missionaries”?

²⁷ We note here that evangelists or missionaries, whom God gave by the glorified Jesus Christ, are ranked after the apostles and the prophets but before the shepherds (pastors) and teachers. Why were these men who were given as gifts to the congregation distinguished from all the rest of the congregation who did evangelistic work by spreading the good news? It must be because they did evangelizing work in an outstanding manner or on a larger scale, or in a greater territory or special territory. Evidently they were specially sent on a mission of proclaiming the good news. For this reason they could be spoken of as missionaries of the good news.

28. How, in Philip’s case, is it stated that those evangelists were a special class?

²⁸ Demonstrating that they were a special class, a particular gift from God through his ascended Christ, the aforementioned Philip was called an evangelist. When telling of Paul’s final visit to Jerusalem, his traveling companion Luke says: “The next day we set out and arrived in Caesarea, and we entered into the house of Philip the missionary [or, evangelist], who was one of the seven men, and we stayed with him. This man had four daughters, virgins, that prophesied.”—Acts 21:8, 9, margin.

29. How was it seen and demonstrated that Philip was not an apostle of the Lamb, and yet how had he been used as an evangelist?

²⁹ This Philip was not an apostle like Paul. Neither was the young man Timothy, to whom Paul wrote: “Do missionary work, thoroughly accomplish your ministry.” (2 Tim. 4:5) For this reason, when Philip was driven from Jerusalem by persecution and went down to the city of Samaria, he could only baptize the believing circumcised Samaritans in water. He could not impart to these baptized ones the gifts of the holy spirit by laying his hands upon them. This does not mean that they had not been begotten by God’s spirit to become his spiritual children with a hope of the heavenly kingdom. It merely means that they did not receive the miraculous gifts of the spirit to prophesy, or to perform miracles, or to speak in foreign languages or to interpret these. For those Samaritans to receive the miraculous gifts of the spirit, Philip had to notify the apostles who had remained at Jerusalem. Peter and John were sent down to Samaria and laid their hands on the baptized dedicated Samaritans. Then these received the holy spirit. It was thus seen and demonstrated that “through the laying on of the hands of the apostles the spirit was given.” (Acts 8:12-18) Yet, as an evangelist, Philip had been specially used by God through Christ to bring to the circumcised Samaritans the good news of God’s kingdom.

30. How in connection with Paul’s visit, was it shown that Philip was not a “gift” in the form of a prophet?

³⁰ Philip was not a Christian prophet, gifted by the spirit to foretell events of interest and concern to his fellow Christians. His four virgin daughters, however, were prophetesses by means of God’s spirit. Not that Philip was behind or inferior to these women in the congregational organization. They did some prophesying with veiled heads, as Paul says that dedicated women did under the operation of God’s spirit in the congregation. Still they did not, any more than did their father Philip, give prophetic information to the apostle Paul. (1 Cor. 11:4, 5) But it was a certain prophet named Agabus that came down to Caesarea and foretold to Paul what was to happen to him at Jerusalem. (Acts 21:10, 11) Agabus was one of the living “gifts in the form of men” in that he was an inspired prophet.

31. How after his work in Samaria, was Philip shown to be a “gift” in the form of a designated “evangelist”?

³¹ Yet Philip as a designated evangelist was also a gift from the ascended Christ. He had been an assistant to the apostles at Jerusalem but was also sent on a special mission of evangelism by the angel of Jehovah God. After Philip had done such a fine work at Samaria, “Jehovah’s angel spoke to Philip, saying: ‘Rise and travel to the south to the road that runs down from Jerusalem to Gaza.’” Down there by the roadside Philip was directed by God’s spirit to get into the approaching chariot of a faithful proselyte to Judaism, an Ethiopian eunuch who was the treasurer of Queen Candace of Ethiopia. In the chariot Philip evangelized this student of Isaiah’s prophecy. “Philip opened his mouth and, starting with this Scripture, he declared to him the good news about Jesus.” At the believing eunuch’s request Philip baptized him in water.

32. Down in Ethiopia what work did the eunuch do, but what mission did Philip go on carrying out?

³² The eunuch did not receive the miraculous gifts of the spirit, but it did not require an apostle to be serving there in order for this eunuch to be begotten by God’s spirit to become a joint heir with Christ in the heavenly kingdom. Down in Ethiopia the baptized eunuch doubtless did the evangelistic work that is obligatory upon all dedicated, baptized Christians; but Philip continued his travels as one sent on a mission of evangelism. “Philip was found to be in Ashdod, and he went through the territory and kept on declaring the good news to all the cities until he got to Caesarea.” (Acts 8:26-40) He did missionary work just as Timothy was later told to do.—2 Tim. 4:5.

GOOD NEWS IN THE “TIME OF THE END”

33. How was the special evangelistic work of today foretold by Jesus, and by whom is his prophecy being fulfilled?

³³ Today we are living in the time of special evangelistic work. It is the work foretold by Jesus in his prophecy concerning the end of this world or system of things: “This good news [or, evangel, Luther] of the kingdom will be preached in all the inhabited earth for the purpose of a witness to all the nations, and then the accomplished end will come.” (Matt. 24:14) Is this prophecy being fulfilled by evangelist angels, by Jehovah’s angel Gabriel or by the angel that announced Jesus’ human birth to the shepherds or by the host of angels that said: “Glory in the heights above to God, and upon earth peace among men of good-will”? No; there is no evidence of angelic appearances since A.D. 1914, when the “beginning of pangs of distress” befell the nations. By whom, then, since the close of World War I, is Jesus’ prophecy relative to the greatest evangelistic work thus far in human history being fulfilled? It is being fulfilled by Jehovah’s witnesses. In carrying on their earth-wide preaching of the good news of God’s established kingdom in 175 or more countries and islands, they are working under the eighty-five Branches of the Watch Tower Bible & Tract Society of Pennsylvania, their legal and administrative agency or servant.

34, 35. (a) What do we today not have as “gifts in the form of men,” and yet how do we have evangelistic missionaries? (b) When was the greatest graduation of missionary students held, and under what circumstances?

³⁴ Today we do not have “gifts in the form of men” in the form of Christ’s twelve apostles or of inspired Christian prophets or of evangelists associated with the apostles as Philip and Timothy were. Nevertheless, we do have evangelistic missionaries. How so?

³⁵ In the year 1943 Jehovah’s witnesses established in New York state a missionary training school called the Watchtower Bible School of Gilead, the name of its main school building being called Gilead, meaning “Witness Heap.” Beginning on February 1, 1943, it has since graduated two class-groups of missionary evangelists each year till now. In the past summer of 1958 Gilead held the greatest graduation exercises of its career. This was the graduation of its thirty-first class of 103 ministerial students Sunday afternoon, July 27, 1958, in the Yankee Stadium of New York city. Sixty-four countries and islands supplied the students for this thirty-first class, and they were assigned to posts of evangelistic service in fifty-two lands. In the hearing of 180,291 delegates to the Divine Will International Assembly of Jehovah’s Witnesses, who overflowed both Yankee Stadium and the nearby Polo Grounds, this graduating class was addressed by a number of speakers before they received their diplomas of merit. Pertinent to the above discussion of missionaries, or evangelists who are sent with a special assignment of service, one of the speakers delivered the following address.

Missionaries of God’s Kingdom That Rules

1. What were those Christians graduating from Gilead sent forth as, but what do enemies in many places call them?

AFTER your graduation, you Christian men and women will be sent on a mission. That is why you are all missionaries, for, basically, a missionary is one who is sent on a mission. A mission is a work with which a person is charged as an agent or envoy and it serves as the reason for sending this person out. Usually a missionary is understood to be a person that is sent out for spreading his religious belief into a heathen land or a newly settled territory. From this fact the word missionary has come to mean also a mere propagandist. In many lands the enemies speak of graduates of the Watchtower Bible School of Gilead as propagandists, not Christian missionaries.

2. Why was it well for those graduates to keep in mind the mission on which they were being sent, and why would we not want to be the kind of missionaries that Kaiser Wilhelm II once spoke of?

² You will do well to keep in mind always the mission on which you are sent. Then you will distinguish yourselves from missionaries of other kinds. There are missionaries and missionaries. Less than ten years before Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany plunged his empire into World War I he spoke at Bremen, Germany. In this speech on March 22, 1905, Kaiser Wilhelm spoke for all the German people, his subjects, and said: “God has called us to civilize the world. We are the missionaries of human progress. . . . We are the salt of the earth.”a Now, do we today owe a debt of gratitude to those German Imperial “missionaries of human progress”? Did they advance world civilization in a way that has benefited everybody? Have they as the “salt of the earth” kept their strength or lost it and ruined the earth instead of preserving it? World War I and its aftereffects down to this day give the best answer. No sane person needs to feel a debt of gratitude to missionaries of human, materialistic progress of that kind in any nation. We do not want to be missionaries of that kind, do we?

3. How have missionaries been taken advantage of, and how have heathen natives pointed out their not being what they preach?

³ In the past, British and other religious missionaries have opened up territories and have won the trust and favor of the people in such territories. But then the missionaries were taken advantage of as spearheads and advance agents for commercialism and exploitation of native peoples. Those missionaries lost sight of the teaching of the Holy Bible or never did fully understand and appreciate the Bible and its standard for Christian living. Honest-hearted natives soon discerned the difference between the teachings and lives of the missionaries and the Holy Bible. Page 72 of the book The Battle of Armageddon, written by Charles T. Russell in 1897, tells how some of the heathen would hold up the Christian’s Bible before the missionaries and say: “Your practices do not correspond with the teachings of your sacred book.” An Indian Brahmin is “said to have written a missionary, [saying,] ‘We are finding you out. You are not as good as your Book. If your people were only as good as your Book, you would conquer India in five years.’”

4. What is it a bad practice for missionaries to follow, and how can they pervert their Christian aim?

⁴ This helps us to appreciate how bad a practice it is for a missionary of any so-called Christian religion to carry the worldliness of his home country into the foreign country or territory that is to be Christianized. It is bad also for the missionary to conform himself to any bad practices, immoral practices, that are the accepted custom in the missionary field but that are not the teaching of the Bible or of the New World society of Jehovah’s witnesses. A missionary is perverting his Christian aim if he lets himself be used as a tool of commercialism and exploitation, either willingly or compromisingly or innocently. A missionary does not go to a foreign field to take advantage of any commercial opportunities that he may unexpectedly discover or to turn aside from his God-given task to some selfish enterprise of materialistic gain. If he does so, then he belittles his mission. He ceases to be a Christian missionary. His training was wasted. He failed those sending him.

5. What did the New York Times say in praise of a famed American missionary to India following his recent death?

⁵ Recently (June 15, 1958) the editorial page of the New York Times published an article headed “What Is a Missionary?” It told of a noted missionary to India who had died during the previous week. It said that he was “one of the most distinguished and successful of our missionaries to India. He was respected and loved by Indians, Britons and Americans. He had the confidence of princes and was a saint to the humble villagers. Hindus, Moslems, Parsis, Jhats and Jains, as well as Christians, did him honor. Mohandas K. Gandhi espoused his work and men came from all over India to see what he was doing.” Do you missionaries recognize or know who this famed American missionary to India was?

6. According to the Times editorial, why was he so honored, consulted and loved so generally there?

⁶ Now, why was he so honored, respected, consulted and loved by all kinds of faiths and nationalities? The Times editorial answers: “He was teaching Indians [what? The Bible? No, but] something about contour plowing and crop rotation in the agricultural college there in Allahabad. He was putting emphasis upon selective breeding of [live] stock. He was putting in a great life’s work in the war against hunger. He was teaching young people how better to live in their environment, and how, eventually, to change it. He taught by example rather than by precept. He understood and respected religious faiths other than his own. And he was trusted.” Not a word about imitating Jesus Christ, who moved about from place to place, teaching and preaching publicly and in the homes of the people about spiritual things that transform people into Christians and help them to gain life in God’s swiftly approaching new world.

7. What did the Times say regarding the need of such missionaries, but who does not need such missionaries or give training to meet such need?

⁷ The Times editorial concludes: “We need more missionaries of that sort. They are not easy to find. But the memory of Dr. H———— will be a constant challenge.” Well, now, who is it that needs “more missionaries of that sort”? Not the Watch Tower Bible & Tract Society! Not the New World society of Jehovah’s witnesses! It is true that at the Kingdom Farm on which the Watchtower Bible School of Gilead is located many of you graduating missionaries were set to work after school hours to pick berries or do other agricultural activities or help in the cow barn. But was the Bible School of Gilead training you for agricultural and dairy educational work in your missionary assignment because more “missionaries of that sort” were needed there? Why, even the Russian Communists in their economic offensive against the West in backward lands can send and are sending in educators of that kind as missionaries for communism.

8. How have Communists proved unable to do the work for which Gilead missionaries were trained, and how are these graduates of Gilead the missionaries hard to find?

⁸ But those Russian missionaries of communism who carry forward economic programs—can they do the specific work for which you missionaries were trained at Gilead? Some Communist spies have tried it hypocritically in order to infiltrate into the underground organization of Jehovah’s witnesses behind the Iron Curtain; but those spies and betrayers have failed through a self-exposure of their true identity. Do you missionaries consider that the missionary of Christendom who became famed in India for what he did in materialistic directions is a “constant challenge” to you to go and do likewise? Rather than a “challenge,” you consider his memory to be a warning of what to avoid, in order to specialize on your Bible-defined mission. In reality, YOU are the missionaries that “are not easy to find,” leaving your homes and your homelands, as you have done, and going to Gilead for intensive schooling and offering yourselves to be sent by the Watch Tower Society to wherever in this wide world it sees that you are needed most to “make disciples of people of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the holy spirit, teaching them to observe all the things that I [Jesus] have commanded you.”—Matt. 28:19, 20.

9. What does the word translated “missionary” literally mean, and more missionaries like whom do we need?

⁹ You know the real mission of one who is a Christian missionary in a true sense. You know that this word translated (in some modern translations) missionary literally means “evangelist,” such as the disciple Philip was and such as the widely traveled apostle Paul was, a bearer of the evangel or of the good news. The memories of Philip and of Paul stand as a “constant challenge” to you as regards what a missionary should be. We need more missionaries like them. We are delighted that we have found YOU and that you have offered yourselves and gone through instruction and training at Gilead to be missionaries like Philip and Paul and like Timothy, whom Paul in his farewell message instructed: “Do missionary work, thoroughly accomplish your ministry.”—2 Tim. 4:5.

10. How is the Christian missionary’s errand not an economic-aid program?

¹⁰ The Christian missionary’s errand is not an economic-aid program to various backward countries or handicapped lands. Ours is the more vital religious-aid program, outlined in God’s Holy Word, teaching sheeplike persons of all nations what Jesus taught in his sermon on the mountain, to stop storing up for themselves treasures on earth and to stop being anxious about their soul’s material needs, what to eat, drink and wear, but to trust in the heavenly Father to provide these needs while they keep “seeking first the kingdom and his righteousness.” (Matt. 6:19-33) Our missionaries do this work of education for eternal life. They try to do it in the native people’s own language in order to understand them and for them to understand the missionaries.

11. What comment did the New York Times make on the increased effect of carrying on a work in the native people’s language?

¹¹ The increased effect of carrying on a work in the language of the native people is more and more being appreciated. An American editorial writer suggests that, in order to meet the Communist challenge in the economic-aid war, the American economic-aid program will have to be carried on with communistic skill in execution by carrying it on in the native people’s language and on their level of life. Then the editorial writer says: “Why cannot we send engineers to Burma, for example, who can speak Burmese and who are willing to live simply on the same level as the Burmese people, as do Soviet engineers? Must Americans always live in ‘Golden Ghettoes’ which excite envy and hate?”—New York Times, July 7, 1958.

12. In that respect, how do Gilead graduates not act less wisely than do the “sons of this system of things”?

¹² To proceed this way is to act wisely, because we get the desired effects. Jesus, after giving a certain parable on how to act with forethought and good preparation, added: “The sons of this system of things are wiser in a practical way toward their own generation than the sons of the light are.” (Luke 16:8) The graduates of the Watchtower Bible School of Gilead are not letting the children of this materialistic system of things act more wisely in attaining materialistic ends than the sons of light in the missionary field act in attaining their Christian aim, namely, the gathering in of all the “other sheep” of Jehovah’s Right Shepherd, Jesus Christ, from all nations. Either Gilead students first lay a good foundation for gaining command of the native language of their missionary assignment while they are still in the Bible School of Gilead or else they take an intensive training in the practical use of the new language right after they arrive in their missionary assignment. Although they do seek to have comfortable but unpretentious missionary homes in which to live while carrying on their strenuous work, they do not live a life of leisure there and make the native people come to them or to their Kingdom Halls to get the Kingdom message of salvation.

13. (a) To what extent do the Gilead missionaries get down on the same level as the native people? (b) What power does the Bible truth imparted by the missionary have upon the believing native, and to what does the training given lead?

¹³ Quite to the contrary, you missionaries will go out to the people, into their very homes, and get down on the same level as the people in order to reach them with the Bible truth and impress them. You will not let the modern comforts that you enjoyed at Gilead or may enjoy to some extent in your missionary homes spoil you. You will recall that Jesus did like that. He said: “Foxes have dens and birds of heaven have roosts, but the Son of man has nowhere to lay down his head.” (Matt. 8:20) Thus the natives who are preached to will see Christ imitated in the Christlike missionary. They will be impressed. They see harmony between missionary and Bible. They are not stumbled by any inconsistency of the missionary so as to be hindered from accepting God’s Word. As the natives accept the Bible truth, this not only exerts a transforming power over their personality but also moves them to improve their home conditions and circumstances to agree with the high, clean, wholesome standard of the Bible and of God’s visible organization. Moreover, they accept training from the missionaries and then go forth as trained witnesses of Jehovah to preach the life-giving, life-transforming truth to others, to their own people of like tongue.

14. As regards religion, what do Gilead missionaries respect, but what compromise do they not make to please natives?

¹⁴ Gilead missionaries respect native people’s right to worship as they choose, but they do not compromise as to what is the right religion, the Bible religion. They do not promise or offer to the people some material benefits in order to win them through a selfish appeal. What they appeal to in people is the sincere love of righteousness and truth. They do not mix with ALL religions, as if just sincerity in one’s religious belief is all that is needed for salvation and as if it is the same God that we all worship, only under different names or rites. They do not agree that there is a brotherhood between all religions and that, since there is only one Creator and Life-giver, we are all brothers regardless of our religious beliefs and practices. They make no compromise regarding the Fatherhood of God. They hold to the Bible teaching that He is the Father of only those who come to him through Christ and make a dedication of themselves to the heavenly Father.

15. As pointed up by speakers to graduate student meetings in the University of Massachusetts, why does the appeal to mankind on the claim of the “brotherhood of man” not succeed?

¹⁵ The appealing to mankind in general by teaching the indiscriminate Fatherhood of God to all men and the brotherhood of all men because of a common Creatorhood has not succeeded and never will. Why not? Because it ignores the religious attitudes and beliefs and conduct of the people. The need of universal brotherhood is keenly felt today. At the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, Massachusetts, a series of meetings for graduate students was held. Dr. F. P. Graham, the United Nations representative in India and Pakistan, was the keynote speaker. He made a plea for universal brotherhood in this atomic age, as this was the only thing that could save mankind from destruction by nuclear bombs. However, Dr. Sidney Hook, New York University philosopher, challenged this theory as impractical as long as godlessness existed. Said he: “How can you speak of the brotherhood of man and the fatherhood of God when some of those you are dealing with don’t even believe in God?” Hence he thought it might be more effective to handle the matter on a scientific basis than on a religious basis. And even if we all agreed as to what was an ideal education, “what bearing,” said he, “would it have on the difficulties confronting the United Nations, in view of the intransigence of those who refused to live up to agreements?” (New York Times, July 15, 1958) So the ideas and theories of the world, even those of Christendom, do not work, do not prove practical.

16. Why is brotherhood not possible with this world but with whom is it proved possible by actual practice, and why?

¹⁶ Human brotherhood, though, is possible and practical, even at the present time, regardless of racial and national, language and color differences. It is possible, not by flesh and blood ties, but by God’s spirit and his Word. That is why this world can never build up a binding human brotherhood between peoples, between worldlings and worldlings, as it can never rightly claim the Fatherhood of God as a basis for it, unless by this claim the world means the fatherhood of the Devil, the god of this system of things. For when those who were opposed to Jesus said: “We have one Father, God,” Jesus replied: “You are from your father the Devil and you wish to do the desires of your father. . . . He that is from God listens to the sayings of God. This is why you do not listen, because you are not from God.” (John 8:41-44, 47) Whereas brotherhood is not possible with this world, it is possible with those today listening to the sayings of God. That is why this spiritual brotherhood under the Fatherhood of Jehovah God has actually been realized and is now being enjoyed by the New World society of Jehovah’s witnesses, which encircles the globe.

17. How do the Gilead missionaries expand the true brotherhood under Jehovah God?

¹⁷ You missionaries are going forth to expand that brotherhood under our heavenly Father Jehovah God. You are going forth to find those who will listen to the sayings of God, that these may be taken into this loving brotherhood. But to this end, you must make sure that what you let these sheeplike people listen to is really the “sayings of God,” his teachings in his Holy Word the Bible, that these other sheep may recognize only one heavenly Father, Jehovah, and only one Leader under Jehovah, Jesus Christ. If we all listen to the same sayings of God, then we can have all one mind and one heart. We can all have the same spirit and do the same work.

18. By whom really are these missionaries sent forth, and how are they much more highly privileged than John the Baptist?

¹⁸ This is your mission. This is your work as missionaries. And just think, you are sent forth as missionaries by the Kingdom of God that rules. What a dignity you hold! Why, you missionaries are sent forth as representatives of a government that is higher than the highest of the earthly governments. Nineteen centuries ago John the Baptist was privileged to announce the prospective King, Jesus in the flesh. From that standpoint John made the wilderness ring with the spine-tingling announcement, “The kingdom of the heavens has drawn near.” And because of John’s official honor and privilege, Jesus said that no prophet prior to that time was greater than John the Baptist. (Matt. 11:11) But you missionaries, ah, you are clothed with the dignity of announcing and introducing among the nations the reigning King, Jesus Christ in the spirit, immortal, divine, the reflection of God’s glory, and having a “name more excellent than” that of all the angels. (Heb. 1:3, 4) How much more highly privileged YOU are than even John the Baptist! How this dignity of service ennobles the missionary work that you have to do!

19. Why does their working among the lowliest housing quarters not degrade their dignity, but how could they actually degrade it?

¹⁹ You may have to work among the lowliest housing quarters in which many people in your missionary assignment have to live, yet your dignity is not taken away from you. You do not degrade or belittle or ruin your Kingdom dignity by going to the lowly homes of these poor people, from house to house, instead of to the governmental embassies, the consulates and the palaces of the rulers and political representatives of this world. Jesus the now reigning King did not degrade his dignity on earth by going among the lowly, poor, knocked-about people; neither do you. You never degrade your Kingdom dignity even amidst the most squalid places, as long as you obediently, lovingly proclaim God’s now ruling kingdom. You can only degrade and soil your Kingdom dignity by doing wrong, by committing immorality, by going worldly and by not upholding the lofty, noble standards for which God’s ruling kingdom stands. To do such things would mean to lose your precious governmental service.

20. May those missionaries increase what appreciation on their own part and on “other sheep’s” part, with what end in view?

²⁰ May you never lose this service. May you increase your own appreciation of the lofty dignity of your Kingdom ministry, and may you increase the “other sheep’s” appreciation of the theocratic government that you serve in your missionary assignments. May such appreciation ever sustain and uphold you in a righteous, pure course and in faithfulness to your heavenly government. Oh, may you therefore do as Paul did, glorify your ministry by fulfilling your true mission and walking worthily. (Rom. 11:13) Thus may you missionaries all continue in the royal governmental service till the kingdoms of this world are no more and God’s kingdom rules victoriously in the eternal new world.

21. What high honor do all we dedicated ones have today, and who are extraordinarily happy in this connection?

²¹ In the light of the foregoing address to graduating missionaries, what a high honor we have today to be true evangelists to bring to distressed humanity the best news in all the universe! It is the news of God’s established kingdom, now ruling in the heavens for ridding this earth of Satan’s death-dealing domination and for blessing people of good will in all nations by the Seed of God’s woman. This is the “everlasting good news.” It is the will of the great Evangelist Jehovah God that it be preached among all mankind. Exalted is the privilege of those who now have a part in it. Extraordinarily happy are all those who, like the graduates of the missionary training school of Gilead, arrange their life’s affairs to devote all their time to being evangelists, bearers of the best news of all times concerning God’s kingdom that will continue ruling in glory forever and ever.

[Footnotes]

Serving the Interests of God’s Perfect Government

WHAT an example the apostle Paul left for us of one serving the interests of God’s perfect government, his heavenly kingdom!—Acts 28:31.

Note some of the ways in which Paul set us a good example: Upon his conversion he lost no time but “immediately in the synagogues he began to preach.” Having learned of God’s perfect government, did we at once begin telling others about it or are we still hesitating?—Acts 9:20.

Paul not only published but also made return visits upon those whom he had interested in God’s kingdom, as we read: “Now after some days Paul said to Barnabas: ‘Above all things, let us return and visit the brothers in every one of the cities in which we published the word of Jehovah to see how they are.’” Do we, “above all things,” make return visits upon all to whom we first preached about God’s perfect government?—Acts 15:36.

Although Paul had to contend with a twofold government, the Jewish polity of Palestine and the Roman world empire, he at no time compromised but continued to fight to defend and legally establish the good news, even appealing to Caesar. Do we show the same uncompromising spirit when we come in conflict with modern Caesars?—Acts 25:11; Phil. 1:7.

Note also Paul’s example of endurance. He was able to recommend himself as God’s minister by preaching with the greatest freeness of speech and continuing therein in spite of prisons, stripes, beatings, stoning, shipwrecks, hunger, nakedness, cold and all manner of dangers, in cities, in the wilderness and at sea. Do we continue serving God’s kingdom in spite of all trials?—2 Cor. 6:4; 11:21-32.

Because of all this Paul could say, as he did to the Corinthians: “You yourselves are our letter, inscribed on our hearts and known and being read by all mankind.” Do we have like letters of recommendation? Can we point to the fruits of our labors as proof that we are ministers of God’s government?—2 Cor. 3:2.

Among the many ways we can imitate Paul during the month of April is by offering to all we can the two magazines that tell about God’s perfect government, The Watchtower and Awake!

Part 11—“Your Will Be Done on Earth”

In keeping with its title Chapter 4 has presented “foregleams of God’s kingdom,” calling attention to how King-Priest Melchizedek of Salem and Kings David and Solomon of Jerusalem were prophetic prefigurements of Jehovah’s anointed Ruler of the coming Kingdom of God, Jesus Christ. From the beginning Jehovah God was the invisible King of the nation of Israel, but he granted that nation to have visible human kings as his earthly representatives on the “throne of Jehovah” at Jerusalem Because of King David’s godly devotion to Him, Jehovah God made a covenant for the kingdom according to which the kingship was to continue in David’s royal line until the coming of the promised Seed of God’s woman to whom the kingship would belong forever. In 607 B.C., because of the bad conduct of the succeeding kings of Israel, the earthly kingdom was overturned, never to be re-established. Even when Jesus Christ rode triumphally into Jerusalem, the kingdom was not set up anew at that city. After Jesus’ resurrection from the dead and just before he ascended back to heaven, his disciples asked him but he refused to tell them when the kingdom would be restored.

24. Why did Christ’s disciples not wait in Jerusalem for God’s kingdom to be established, and how does Revelation 12:17 show that Satan was not crushed under their feet at Jerusalem’s destruction?

²⁴ The faithful disciples of Christ did not stay in Jerusalem waiting for the kingdom of God to be restored there to Israel. They knew that the rightful Heir to God’s kingdom then sat at Jehovah’s right hand in heaven. So they went out witnessing to Christ, going out from Jerusalem. In the year 70 (A.D.) the Roman armies under General Titus destroyed Jerusalem and its temple of Herod; but in good time before the horrible destruction the Christians yet in Jerusalem fled from the doomed city and escaped perishing with it. They acted on Jesus’ instructions, in Luke 21:20-24. The apostle Paul had written before that to the Christian congregation in Rome: “The God who gives peace will crush Satan under your feet shortly.” (Rom. 16:20) But that crushing of God’s great adversary under their feet did not occur at the destruction of unfaithful Jerusalem A.D. 70. More than twenty-five years afterward the Revelation to John concerning the “things that must shortly take place” warned Christians that the original Serpent would persecute God’s “woman” ferociously and would make war upon her spiritual children on earth, the spiritual brothers of the Lord Jesus Christ.—Rev. 12:17.

25. What question do we today ask concerning the bruising of the Serpent and concerning the kingdom of the Serpent-Bruiser?

²⁵ In the Revelation John heard the souls of faithful Christians who had been slaughtered because of God’s Word and because of the witness work that they used to do cry out: “Until when, Sovereign Lord holy and true, are you refraining from judging and avenging our blood upon those who dwell on the earth? “ (Rev. 6:9, 10) And even today we ask, When will the Seed of God’s woman bruise the wicked Serpent in the head? How long was it to be from the ruin of the typical kingdom of God in 607 B.C. until God’s heavenly kingdom is established by giving it to the Serpent-Bruiser, the Seed of God’s woman, who has the right to it?

26. When did the trampling down of the capital city of the typical kingdom of God begin, and how do we know that the trampling had not ceased even in Jesus’ own days on earth?

²⁶ At its ruin in 607 B.C. the capital city of the typical kingdom of God began to be trodden down, trampled upon by the non-Jewish nations, King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon starting off this trampling. Jerusalem was founded anew in 537 B.C. by the faithful remnant that returned from exile in Babylon to their desolated land. But the trampling of Jerusalem underfoot by the non-Jewish nations continued. Jesus predicted the destruction of the rebuilt Jerusalem within the days of his apostles. The Roman armies in the Middle East did this destructive work in a few months in 70 (A.D.). But Jesus said that the trampling would continue on beyond that. For how long? Hear his words: “There will be great necessity upon the land and wrath on this people, and they will fall by the edge of the sword and be led captive into all the nations, and Jerusalem will be trampled on by the nations, until the appointed times of the nations are fulfilled.”—Luke 21:23, 24.

27. What did the Jerusalem that began to be trampled in 607 B.C. stand for, and so what would the end of the trampling at God’s appointed time mean?

²⁷ Back in 607 B.C. the Jerusalem that was overthrown stood for the kingdom of God because it had the typical throne of Jehovah on which the anointed one of Jehovah sat as his king. Likewise, the Jerusalem that is trampled upon by worldly nations stands for the kingdom of God. In his own days on earth Jesus said these words as a part of his Sermon on the Mount: “Do not swear at all, neither by heaven, because it is God’s throne; nor by earth, because it is the footstool of his feet; nor by Jerusalem, because it is the city of the great King.” (Matt. 5:34, 35) So the end of the trampling down of Jerusalem at the complete fulfillment of the “appointed times of the nations” would mean the rising again of symbolic Jerusalem, namely, the kingdom of God. It would mean the giving of the kingdom of God to the great Heir of King David, who used to sit on Jehovah’s throne in Jerusalem of old. It would mean that this Heir would begin to reign because he has the right to do so in harmony with the Kingdom covenant that Jehovah God made with King David.

“THE APPOINTED TIMES OF THE NATIONS”

28. How many are the “times” during which Jerusalem was to be trampled down, and through whose dream do we know?

²⁸ It is vital, then, to know the length of these “appointed times of the nations.” How many times are there? How long does each time last? In the Holy Scriptures the number seven is used as a symbol of spiritual completeness or perfection. Did not seven days make up God’s complete creative week? So, through the apocalyptic book of Daniel, God informs us that the appointed times of the nations for trampling Jerusalem underfoot are seven, a complete number. He sent to King Nebuchadnezzar a dream that none of the scientists, wise men and religious leaders of Babylon could interpret. Finally Daniel the prophet of Jehovah was called. Frightened King Nebuchadnezzar told Daniel the details of the dream and encouraged him not to be afraid of telling the straight truth about the meaning. Daniel, whom the king had named Belteshazzar, said:

29. With what identification did Daniel start off interpreting the dream?

²⁹ “My lord, may the dream be for those who hate you and its interpretation for your enemies! The tree you saw, which grew and became strong, so that its top reached to heaven, and it was visible to the end of the whole earth; whose leaves were fair and its fruit abundant, and in which was food for all; under which beasts of the field found shade, and in whose branches the birds of the air dwelt—it is you, O king, who have grown and become strong. Your greatness has grown and reaches to heaven, and your dominion to the ends of the earth.”—Dan. 4:19-22, RS.

30. Of what was King Nebuchadnezzar a symbol at that time and why did he then and the other nations to follow not have interference from the kingdom of God?

³⁰ The dream tree had a personal application to the dreamer, in the first place. But Nebuchadnezzar had been permitted by Jehovah God the Almighty to establish Babylon as a world power. It was a successor to the first and second world powers, namely, Egypt and Assyria. This Babylonian world power commanded worldwide attention and respect. So Nebuchadnezzar was a symbol of something greater than just himself. He stood as a symbol of world dominance, which, at the moment, he was exercising by permission and according to the purpose of the Most High God. Jehovah God had used him in executing divine vengeance upon the unfaithful nation of Judah, overthrowing its kingdom, and thus beginning the “appointed times of the nations,” during which Jerusalem must be trampled on by such worldly nations. On this account Babylon and the other nations that were to follow during the “appointed times” did not have the interference of the kingdom of Jehovah God even in a typical way. As a national power the typical kingdom of God was cut off.

31. What was to be done with the symbolic tree, and how much time was to pass in connection with it?

³¹ Daniel continued: “And whereas the king saw a watcher, a holy one, coming down from heaven and saying, ‘Hew down the tree and destroy it, but leave the stump of its roots in the earth, bound with a band of iron and bronze, in the tender grass of the field; and let him be wet with the dew of heaven; and let his lot be with the beasts of the field, till seven times pass over him;’ this is the interpretation, O king.”—Dan. 4:23, 24, RS.

32. In simplest meaning, what did that picture, and what happened to Babylon’s governmental organization in the meantime?

³² In the simplest meaning, this pictured that Nebuchadnezzar himself would be toppled from his position of world dominance but would not be destroyed to the point of never getting back into power. The “stump” of him would remain in the earth, but would be banded from growth or expansion for the duration of “seven times.” Meanwhile the governmental organization of Babylon kept on working, only not with Nebuchadnezzar active in the throne. His son Evil-meródach may have carried on for him as acting government head.

33. What was the real world domination that was cut down, and who went up into the domination?

³³ In the larger meaning of the chopped-down tree, world dominance by the rightful one was cut down. Only the kingdom of God has the right to world domination. Only the anointed king of Jehovah has the God-given right to rule the entire earth, even as the kingdom of Israel had ruled all the Promised Land during the years of its faithfulness to God. But that typical kingdom of God went down in 607 B.C. and world-conquering Nebuchadnezzar went up into domination over all the Promised Land. In this international change the low-spreading vine, King Zedekiah of Judah, was pulled up by the roots and stripped of fruit, his sons being killed. (Ezek. 17:5-10, 20, 21, AS) God’s kingdom covenant then turned to someone else as heir.

34. What did Daniel’s interpretation then say concerning King Nebuchadnezzar?

³⁴ Daniel’s interpretation continued: “It is a decree of the Most High, which has come upon my lord the king, that you shall be driven from among men, and your dwelling shall be with the beasts of the field; you shall be made to eat grass like an ox, and you shall be wet with the dew of heaven, and seven times shall pass over you, till you know that the Most High rules the kingdom of men, and gives it to whom he will. And as it was commanded to leave the stump of the roots of the tree, your kingdom shall be sure for you from the time that you know that Heaven rules.”—Dan. 4:24-26, RS.

35. During the seven times upon King Nebuchadnezzar, what was to be kept safe for him, and during the corresponding abasement of Jerusalem’s kingdom, what was to continue in force?

³⁵ Nebuchadnezzar was to make a personal exhibition of God’s handling of governmental matters respecting the earth. During this personal exhibition, however, Nebuchadnezzar’s world-dominating position, like the tree stump, was to be kept safe for him till he came to his senses after the passing of seven times over him. Likewise, in 607 B.C. the kingdom of Jehovah as represented typically by the kingdom of Jerusalem was to be abased, cut down. It was then to continue in this lowly state, not carrying on governmental functions, for the period of “seven times.” During all this period, however, the kingdom covenant made by Jehovah with King David for an everlasting kingdom was to continue binding upon Jehovah God and awaiting complete fulfillment with the rightful Heir.

36. A year later, how was the dream as interpreted literally fulfilled upon Nebuchadnezzar personally?

³⁶ Twelve months after Daniel’s interpretation Nebuchadnezzar was bragging about Babylon as a world power. Then a heavenly voice said: “O King Nebuchadnezzar, to you it is spoken: The kingdom has departed from you, and you shall be driven from among men, and your dwelling shall be with the beasts of the field; and you shall be made to eat grass like an ox; and seven times shall pass over you, until you have learned that the Most High rules the kingdom of men and gives it to whom he will.” At once the mightiest ruler on earth in that day lost his reason and imagined he was a beast, possibly an ox. “He was driven from among men, and ate grass like an ox, and his body was wet with the dew of heaven till his hair grew as long as eagles’ feathers, and his nails were like birds’ claws.” His bragging about himself and exalting Babylon above the kingdom of God deserved to be corrected, and Nebuchadnezzar’s false god Merodach or Marduk was helpless to prevent it. While the “seven times” were passing over him in this condition, he was acting like a dumb beast of the field; but iniquities and oppressions continued to be practiced by Babylon’s acting government.—Dan. 4:28-33, RS.

37. During the larger “seven times,” how have worldly rulers acted like Nebuchadnezzar, and with what effect upon the people?

³⁷ In like manner, while government of mankind has been continued by worldly political systems during the larger “seven times” since the ruin of God’s typical kingdom of Judah in 607 B.C., the rulers not in God’s covenant for the kingdom have acted like crazed Nebuchadnezzar. They have not acted like man made in God’s image. Hence all peoples, not merely Jehovah’s witnesses, have suffered.

38. What did Nebuchadnezzar say happened at the end of the “seven times” for him?

³⁸ What happened at the end of Nebuchadnezzar’s “seven times”? He tells us: “At the end of the days I, Nebuchadnezzar, lifted my eyes to heaven, and my reason returned to me, and I blessed the Most High, and praised and honored him who lives for ever; for his dominion is an everlasting dominion, and his kingdom endures from generation to generation; all the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing; and he does according to his will [where?] in the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay his hand or say to him, ‘What doest thou?’ At the same time my reason returned to me; and for the glory of my kingdom, my majesty and splendor returned to me. My counselors and my lords sought me, and I was established in my kingdom, and still more greatness was added to me. Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and extol and honor the King of heaven; for all his works are right and his ways are just; and those who walk in pride he is able to abase.” (Dan. 4:34-37, RS) Nebuchadnezzar made this acknowledgment, not of the false god Marduk, but of Daniel’s God, Jehovah.

39. In Nebuchadnezzar’s personal case, how long, at most, were those “seven times,” but why could not this be the case as regards the trampling down of Jerusalem?

³⁹ Nebuchadnezzar is reported to have reigned for forty-three years. So these “seven times” of insanity in between must have been seven years at the most, in his personal case. In the Holy Bible a “time” is used in places to stand for a literal year. (Dan. 7:25; 12:7, AV; Rev. 12:6, 14; 11:2, 3) But here Nebuchadnezzar was acting out a prophetic drama, in which a year of time would stand for a much longer period. This must be so, for the trampling down of Jerusalem as representing Jehovah’s kingdom did not end at the end of Nebuchadnezzar’s insanity; and six centuries later Jesus Christ said that Jerusalem would continue being trodden down or trampled on by the nations till the appointed times of the Gentile nations should be fulfilled. How long, then, are these “seven times”?

40. (a) By the Bible’s lunar count of time, how long would be a literal “time” in prophecy? (b) Hence, how long would be a symbolic “time,” and when would the “seven times” of the nations end?

⁴⁰ The Bible measures by lunar time when speaking of months and years. In Nebuchadnezzar’s case a “time” stood for a lunar year, the average of which was reckoned as 360 days. Actually, a twelve-month lunar year was eleven days shorter than the average solar year. This required the lunar calendar to add a thirteenth month of twenty-nine days to certain years, in order to bring the calendar in agreement with the solar calendar. Addition of a thirteenth month was done seven times in every nineteen years. When speaking of longer periods of time, God said that a day should stand for a whole year. On this basis, then, a lunar year of 360 days would stand for 360 years, “a day for a year, a day for a year.” (Num. 14:34; Ezek. 4:6, AV) Therefore a symbolic “time” would amount to 360 years. “Seven times,” symbolically speaking, would amount to 2,520 literal years. The “seven times” or seven years of Nebuchadnezzar’s madness thus predicted a period of 2,520 years. Since the Holy Bible shows that these “seven times” or 2,520 years began in the early fall of the year 607 B.C., then the “appointed times of the nations” would end in the early fall of the year 1914 (A.D.).

41. (a) In what way was the tree stump double-banded in Nebuchadnezzar’s case, and what kind of ruler was he on returning to the throne? (b) What did this picture with regard to the kingdom covenant?

⁴¹ During all those years since 607 B.C. the kingdom of Jehovah God had not been operating by means of an anointed descendant of King David according to the kingdom covenant. It had been like a cutdown tree, with no creatures under it or in its branches. The kingdom covenant was like that tree stump left in the earth. It was double-banded by Jehovah’s restraining power until “seven times” should have passed over it. Likewise, Nebuchadnezzar could not regain his sanity and come back in fit condition to his throne in the Babylonian Empire to dominate the world until the decreed “seven times” or seven years had ended. Then it was a ruler who acknowledged the King of heaven, Daniel’s God, that returned to the throne and was established in the kingdom with glory, majesty and splendor and “still more greatness.” In like fashion the Kingdom covenant could not get final and complete fulfillment until the “seven times” of 2,520 years had passed over it. Then the time would come for God to remove his bands of restraint. Then the time would come for him to re-establish the kingdom with a descendant of the anointed King David. Then the kingdom should be given to the one who had the right to it by Jehovah’s kingdom covenant.

(To be continued)

Will Many Now Living Never Die?

Why do humans die? What basis is there for hoping to live forever?

IN 1912 Alexis Carrel placed a piece of live tissue from the heart of a chicken in a special solution. Thirty-four years later it was still alive, healthy and young. The tissue was finally allowed to die because the experiment had fulfilled its usefulness. A similar experiment was performed with the entire heart of a rat by the Pasteur Institute in Paris. The heart was removed from the rat and kept alive for more than two years. Its tissues showed no signs of degenerating.

Regarding these experiments Boris Sokoloff stated in his book Science and the Purpose of Life: “It is generally accepted that in principle all, or almost all, types of normal cells could live indefinitely if cultivated in the proper medium. . . . Cells of the mammalian organism are potentially immortal . . . These as well as many other experiments demonstrate that the organs of higher organisms can live indefinitely if they receive proper nutritive substances.”

These findings prove that eternal life is not an impossibility for a fleshly organism. This is further indicated by the ability of the human body to renew or replace its cells. Reader’s Digest stated in its issue of June, 1958: “It is estimated that half of all the body’s protein—mainly muscle tissue—is replaced every 80 days. The life span of the skin cell is four to five days. New skin is steadily forming from underneath and pushing to the surface where it dies and is washed away.”

In view of these findings why does the human body die? Why does it not live on indefinitely? That is what puzzles many scientists.

WHY HUMANS TODAY EXPERIENCE DEATH

When man was created, God set no limit on his life span as was done with animals. Man had the prospect of eternal life ahead of him. His body was designed to continue functioning indefinitely. Because of disobedience the first man lost that prospect. A limit was now set to his life span that he could not exceed although his body had the potential of being able to live forever. That limit was a symbolic day of one thousand years. When telling man not to eat of a certain tree God said: “In the day you eat from it you will positively die.” (Gen. 2:17) Adam died within that thousand-year day at the age of 930 years.

Adam could not pass on to his offspring what he no longer had. He could not give them an endless life span. All his descendants have inherited his sin and its companion, death, just as certain diseases may be inherited from one’s parents. “That is why, just as through one man sin entered into the world and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men because they had all sinned.”—Rom. 5:12.

It is because of this fact that no descendant of Adam has been born perfect. “Who can produce someone clean out of someone unclean? There is not one.” (Job 14:4) Just as the first human pair could not produce perfect, sinless children, neither could any descended from them produce such children. There was absolutely no way that man could free himself from the effects of Adam’s sin and never die. “Not one of them can by any means redeem even a brother, nor give to God a ransom for him.”—Ps. 49:7.

MUST REGAIN WHAT ADAM LOST FOR FREEDOM FROM DEATH

Man can look only to God for release from Adamic sin and death. He alone can open the way for man to regain the perfection and the prospect of an endless life that Adam lost. God did this by providing his only-begotten Son as a ransom sacrifice. The life force of the first spirit creature Jehovah created was transferred to the earth to the womb of a woman, that he might be born as a human. “But when the full limit of the time arrived, God sent forth his Son, who was produced out of a woman and who came to be under law.”—Gal. 4:4.

By being born as a human whose life force did not come from Adam he was perfect. He did not inherit Adam’s sin or the curse of death. He had the right to eternal human life. But he sacrificed this right as the ransom price for freeing obedient humans from Adamic sin and death. “Just as the Son of man came, not to be ministered to, but to minister and to give his soul a ransom in exchange for many.” (Matt. 20:28) Since he purchased the lost human life right by his sacrifice, all who desire to be freed from death must get that freedom through him. “Everyone putting faith in him gets forgiveness of sins through his name.”—Acts 10:43.

WHY MANY LIVING TODAY MAY NEVER DIE

Because Christ opened the way for men to regain the endless life that was the prospect of the first man it is possible for many living today never to die. This is so because we are living at a time when there will be a big change on this earth. We are living in the last days of this world, or system of things. It is due to be destroyed by Jehovah God and replaced with a new and righteous system of things. “For here Jehovah himself comes as fire itself, and his chariots are like a stormwind, in order to pay back his anger with sheer rage and his rebuke with flames of fire. For as fire Jehovah himself will for a fact take up the controversy, yes, with his sword, against all flesh, and the slain of Jehovah will certainly become many.”—Isa. 66:15, 16.

The present generation has been witnessing since 1914 the world events that were foretold long ago as marking the last days of this world or wicked system of things. We are rapidly nearing the “war of the great day of God the Almighty” called Armageddon. (Rev. 16:14, 16) That is when he will execute his adverse judgment upon the world. It will be a thorough cleansing of wickedness from the earth.

Those persons living until Armageddon and who receive God’s approval will, like Noah and his family who survived the flood, be preserved through that time of God’s wrath. “For the upright are the ones that will reside in the earth, and the blameless are the ones that will be left over in it. As regards the wicked, they will be cut off from the very earth; and as for the treacherous, they will be torn away from it.”—Prov. 2:21, 22.

The opportunity to be among the survivors of Armageddon is now being extended to earth’s inhabitants by the worldwide preaching of the good news of God’s kingdom. It is heralding the rule of God’s kingdom and the coming destruction of this present wicked system of things. The people are separated according to how they react to it. It is a dividing work that was foretold by Jesus when he said: “When the Son of man arrives in his glory and all the angels with him, then he will sit down on his glorious throne. And all the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another, just as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. And he will put the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on his left.”—Matt. 25:31-33.

The persons who respond favorably to the good news of the Kingdom are likened to sheep. They are meek and teachable and show a willingness to follow the Good Shepherd, Christ Jesus. These sheeplike persons form a New World society. It is an active society that zealously proclaims that God’s kingdom is now established in the heavens and will shortly usher in a new world of righteousness.

By maintaining integrity to Jehovah God the members of this New World society will be permitted to live when this old system of things is divinely destroyed. With the earth then under the rule of God’s kingdom, and by virtue of Christ’s ransom sacrifice, a rejuvenating of earth’s inhabitants will begin that will eventually bring them to perfection.

The miraculous cures that Jesus performed when on earth can be considered as examples of what he will do on an earth-wide scale for the Armageddon survivors. Even as they experience spiritual healing now, so they will be healed of physical sicknesses and diseases in God’s new world. “And no resident will say: ‘I am sick.’ The people that are dwelling in the land will be those pardoned for their error.” (Isa. 33:24) They will cease to suffer because of inherited sin from Adam.

Their life spans will be extended to the full length of a symbolic day of one thousand years. As Adam lost his perfection and died within that day, they will gain perfection and be freed from inherited death within such day. This will be during Christ’s thousand-year reign. “For he must rule as king until God has put all enemies under his feet. As the last enemy, death is to be destroyed.”—1 Cor. 15:25, 26.

At the close of the thousand years they will be subjected to a test of their integrity. Those passing it will be given the gift of eternal life. They will continue living on a paradisaic earth, enjoying a peace and a sense of security that only God’s kingdom could bring. Those who fail to pass the test will cease to exist. Because there are multitudes living today who will still be living when the gift of eternal life is given to obedient humans they will never experience death.

But how can a person be of this group? He must heed the good news of God’s kingdom. “Whoever has ears to listen, let him listen.” (Mark 4:23) It means life to pay attention to what God tells us through his written Word and his faithful servants. Associate with the multitudes who are living for Jehovah’s new world and who now form a New World society. Serve Jehovah, his King and the Kingdom alongside these dedicated witnesses of the Most High. Embrace their Scriptural hope and be among the many persons now living who will never die.

Pursuing My Purpose in Life

As told by Alice Berner

DECEMBER 13, 1958: Guess what happened today? Do you remember the lovely postcard released at the Divine Will International Assembly showing the new addition to the Wiesbaden Bethel? Well, what about peeping into its new Kingdom Hall being inaugurated today? What a crowd of people streaming into it! It is very much like the beautiful paintings in this hall show, where thousands of happy people stream to the mountain of God’s kingdom. And opposite that wall look at the long row of windows toward the woods; but since it is evening, instead of green fir trees in the woods, see the beautiful blue and yellow curtains drawn. And on the bright front wall read in a decorative script the timely message: “Happy is the one that stays awake and keeps his outer garments.”—Rev. 16:15.

A festive spirit is reigning this evening, awakened by the enthusiasm of a lively orchestra. After some introductory words and a film about the erecting of the building, the Branch servant, Brother Franke, in stimulating words now speaks to the crowd about the first postwar Kingdom Hall in Germany, a stable where they gathered after their concentration camp experiences, and another one, the Zeppelin Wiese at Nuremberg, where they triumphantly met on the very day that those who had been their torturers in the concentration camps received their sentences. Our newly dedicated hall now is destined to be a real Bible educational center.

But how is it that I am here among all these hard fighters for the truth? Let me tell you my story.

Born in Switzerland and brought up by God-fearing parents, as a young girl I learned Psalm 103 by heart, and ever since, the words, “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name,” have been a source of strength to me. What that name really meant I was to learn later on.

In 1919, in a neighboring town at a private home where I used to go for lunch, I got my first glimpse of the truth. What those good people told me about the Bible was simply amazing. Never before had I heard of Christ’s second presence as a fact, about the soul being mortal and about the dead returning to the earth. Full of curiosity, I started reading the first volume of the Studies in the Scriptures, and when I had read the passage about the narrow and the broad way, I then and there decided to leave the way of the many and to turn to the way of the few.

What a busy time followed! There were seven volumes to be read. New questions arose continually and new satisfactory answers were given me. However, the Devil got busy too. First my folks tried to hold me back, then two ministers of the National Church made great efforts to keep me in their fold, but it was of no use. Having once tasted how good the truth is, I stuck to it, and all the opposition only deepened my desire to acquire accurate knowledge by looking up every scripture as I studied the Society’s publications. After six months I was baptized. Right from the beginning I felt an urge to spread the good news. Timidly I began distributing tracts in the train and from house to house.

Early in 1923 an article appeared in The Watch Tower entitled “Are You Using His Pound?” that grasped my attention. Now the idea of full-time service entered my mind But I being the youngest child and the only one left at home with my parents, and they growing older and needing some attention, the question arose: Would it be right to leave them for Jehovah’s work? Of course, I read in Matthew 10:37: “He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me,” but another commandment was: “Honor thy father and mother.” (AV) So I continually prayed that God might show me the right way. Strange as it sounds, it was only when I recognized the great need for laborers in the expanding work and had made up my mind to enter full-time service anyway, sooner or later, that the Lord came to my help, strengthening me to take the necessary steps.

Thus in January, 1924, I plunged into the waters of pioneer service. Thrilled beyond description that Jehovah had taken me into his service, I used to march over the hills bordering the lovely lake of Zürich proclaiming good tidings. I had the joy of placing a lot of books, mainly The Harp of God, and so it was almost a test when I was called away from open-air service to Bethel at Zürich, where the Swiss German Branch was then located. In the spring of 1925 we moved to Berne, since the office was being fused with the office for French Switzerland. For me this meant increased opportunities for theocratic fellowship.

After a year of interesting work in which my office training was very useful to me, I got a call from father saying that mother was ill, and a few months later I stood at her bier beside my desolate father and some of the relatives who tried to persuade me that my first Christian duty was now to come home. Had I then in my love toward my earthly father acted impulsively, I might have failed in my supreme love toward my heavenly Father. Certainly Jehovah saw my intense desire to stay at my post, and he heard my prayer and helped me again. How could I have left the service then when a time of blessedness began in that very year of 1926? (Dan. 12:12) All theocratic activity looked flourishing and prosperous. Years of intense work and greater responsibilities at Bethel followed. During weekends we not only worked in the German-speaking field but expanded our proclaiming work into French Switzerland and from there even into France to find the lost sheep there. And what happy outings these were!

Quite naturally though, I also had some trying experiences. First my father died, and I felt very much alone. Then the Devil tried all sorts of schemes to dampen my joy. Of course, there were many brothers around and, being by nature rather impulsive, I surely had to fight hard to keep myself in proper bounds, as I did not want to get myself bound by personal ties that could interfere with pursuing my purpose in life, and that cost me something. Furthermore, my health seemed to fail, and during the three months of recovery, when I was absent from busy Bethel life, I sometimes felt as if God had forsaken me. But His mercy and goodness soon returned. This time He filled my hands with other interesting work somewhere else—in the Paris office. In those early 1930’s many English pioneers had come over to France, helping to expand the work there, and I came into close contact with them and still remember the companionship we enjoyed. It was not long though until difficulties arose, for I was refused extension of my residence permit as “undesirable” due to my association with the Society.

Can’t you see us now—a dear Swiss pioneer sister beside me—sitting in a compartment of the express train speeding toward Belgium? At Mons, a Catholic town not very far from the French border, we settled down to real pioneering, as no publishers lived there at all. And how amusing some of our experiences were! Then I was called back to Paris again for a few months and traveled back and forth between Belgium and France, until, in 1935, the Society called me home to Berne again.

The years before World War II were times of tension for the Swiss brothers too, because they sympathized very much with their brothers in Germany, their neighbors who, because of their faith, had to suffer so much. Then, at the beginning of July, 1940, the big attack came against the Society in Switzerland, on the same day as in Canada and in other places. I still see that truckload of soldiers surrounding the Berne Bethel and overrunning it as if hunting for criminals. A hard fight for the truth ensued during the war years, but Jehovah graciously held his hand over the place so that the enemies could not close it down as they had intended, and thus we could continue sending out food for the “sheep.”

How to get this food in a time when the English Watchtower stopped reaching us was now a problem. But Jehovah’s hand is not shortened. He provided a new means of obtaining this fresh water. It meant work, but imagine our joy when, after some hard digging to get the news from the temple through a foreign language, we saw bubbling forth some clear water of truth. For almost two years the stream from headquarters that had stopped was replaced by this new river.

At that time news leaked through that a theocratic school, Gilead, had been established, and that sisters as well as brothers could attend. My, how my heart leaped! It is impossible to describe my excitement when finally, in the spring of 1946, a cablegram advised me to get ready for the big voyage to the Cleveland convention and when, soon afterward, a letter from the president’s office of the Society invited me to attend Gilead!

With pleasure I remember the trip through the blue waters of the Mediterranean on to Gibraltar and across the ocean to America, where on a lovely morning we found ourselves on the sparkling waters of New York harbor. And here in truth and fact was Brooklyn before me, the place on which my thoughts had dwelt so many times before. When seeing the big factory and Bethel, I indeed realized that the half had not been told me.

Then to my first mammoth assembly in Cleveland, and from there on to Gilead. I often have experienced in Jehovah’s service that undescribable blessings follow a time of extremely hard work. This is what happened also at Gilead. By a fuller measure of God’s spirit we got a deeper insight into the Bible truths, a keener vision of the world-wide organization and felt warmer love toward all the brothers—all of which tended to make life richer. The accurate knowledge of the deep things of God’s Word learned there accompanies one and is a constant help in the ministry later as the spirit brings back the many principles impressed on one’s mind.

And my assignment? Once more, dear old Switzerland. Years filled with incessant office work and experiences requiring watchfulness and endurance followed, but in between, look! like jewels in a chain of hard work, the two international conventions of 1950 and 1953 in New York, and—as if money did not count—I was privileged to attend both. Later on, in 1955, I saw the stream of brothers from other lands visiting us in Europe in order to attend the different conventions here, passing also through Berne on their trip to Nuremberg. Yes, I, too, was at Nuremberg and it was certainly a happy foretaste of what was in store for me. For around that time I was asked if I was willing to leave my country and go and help in the work at the Wiesbaden Bethel. Isaiah’s words, “Here am I; send me,” quickly came to mind, but strangely there was still a lump in my throat. Yes, it meant leaving all the dear ones I had known and worked with for decades. One nice aspect, however, was that I was not being sent alone but with three other Gilead graduates with whom I could exchange happy memories.

Almost three years have passed now. At first we had to get accustomed to new things. Everything was bigger, and one needed more time and strength to get around for the ministry. Furthermore, I missed the sheep I had found at home that would so lovingly sit with me at the meetings, but I never missed the love of Jehovah. He never changes, and he poured out his tender love on me by giving me enough strength to carry on and in letting me have the love of new brothers and the affection of some dear good-will people sitting with me at the circuit assembly and also granting me, with the same generosity as before, the privilege of attending the Divine Will International Assembly in New York.

What a treat on that memorable Sunday afternoon, July 27, to find so many of my Gilead classmates from all corners of the earth in Yankee Stadium sitting around the new graduating class! And hearing on Friday the firm resolve that we want to be just one people living together in peace and never lifting up our hand against our brothers! And waiting with the crowd of 253,922 for the ringing news that the Kingdom rules and afterward hearing Brother Knorr’s loving words announcing the new educational program! And finally, as a climax in my Christian life, seeing the immense crowd from all the nations like one man standing shoulder to shoulder for the last song and feeling the oneness as never before!

Now home again in a chartered plane. Home, I say? Yes, indeed, for when I arrived in Germany, when the Rhine greeted me from below, when a happy bunch of Bethel brothers and sisters were waiting to meet us at the airport at Frankfurt, was I not home among more friends than I ever had dreamed of? Then back to Bethel. Can’t you see me here—either together with some vigorous young brothers or with some of the dear older ones, true martyrs who can tell true stories about Nazi prisons and concentration camps but who do not only tell bad things but strengthen others in their faith when they relate how their faithfulness and diligence even for their prison keepers sometimes saved their life, and how at times Jehovah himself interfered and removed obstacles or enemies that might have caused their death.

Can you understand how I feel when on holidays one big bus after another filled with joyful brothers from all parts of Germany arrive at Bethel to visit us? Or when groups of brothers from abroad, sometimes missionaries, pass through bringing us the love of our brothers and taking ours along? or when, at our district assemblies, sitting among thousands and thousands in a big tent either at Frankfurt or in the beautiful city park of Hamburg, we heard the same program as in New York or could even hear once more, as it happened unexpectedly this fall at Stuttgart, Brother Knorr, who gave us just a foretaste of the yeartext for 1959? Indeed: “Happy is the one that stays awake and keeps his outer garments.” I surely want to stay awake and remain happy at my post, keeping my ministerial garments and blessing the name of Jehovah forever. What better place could there be on earth?

Questions From Readers

● At Zechariah 11:12, 13 (AS) Jehovah speaks of “thirty pieces of silver” as “the goodly price that I [Jehovah] was prized at by them.” At Matthew 27:9, 10 the prophecy is applied to the price Judas received for betraying Jesus. Does this indicate that Jehovah and Jesus are the same person, as taught by trinitarians?—W. R., U.S.A.

By no means! When considering the meaning of a given Scripture text we may not close our eyes and ears to all the other truths taught in the Bible. If one’s understanding of a scripture causes it to conflict with other portions of the inspired Word of God, then his understanding is in error.

That Jehovah and Jesus are not one and the same person is abundantly testified to in the Scriptures. In Deuteronomy 6:4 is found instruction that Jehovah commanded Moses to transmit to the Israelites, which says: “Listen, O Israel: Jehovah our God is one Jehovah.” Yes, he is one, not two, and not part of a trinitarian arrangement. Jesus himself plainly stated: “The Father is greater than I am.” (John 14:28) And Jesus said to Mary Magdalene, for her benefit and that of his other disciples: “I am ascending to my Father and your Father and to my God and your God.” (John 20:17) Jehovah is the God and Father of those disciples of Jesus even as he is the God and Father of Jesus. And Jesus is no more one and the same person as the Father than those of his disciples were.

We must keep in mind that at Zechariah 11:12, 13, Zechariah is not only uttering a prophecy but he is also speaking about his own case. He had prophesied to the faithless people of Israel and when he asked for his hire they weighed out thirty pieces of silver. Jehovah scorned it as a very meager price and stated that at such a low price they had prized him, Jehovah. The price was given for Zechariah but Jehovah counted it as their estimation and evaluation of him since, as Zech 11 verse 11 shows, “it was the Word of Jehovah” that Zechariah spoke.

This does not prove that Zechariah was one and the same as Jehovah, and so in its prophetic application to Jesus it does not prove that Jesus is one and the same as Jehovah. Jesus spoke Jehovah’s message. He said: “I have not spoken out of my own impulse, but the Father himself that sent me has given me a commandment as to what to tell and what to speak.” (John 12:48, 49) So the way Jesus was treated was the way Jehovah was treated representatively through Jesus. What was done to Jesus was done also to Jesus’ Father, Jehovah God.

Announcements

FIELD MINISTRY

April is the final month of the twenty-first annual Watchtower campaign. A year’s subscription for this upbuilding, Scripturally authoritative journal will be offered for $1, and each new subscriber will receive three free booklets on timely Bible subjects. Contact Jehovah’s witnesses in your vicinity or write the Watch Tower Society for information on how you may share in this Christian service.

A SATISFYING COMBINATION

Here is a combination difficult to equal! First: the New World Translation of the Christian Greek Scriptures containing the Bible books Matthew to Revelation (800 pages, thin Bible paper, hard bound in green leatherette). Second: From Paradise Lost to Paradise Regained the simplest and most satisfying explanation of man’s destiny ever released (256 pages, large clear type, beautifully illustrated). Both are yours for only $1.75. Send today and get a new lease on life.

“WATCHTOWER” STUDIES FOR THE WEEKS

May 10: Kingdom Missionaries, the Bringers of the Best News, ¶1-19. Page 196.

May 17: Kingdom Missionaries, the Bringers of the Best News, ¶20-35, and Missionaries of God’s Kingdom That Rules, ¶1, 2. Page 200.

May 24: Missionaries of God’s Kingdom That Rules, ¶3-21. Page 205.