The Watchtower — April 15, 1962

Love of the Truth

OUR lives depend on whether we have love for the truth. The Authority for that statement is none other than the great Source of truth, Almighty God. In his inspired Word he tells of those who will perish because of divine wrath, “as a retribution because they did not accept the love of the truth.” It is in our best interest to have love for the truth.—2 Thess. 2:10.

How do we know whether we have love for the truth? For one thing: Do we really seek the truth? The Bible counsel is: “Buy truth itself and do not sell it.” (Prov. 23:23) It is not an easy thing to “buy truth,” to seek it so that we are willing to pay a price for finding and keeping it.

We can tell whether we have love for the truth also by this: Do we have such love for the truth that we will accept it when it comes from a source that is despised? Do we have such real love for the truth that we accept it when it exposes something that we may have long cherished?

Yes, it takes courage. Said the American educator Nathan M. Pusey: “It is our task not to produce ‘safe’ men, . . . but to keep alive in young people the courage to dare to seek the truth.” We all need courage to seek the truth.

Courage is especially needed today, because this is the time when, in fulfillment of Bible prophecy, people, “in accord with their own desires, . . . will turn their ears away from the truth.” (2 Tim. 4:3, 4) Many persons prefer to have their ears tickled with traditions and philosophies of men. They turn away from the pure truth of God’s written Word. With this trend of turning away from the truth in vogue, do you have the courage to seek the truth?

Finally, we can tell if we have love for the truth by our heart response. God made man so that truth can appeal to his heart as well as his head. When Jesus expounded truth to his disciples, their hearts burned with the truth: “Were not our hearts burning as he was speaking to us on the road, as he was fully opening up the Scriptures to us?” (Luke 24:32) Only when we have real love for the truth will we go through the experience of burning hearts.

Our hearts, set on fire by truth, motivate us to action. This may well be lifesaving action—because our lives do depend on whether we have love for the truth.

Christendom Has Failed God! After Her End, What?

1. How may the many millions of various pagan religionists and Communists care about Christendom’s coming to her end because of having failed God?

THE one hundred and fifty million Buddhists of the world may care little that Christendom will come to her end because she has failed God. They and the three hundred million Confucianists, the fifty million Taoists and the three hundred and twenty-nine million Hindus may even rejoice that Christendom with her missionaries is near her end. The four hundred and twenty-nine million followers of Islam may take it as good news that their great religious rival, Christendom, will come to a disastrous end, and all her bloodspilling crusades with her. And as for those millions who follow the Red religion of Communism, their attitude may have been well expressed by a prominent New York Protestant clergyman on Sunday, October 1, 1961, when he said concerning the churches of Christendom: “Churches should be the organizations communism feels bound to liquidate first.”—The New York Times, as of October 2, 1961, quoting from the sermon of Dr. Robert J. McCracken.

2, 3. (a) Why may certain religionists be shocked at our speaking of Christendom’s end, but what drift of Christendom in the world’s affairs do they ignore? (b) With what else will Christendom have to coexist, and for how long?

² The religious persons who connect up Christendom with Christianity may be appalled at our speaking of Christendom’s end. To them it would mean the end of Christianity and the end of the religious sects to which they belong and which claim to be Christian. It is hard for them to appreciate the drift of Christendom in world affairs. It may cause them a shock to read the words of the above Protestant clergyman (Dr. McCracken) in the same sermon: “The plain fact of the matter is that Christianity no longer is at the hub of things. The chief influence is that of science and its mastery of the material world.” And as respects Christendom’s hope to convert the world and make the whole world a part of Christendom, a meaningful statement was made by a widely read historian, Arnold J. Toynbee, in his article entitled “If We Are to Be the Wave of the Future.” In paragraphs 9 and 10 he said:

Take the case of the great missionary religions: Buddhism, Christianity and Islam. The adherents of each of these faiths have made the conversion of all mankind their target, and, for Christians at any rate, it is officially an article of faith that the whole human race is going to be converted before history comes to an end.

The Christian, Moslem, and Buddhist waves have each swept forward for centuries on end and have spread their waters over whole continents. Yet each of these three missionary waves has had its recessions as well as its advances. And today it does not look as if any one of them is ever going to become fully world-wide. All three seem to have come to stay, which means that they are going to have to co-exist.

—The New York Times Magazine, page 122, as of November 13, 1960.

³ To this statement by historian Toynbee must be added this one, that Christendom will also have to coexist with international Communism as long as she can do so.

4, 5. (a) In view of Christendom’s coming end, what questions arise as to the thereafter? (b) To those seeing something terrible in Christendom’s end, what questions arise as to her destruction?

⁴ What, then? Does Christendom’s end mean a world left entirely unchristian or pagan? Does it mean world supremacy by the forces of ungodly Communism? Does it mean an earthly globe left to an uninhabited radioactive desolation by a third world war with nuclear weapons and chemical, biological and radiological warfare?

⁵ To persons not informed on the revealed purposes of man’s great Creator the end of Christendom suggests something terrible or something unbelievable. They may ask, Why would God the Creator want Christendom to be destroyed? Why would Jesus Christ, the Leader in Christianity, let Christendom be destroyed? If the answer to these questions is, Because Christendom has failed God, then, they ask, In what way has Christendom failed God?

6. What is meant here by the word “Christendom,” and to what definition of it do true Christians object?

⁶ First of all, we must understand what is meant here by the word “Christendom.” Webster’s New International Dictionary defines Christendom as “the portion of the world in which Christianity prevails or which is governed under Christian institutions in distinction from heathen or Mohammedan lands.” It is out of date to define Christendom as meaning Christianity. True Christians today do not confuse Christendom with Christianity or make them identical. They object to making Christendom mean the whole body of persons who claim to be Christian, because true Christians do not want to be part of Christendom. As a word, Christendom is used to include such countries that claim to be Christian or that have been legally called Christian as Great Britain, the United States of America, Spain, and so forth. Christendom particularly refers to the whole body of hundreds of religious sects that claim to be Christian in such lands. Eight hundred millions claim to belong to such a Christendom.

HOW HAS SHE FAILED?

7. Why should the unchristian world be interested in the answer to the question, and what does the expression “to fail” mean?

⁷ What is the basis for the accusing statement that Christendom has failed God? Even the so-called unchristian world should be interested in the answer to this question, because the unchristian or pagan world is bound to be affected greatly by Christendom’s end. How true, then, is the accusation? In what way has Christendom failed God? The expression “to fail” means, among other things, “to come short or be wanting in action, in detail or in result; to disappoint or prove lacking in what is attempted, expected, desired or approved; to prove unable to meet one’s obligations; to prove to be of no use or help to someone.” And “failure” is defined as “nonperformance of something due or required.”

8. Why is it not too soon to render a judgment on Christendom, and according to what book must judgment be handed down, and why?

⁸ Christianity was established nineteen centuries ago, and so Christendom has had plenty of time in which to show what she would do or could accomplish with Christianity. After all this time, and in the face of the present world outlook, it is not too soon for us to hold an accounting and render a judgment on Christendom. Has she disappointed God and proved lacking in what he expects, desires and approves? Has she met her obligations toward him, and has she proved to be of use and helpfulness to him? To render a judgment, we must hand down our decision according to the book of Christianity, God’s own Bible. In it God gives his own judgment.

9, 10. (a) On what is the name Christianity built, and when was it to be established? (b) What words to be used by Jesus Christ did God’s prophet Isaiah foretell?

⁹ The name Christianity is built upon the name Christ, which is a title by which Jesus of Bethlehem-Judah was called. Hence Christianity means the imitating of Jesus Christ and the obeying of his teachings and commandments. Christ means Anointed One; the Jewish word “Messiah” means the same thing. God foretold in his book the Bible that Christianity would be established at a certain time, which was nineteen hundred years ago. Over seven hundred years before that, God inspired his prophet Isaiah to write down the very words that Jesus Christ, or Jesus the Anointed One, would say! Turn in your Bible to Isaiah’s prophecy, chapter sixty-one, verses one and two. The American Standard Version of the Bible reads here:

¹⁰ “The spirit of the Lord Jehovah is upon me; because Jehovah hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound; to proclaim the year of Jehovah’s favor, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all that mourn.”

11. In that respect how did Jesus Christ not fail God, and so what must true Christians do?

¹¹ Are not those things wonderful things to preach and proclaim? These were the things that Jesus Christ was anointed to preach and proclaim. In a Jewish synagogue in his boyhood town of Nazareth he quoted those very words of Isaiah’s prophecy to prove that they applied to him, that he was the Christ or Anointed One. (Luke 4:16-21) The record of his earthly life shows that he did carry out those words. In this he did not fail or disappoint Jehovah his God, who had anointed him with holy spirit. So his followers, his disciples, his imitators, that is to say, Christians, must preach and proclaim the same good, comforting things.

12, 13. (a) What was Christianity meant to hold out to all mankind, and how was this indicated at Jesus’ birth? (b) Why will those angelic words not fail?

¹² The coming of Christianity was meant to hold out to all obedient men and women the hope of everlasting life in perfect happiness in a new world created by Jehovah God. When Jesus was born in Bethlehem in the Middle East in the year 2 B.C., some of God’s angels from heaven appeared to shepherds in the nearby field and said: “Be not afraid; for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which shall be to all the people: for there is born to you this day in [Bethlehem] the city of David a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord. . . . Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among men in whom he is well pleased.”—Luke 2:8-14, AS.

¹³ Thus the announcing of Jesus’ birth was good news for all the people everywhere; and Christianity, which he founded, was meant to bring a great joy to all the people of whatever race, color, nationality, language or social standing. Christianity was meant to result in glory in the heights above to God and upon the earth peace among men who would please God and gain his good will or pleasure. What God’s angels from heaven said in the hearing of those Jewish shepherds was not mere talk, not man’s word. It was God’s own word about what Christ’s coming and the establishment of true Christianity would mean both for God and for man. Those angelic words from God will not fail. They will come true.

14, 15. (a) When did Jesus change from his earthly occupation at Nazareth, and why? (b) How did Jesus symbolize his change of occupation, and what did God then indicate regarding Jesus?

¹⁴ Up till thirty years of age this Jesus lived at Nazareth and was a carpenter, swinging a hammer in his work. Then he changed his daily occupation. Why? In order to fulfill the prophetic words of Isaiah concerning the great Preacher of good news and Proclaimer of liberty. Jesus heard that his cousin, called John the Baptist, was preaching a world-shaking message: “The kingdom of the heavens has drawn near.” (Matt. 3:1, 2) Above all other things, Jesus was interested in God’s kingdom, the kingdom of the heavens. So he left his carpenter shop and went to John at the Jordan River and was dipped by John in the river waters. In this way Jesus enacted a picture to symbolize that he had given up his former occupation and had come to do God’s will in connection with God’s kingdom.

¹⁵ As the baptized Jesus came up out of the water, God poured out his spirit upon Jesus and thus anointed him, making him the promised Christ. At the same time God’s voice came from the invisible heavens and declared that this anointed Jesus was his Son toward whom he had good will. The record, in Matthew 3:17, says: “There was a voice from the heavens that said: ‘This is my Son, the beloved, whom I have approved.’” This backed up the fact that God had sent his beloved Son down from the spiritual heavens to be born as a perfect man, in order for this faithful Son to do God’s will on earth. It was as Jesus Christ himself said later on to a Jewish ruler: “God loved the world so much that he gave his only-begotten Son, in order that everyone exercising faith in him might not be destroyed but have everlasting life.”—John 3:16.

HOW JEWRY FAILED GOD

16, 17. (a) For the fulfilling of Isaiah’s prophecy what is Jesus reported as preaching? (b) Despite what Jesus preached, how did he prove that he was not a campaigning politician?

¹⁶ After being baptized and anointed with God’s spirit Jesus went preaching to his own people, the Jews or nation of Israel, to fulfill Isaiah’s prophecy. In preaching good news and proclaiming liberty, what did the Leader in Christianity preach? One sentence of the Bible answers: “He went journeying from city to city and from village to village, preaching and declaring the good news of the kingdom of God.” And his twelve apostles were with him.—Luke 8:1.

¹⁷ Jesus Christ preached God’s kingdom. But he was not a politician. He did not mix in the politics of the Jewish government or of the Roman imperial government of that time. He did not make himself an earthly king. He let no Jew make him an earthly king. On one occasion, after Jesus had miraculously fed a crowd of more than five thousand, many men who were not his apostles wanted to throw off the Roman yoke and make him their king. An apostle of Jesus, who witnessed this, writes: “When the men saw the signs he performed, they began to say: ‘This is for a certainty the prophet that was to come into the world.’ Therefore Jesus, knowing they were about to come and seize him to make him king, withdrew again into the mountain all alone.”—John 6:14, 15.

18, 19. (a) Because of Jesus’ example in this, what could no imitator of him do? (b) What did Jesus say to the Roman governor regarding his kingdom, and what, therefore, would Jesus not authorize any disciple to do?

¹⁸ Jesus refused to let the people to whom he preached about God’s kingdom make him their earthly king. How, then, could any true Christian or imitator of Jesus Christ become a politician and let men make him or anoint him their king on earth? He could not. Only when Jesus was falsely accused of trying to make himself king, only then did he not withdraw himself, but he yielded himself over to his enemies to be put to death. (Luke 23:15) He did so because the kingdom that he preached was not from the people, not from this world and not a part of this world.

¹⁹ The Roman governor, Pontius Pilate, put Jesus on trial in Jerusalem and asked him: “Are you the king of the Jews? . . . Your own nation and the chief priests delivered you up to me. What did you do?” Jesus answered: “My kingdom is no part of this world. If my kingdom were part of this world, my attendants would have fought that I should not be delivered up to the Jews. But, as it is, my kingdom is not from this source.” (John 18:33-36) If none of Jesus’ attendants were authorized to fight to make him a king in this world, then what authority have any of Jesus’ disciples for mixing in politics and making some other man king? Since the kingdom of Jesus Christ is heavenly and no part of this world, then he would not let or authorize any one of his apostles or disciples to become king or ruler of a government that is a part of this world.

20. (a) Who makes Jesus Christ a king, and what kind of one? (b) In that regard, how do we know whether Jewry failed God?

²⁰ Jesus’ kingdom is from God. It was God who anointed Jesus with holy spirit, and it is God who makes Jesus king, not a king of this political world, but a heavenly king absolutely separate from this world’s politics. Jehovah God sent his Son and offered him to the Jews as their promised Christ, for the Jews to become his Christian followers and to join him in preaching God’s kingdom. What, then, shall we say of Jewry, the Jewish people, when their priests and religious leaders handed Jesus over to the Roman governor and accused him of sedition and had him killed as a political criminal by hanging him on a stake outside the walls of Jerusalem to die? At that time they shouted to the Roman governor who wanted to release Jesus: “We have no king but Caesar.” (John 19:1-16) Did Jewry there fail God, or did Jesus? God’s raising up Jesus from the dead on the third day and then exalting him to his heavenly throne answers that Jesus Christ had not failed God. Jewry had failed God.

21. How did the apostle Peter confirm that fact on the day of Pentecost?

²¹ Hence on the feast day of Pentecost after Jesus had died, been resurrected and been exalted to heaven, the apostle Peter said to the Jews: “Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus the Nazarene, a man publicly shown by God to you through powerful works and portents and signs that God did through him in your midst, just as you yourselves know, this man, as one delivered up by the determined counsel and foreknowledge of God, you fastened to a stake by the hand of lawless men and did away with. But God resurrected him by loosing the pangs of death . . . Therefore let all the house of Israel know for a certainty that God made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you impaled.”—Acts 2:22-36.

22. How did Stephen confirm that fact, and with what result?

²² After that Jewry went persecuting the apostles and other disciples of Jesus Christ. A Jewish convert named Stephen was the first to be killed for being Christ’s disciple. But first he said to the highest Jewish court in Jerusalem: “Obstinate men and uncircumcised in hearts and ears, you are always resisting the holy spirit; as your forefathers did, so you do. Which one of the prophets did your forefathers not persecute? Yes, they killed those who made announcement in advance concerning the coming of the righteous One [Jesus Christ], whose betrayers and murderers you have now become.” For telling these judges that Jewry had failed God, Stephen was stoned to death. (Acts 7:51-60) Another Jewish failure!

23. How did a converted persecutor of Christians confirm the fact of Jewry’s failure?

²³ A Jew present at the stoning of Stephen adds his own testimony concerning Jewry as failing God. This Jew, Saul of Tarsus, later became a Christian and himself underwent persecution at Jewish hands. So he wrote his Christian brothers who were persecuted by the Jews in Macedonia and said: “You became imitators, brothers, of the congregations of God that are in Judea in union with Christ Jesus, because you also began suffering at the hands of your own countrymen the same things as they also are suffering at the hands of the Jews, who killed even the Lord Jesus and the prophets and persecuted us. Furthermore, they are not pleasing God, but are against the interests of all men, as they try to hinder us from speaking to people of the nations that these might be saved, with the result that they always fill up the measure of their sins. But his wrath has at length come upon them.”—1 Thess. 2:14-16; Acts 17:1-13.

24, 25. (a) To what extent did God’s wrath then come upon Jewry, and in fulfillment of what prophecy of Jesus? (b) In the face of all this testimony, what can no one deny?

²⁴ God’s wrath came upon Jewry to the extent of letting their holy capital city, Jerusalem, and its glorious temple of worship be destroyed by the Romans in the year 70. This was the holy city to which Jesus himself had said: “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the killer of the prophets and stoner of those sent forth to her,—how often I wanted to gather your children together, the way a hen gathers her chicks together under her wings! But you people did not want it. Look! Your house is abandoned to you.” And concerning her temple Jesus said to his apostles: “By no means will a stone be left here upon a stone and not be thrown down.”—Matt. 23:37 to 24:2.

²⁵ In the face of all this testimony, even that of Jesus Christ himself, can anybody deny that Jewry failed God in the time of its greatest opportunity in all Jewish history? No!

A PROPHETIC PATTERN FOR CHRISTENDOM

26. Who has repeated Jewry’s mistakes, and what warning has this one not taken?

²⁶ “Historical facts show that Christendom has repeated the same mistakes as Jewry did. Christendom is the modern counterpart of ancient Jewry and Jerusalem. Hence the Jewish failures proved prophetic of Christendom’s own failures. That was why the Jewish Christian apostle Paul referred to the repeated failures of Jewry and said to his Christian brothers: “These things went on befalling [the Jews] as examples, and they were written for a warning to us upon whom the ends of the systems of things have arrived. Consequently let him that thinks he is standing beware that he does not fall.” (1 Cor. 10:11, 12) Christendom has refused to take the warning that loudly sounds forth from the pages of Jewish history.

27. (a) In what sins named by the apostle has Christendom failed, and whose name has she thus not honored? (b) How has Christendom not imitated Jesus in bearing the chief name?

²⁷ Among the things that the apostle names in which the Jewish forefathers failed were the desire for injurious things, idolatry, fornication (immorality), putting God to the test, and murmuring against God and his prophets. Has Christendom failed in these same respects? Examine her record and then judge. In view of her failure because of these same sins she is no honor to the One whose name she has taken upon herself, Christ. She claims to follow Jesus, but her works belie that she imitates him. She does not bear God’s name as Jesus Christ did. The very name by which the Son of God was called, namely, Jesus, means “Jehovah Is Salvation.” (The American College Dictionary, 1948 edition, page 656) Said Jehovah’s angel to Joseph, the foster-father of Jesus: “You must call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” (Matt. 1:20, 21) In this way the Son of God on earth was made to bear the name of his heavenly Father, inasmuch as the name Jesus combines in itself the name Jehovah. However, Christendom has refused to bear the name Jehovah or to give it its chief place in Christianity.

28. (a) How, as foretold by Jesus to Jewish religious leaders, did Jewry lose the privilege of bearing God’s name? (b) To whom was that privilege then extended?

²⁸ Christendom has lost the opportunity to bear God’s name by becoming the people of Jehovah God. To show that Jewry likewise lost that privilege, Jesus Christ said to the Jewish chief priests and older men of influence: “The kingdom of God will be taken from you and be given to a nation producing its fruits.” (Matt. 21:23-43) In agreement with this, the message of God’s kingdom with the privilege of becoming Christians was extended to the non-Jewish peoples, the Gentiles, even thirty-four years before Jerusalem, the Jewish capital, was destroyed by the Romans. The Jewish Christian apostle Symeon Peter was used to extend this favor to them.

29. What did the disciple James say to a body of inquiry regarding that extension of God’s favor to the Gentiles?

²⁹ What obligation did this lay upon those Gentile believers? The Jewish Christian disciple James pointed out that obligation when he said to a Christian religious investigation body at Jerusalem: “Brothers, hear me. Symeon has related thoroughly how God for the first time turned his attention to the nations to take out of them a people for his name. And with this the words of the Prophets agree, just as it is written, ‘After these things I shall return and rebuild the booth of David that is fallen down; and I shall rebuild its ruins and erect it again, in order that those who remain of the men may earnestly seek Jehovah, together with people of all the nations, people who are called by my name, says Jehovah.’”—Acts 15:13-18.

30. According to this, Christians are under what obligation?

³⁰ True Christians are therefore under the obligation to bear God’s name or be called by God’s name, that is, to be called the people of Jehovah, God’s people. So what about Christendom?

31, 32. (a) What has been Christendom’s conduct with regard to God’s name? (b) How does the case of the Revised Standard Version of 1952 illustrate this?

³¹ Christendom has shunned that name. She has acted contrary to the prayer that Jesus taught his disciples to pray to God: “Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.” (Matt. 6:9, 10, AV) Christendom has not sanctified the name of the heavenly Father, Jehovah. In most recent times her effort has been to leave that sacred name out of English translations of the Bible completely.

³² Take the case of the Revised Standard Version of the Bible. The 1952 edition of this says in its preface concerning the omission of the name Jehovah or Yahweh:

The present revision returns to the procedure of the King James Version, which follows the precedent of the ancient Greek and Latin translators and the long-established practice in the reading of the Hebrew Scriptures in the synagogue. . . . the use of any proper name for the one and only God, as though there were other gods from which he had to be distinguished, was discontinued in Judaism before the Christian era and is entirely inappropriate for the universal faith of the Christian Church.—Pages vi, vii.

33, 34. How does the original Bible and the case of Jesus himself discount such an attitude against pronouncing God’s name?

³³ And yet the original Hebrew Scriptures used the divine name 6,823 or more times for the very purpose of distinguishing Jehovah God from all the false gods of this world. Also, the very name Jesus combines in itself the divine name; and there is no proof that Jesus himself followed the unscriptural Jewish practice of that day and refused to mention his own heavenly Father’s name. If the Jewish high priest at the temple could lawfully say the divine name Jehovah, then certainly Jesus Christ, who is God’s greater High Priest, could also lawfully say that holy name publicly.

³⁴ Also, the very last book of the Christian Scriptures uses the Hebrew expression Hallelujah!, which means “Praise Ye Jehovah.”—The American College Dictionary. See Revelation 19:1, 3, 4, 6, RS.

35. How has Christendom copied the pagans and thus misrepresented the personality of God to the heathen?

³⁵ Christendom has copied the heathen, pagan nations of Asia in teaching that God is a trinity, three Gods in one Person. But who can explain this so-called Trinity and harmonize it with the book of Christianity, the Bible? Hence when the people, who cannot understand the Trinity, ask for an explanation, the clergymen take to flight by the escape route of saying that the Trinity is a mystery. In this way they leave the people in great confusion and unable to understand the Bible and its message, and unable to call upon the divine name Jehovah for salvation through Jesus Christ. (Joel 2:28-32; Acts 2:16-21) In this way, too, they have misrepresented God to the heathen or pagans, who see in this trinitarian God a resemblance to their own false gods.

36. In what covenant with God does Christendom claim to be, but how has she failed him as to making it come true?

³⁶ The ancient Jews were in a covenant with God by means of the law given through the prophet Moses. But Christendom claims to be in the new covenant, the mediator of which is Jesus Christ. “For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, a man Christ Jesus, who gave himself a corresponding ransom for all.” (1 Tim. 2:5, 6) And as to knowing and understanding this one true God, the Christian new covenant says: “Behold, the days come, saith Jehovah, that I will make a new covenant . . . And they shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know Jehovah; for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith Jehovah.” (Jer. 31:31-34, AS; Luke 22:19, 20) Has Christendom failed God in making this prophecy of the new covenant come true? The lack of knowledge on the part of Christendom today gives God reason to be disappointed.

HER ENMITY TOWARD GOD

37. In view of what prophecy should Christendom in these “last days” be examined as to her being God’s friend or not?

³⁷ It will shock many religious persons to question that Christendom is God’s friend. Of course she is! they will say. But let us remember the warning words of a Christian prophet, the apostle Paul: “In the last days critical times hard to deal with will be here. For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, . . . lovers of pleasures rather than lovers of God, having a form of godly devotion but proving false to its power.” (2 Tim. 3:1-5) Accordingly, Christendom, although pleasure-loving, money-loving, could have an outward form of godliness and yet be denying the power of godliness inwardly and by her course of action.

38. In harmony with 1 Thessalonians 1:9, 10, how would godly devotion reveal itself in true Christians, and because of waiting for whom?

³⁸ To persons who had turned away from Grecian paganism to true Christianity the apostle Paul wrote: “You turned to God from your idols to slave for a living and true God, and to wait for his Son from the heavens, whom he raised up from the dead, namely, Jesus, who delivers us from the wrath which is coming.” (1 Thess. 1:9, 10) By waiting for the return of the Son of God, at which time he will come in his kingdom, his true disciples would be able to show real godly devotion. The power of this godliness would reveal itself by changing their lives, to be different from this idolatrous, pleasure-seeking, selfish, hateful old world, which lies under the wrath of the righteous God. Thus true Christians would be in a fit condition for them to receive God’s Son and for him to accept them as his Bride.

39. Because of waiting for him, Christendom was to keep herself in a condition like that of whom?

³⁹ The congregation of true godly Christians is likened by the Bible to a virgin girl who is engaged or espoused to marry Jesus Christ at his coming in his kingdom. Said the apostle Paul to the congregation to whom he had brought the knowledge about Jesus Christ: “I personally promised you in marriage to one husband that I might present you as a chaste virgin to the Christ.” (2 Cor. 11:2) Likewise, the last book of the Bible calls the entire Christian congregation “the bride, the Lamb’s wife.” (Rev. 21:2, 9, 10) She was therefore to keep herself virgin, unmarried to anybody else, “without spot from the world,” in a “form of worship that is clean and undefiled from the standpoint of our God and Father.” (Jas. 1:27) Has Christendom kept such religious virginity toward Christ?

40, 41. (a) Whose spirit has Christendom taken on, and so what are the works in which she has engaged? (b) How has Christendom made herself unfit for Christ to marry her at his coming in his kingdom?

⁴⁰ Religious history says No! From Emperor Constantine’s time onward Christendom has imitated the world and gone in worldly ways. She has taken on the spirit of this world and engaged in the “works of the flesh.” These the apostle Paul says are “fornication, uncleanness, loose conduct, idolatry, practice of spiritism, hatreds, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, contentions, divisions, sects, envies, drunken bouts, revelries, and things like these. As to these things I am forewarning you . . . that those who practice such things will not inherit God’s kingdom.”—Gal. 5:19-21.

⁴¹ Christendom overflows with such “works of the flesh.” For her practicing such things she could not inherit God’s kingdom as the virgin bride of the Son of God. She has made herself a component part of this world. She has constituted herself a “friend of the world” and is married to it, and Christ’s return in his kingdom means little or nothing to her. She has made and anointed kings. She has united Church and State. Thus in a spiritual sense she has made herself an adulteress, because she is married to this world and yet claims to be espoused to Christ and to be his spiritual Bride. The words of the disciple James brand her an adulteress, for James says: “Adulteresses, do you not know that the friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever, therefore, wants to be a friend of the world is constituting himself an enemy of God.” (Jas. 4:4) Jesus Christ will never accept and own an adulteress, an “enemy of God,” as his Bride. He will never marry Christendom.

NO FORCE FOR PEACE AND UNITY

42, 43. (a) What question by James to Christians is properly asked of Christendom? (b) For what condition among his disciples did Jesus pray, and how has Christendom failed God in this respect?

⁴² The disciple James asked the spiritual adulteresses why there were fights, wars, murdering and coveting among them. (Jas. 4:1-3) The same question is properly asked of Christendom. In all her history since Constantine’s time she has been no force for peace and unity. One outstanding thing that the Bridegroom expects in his spiritual Bride, the true Christian congregation, is unity.

⁴³ In his last prayer together with his faithful apostles Jesus prayed for such unity in the congregation down till the time that he marries her. To God he prayed that “they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in union with me and I am in union with you, that they also may be in union with us, in order that the world may believe that you sent me forth. Also . . . that they may be one just as we are one. I in union with them and you in union with me, in order that they may be perfected into one.” (John 17:20-23) Yet for centuries Christendom has been divided up into religious sects. Especially now in view of the threat of ungodly international communism there is a cry for religious unity, a united front; but there is no such unity as that for which Jesus Christ prayed. In her long-standing disunited condition Christendom could never be the Bride of Christ, the true Christian congregation. Christ’s prayer for unity is not realized in Christendom. In this regard she has failed God.

44. Despite her Christmastime song, how has Christendom proved to be no force for international peace?

⁴⁴ Disunited herself, how could Christendom be expected to unite the world for peace? At her Christmastime she sings the angelic words: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among men in whom he is well pleased.” But she has never proved herself to be among those men in whom God is well pleased. The pages of her history drip with the blood of her wars, political wars, religious wars, crusades! She has never prevented such bloodspilling. Her clergymen have lined up on both sides of religious and political wars and have prayed to the same trinitarian God for victory over fellow religionists of the same sect on the other side.

45. (a) What rulers with religious connections were leaders in the first world war? (b) To whom does the finger of blame for that war point, according to the published statement of Rabbi S. S. Wise?

⁴⁵ Where were the two world wars of this century begun? Why, right in Christendom, between so-called Christian nations. In the first world war, the Roman Catholic Emperor of Austria-Hungary, Franz Josef, lined up with Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany against the Russian Czar, Nicholas II, patron of the Russian Orthodox Church, and the British King, George V, religious head of the Church of England. Why did Christendom unleash such a calamity upon the whole world? To which element in Christendom does the finger of blame point? In answer we quote from the New York American, in its issue of Monday, October 12, 1914, page 4, under the heading: “BLAME FOR WAR LAID ON CHURCH BY RABBI WISE.” This rabbi was the founder of the Free Synagogue, the Jewish Institute of Religion and other important American Jewish institutes, and died in 1949. We quote:

“Failure of the churches and synagogues to maintain leadership over the people was the cause of the present war,” said Rabbi Stephen S. Wise at the free synagogue in Carnegie Hall yesterday.

Rabbi Wise characterized the present attitude of the churches as “feeble, faltering, halting and timid.” He said the state had conquered the church and that the latter had become a follower rather than a leader of public opinion.

“They have enthroned a war devil,” he said, “in the place of God. The churches do not take themselves seriously. They are satisfied to be a mere item of the social organization and to defend their countries and rulers—just or unjust. The church is muzzled and throttled into submission. It is like a dumb dog, old and toothless, that can no longer bite.

DISAPPOINTED IN SOCIALISTS

“Many of us expected the Socialist power to avert such a war as this, and were bitterly disappointed in the Socialists of Europe when they failed to do so. But we never looked to the churches, mosques and synagogues to prevent war. None of us expected such a thing from them, and we know what would happen to any leader of the Church of England who would dare raise his voice against his country’s part in the present strife.

“Franz Josef goes through the empty form of washing the feet of a dozen pilgrims each Easter and the church is satisfied with him. The Czar is the head of his church on Sunday and the head of his army during the week.

“And when the nations were preparing for this war they never consulted the churches because they knew that just as they relied upon their ambulance corps and their commissaries they could rely upon the churches to uphold them.

MISSIONARY NEED AT HOME

“It would be better for missionaries to teach Christianity at home first.”

The rabbi continued: “Our souls are wounded when we read of the destruction of cathedrals at Rheims and elsewhere, yet these cathedrals were destroyed long ago and it is only their outer walls that have now fallen.

“War gods, money gods and power gods have been destroying these edifices century after century.”

46, 47. (a) Where can the blame likewise be laid for World War II, as indicated by the pope’s failure to excommunicate? (b) How did all of Christendom’s churches then share in bloodguilt?

⁴⁶ If that could be said about the blame for World War I, it can also be said regarding the blame for World War II. Before the Nazi dictator invaded Poland on September 1, 1939, to launch that war, a plea was made by delegates from forty-eight Polish, Jewish, Slovakian and Lithuanian societies met at Chicago, Illinois, for the pontiff of Vatican City to excommunicate Adolf Hitler, but Pope Pius XII refused to excommunicate that war-mad “son of the church.”—Buffalo, N.Y., Evening Express as of August 29, 1939; The Catholic Telegraph-Register, of Cincinnati, Ohio, Section 2, as of September 1, 1939.

⁴⁷ All the churches of Christendom nationalistically backed up their respective political governments in this second world conflict until, in 1945, the strongest nation of Christendom dropped two atomic bombs upon a pagan nation in order to speed up the end of the ghastly war. Certainly the churches share with the political nations in the bloodguilt before God. Their bloodguilt points up the fact that Christendom miserably failed God.

48. What now threatens the world, and how does Christendom show her failure toward God?

⁴⁸ Now the world is in danger of a third war, this one with nuclear weapons that only nations of Christendom possess till now. Again the churches of Christendom show themselves to be just as Rabbi Wise described them in 1914 during World War I. Should that not be disappointing to God? What does Christendom now offer as a block to thermonuclear catastrophe? God’s kingdom, which the Leader in Christianity preached? No, but a helpless man-made substitute for God’s kingdom—the United Nations. This is a successor to the League of Nations, which was set up in 1920 to prevent World War II. The Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America called that League of Nations “the political expression of the Kingdom of God on earth.” According to that, when the League of Nations failed to prevent World War II, the Kingdom of God on earth had failed. But not so! The real fact is that Christendom had failed God, whom she professed to worship and serve.

WHO IS BEARING THE FRUITS OF THE KINGDOM?

49, 50. (a) Why was it the due time from 1914 onward for Christendom to bring forth the fruits of God’s kingdom? (b) Why has God looked in vain for Kingdom fruitage in Christendom?

⁴⁹ From 1914 onward it was the due time for Christendom to bring forth the fruits of God’s kingdom. In that year World War I began, and was followed by famines, pestilences, earthquakes, religious persecution, increasing lawlessness and international distress and perplexity. This was foretold by Jesus Christ in his prophecy on the end of this worldly system of things. (Matthew, chapter 24; Mark, chapter 13; Luke, chapter 21) In the midst of such world developments, what were the true followers or disciples of Jesus to do? In Mark 13:10 Jesus Christ pointed out what was to be their work and activity, saying: “In all the nations the good news has to be preached first.” According to Matthew 24:14 he said: “This good news of the kingdom will be preached in all the inhabited earth for a witness to all the nations; and then the end will come.”

⁵⁰ The worldwide preaching of the good news of God’s kingdom would be the bringing forth of the fruits of the Kingdom. Now, does history show that Christendom brought forth this Kingdom fruitage since 1914? Did her churches preach God’s kingdom as the only hope for all mankind? Did they urge all people to seek first God’s kingdom and His righteousness? No; but modern history tells how the churches and the politicians in their pews preached the League of Nations first and the United Nations now. Hence in vain has God looked for Kingdom fruitage in Christendom.

51, 52. (a) Despite Christendom, why has fulfillment of Matthew 24:14 been provided for in harmony with Matthew 21:43? (b) Who have proved to be the nation bringing forth the Kingdom fruits?

⁵¹ Although Christendom has thus failed God, the Kingdom fruitage is today being brought forth abundantly. Not by Christendom, of course! But the prophecy of Jesus Christ in Matthew 24:14 could not fail of fulfillment. It has not failed! The principle or rule of action stated by Jesus in Matthew 21:43 has been followed, and the Kingdom opportunities have been given to the “nation” or the people producing the Kingdom fruits. To whom is this? To a people who have become a nation under God’s kingdom; to a nation that has not shunned to be called by God’s name, yes, a nation that proclaims his name and calls upon it for salvation through Jesus Christ.

⁵² Hundreds of millions of persons throughout the earth have heard this nation preaching the good news of God’s kingdom publicly and from house to house and have received billions of pieces of Bible literature from its hands. This nation producing the Kingdom fruits is made up of Jehovah’s witnesses. These Christians have not failed God. They are now reported preaching in more than 150 languages and distributing Bible literature in 185 lands. Has Christendom aided Jehovah’s witnesses in this fulfillment of Matthew 24:14? No; but, to her shame, Christendom has persecuted them and tried to destroy them, just the same as ancient Jewry did to Jehovah’s prophets. (Matt. 24:9; 5:10-12) Christendom has failed God!

53. What is therefore certain for Christendom, and when, and where?

⁵³ Christendom’s end is therefore certain. The end that came on ancient Jewry and Jerusalem for failing Jehovah God must come on Christendom. (Matt. 21:33-45) When the Kingdom preaching is ended by Jehovah’s witnesses, Christendom, who wanted no part in this Kingdom witnessing, will end too, along with the whole worldly system of things. She has helped the people to line up with the nations of this world against God’s kingdom. She herself is marching with the nations to the “war of the great day of God the Almighty.” By demon forces she is being gathered with the nations to the battlefield of Armageddon, for their destruction by God’s heavenly executioners, namely, Christ the King and the holy angels under his command. (Rev. 16:13-16; 19:11-21) Come a nuclear world war or no, Christendom will fail to protect the nations of this world from God’s universal war of Armageddon and from destruction in it.

THEN WHAT?

54. After Christendom’s end, what about Christianity, and why?

⁵⁴ After Christendom’s end, what? Not an earth overrun by international Communism or by deceptive false religion, but a new righteous world, in which will be realized the joyful angelic song, “Glory in the heights above to God, and upon earth peace among men of good will.” It will be a world in which true Christianity will prevail everywhere. The end of Christendom does not mean the end of Christianity, for Christendom and Christianity are two different, separate things. True Christianity has not failed God. The Leader in Christianity, Jesus Christ, did not fail Jehovah God. The “twelve apostles of the Lamb” did not fail God. (Rev. 21:14) Also, from the days of Jesus and his twelve apostles there have been true dedicated, baptized Christians who have not failed God. The Bible prophecies indicated that these would be a mere “remnant” relatively small in number out of all Christendom. (Rom. 9:27-29; 11:5-7) Actually, the entire Bride of Christ, which will be married to him in heaven, will number only 144,000 followers who prove faithful clear to the death, not failing God.—Rev. 14:1, 3; 7:4-8.

55. Because of what government could Christianity not end after Christendom’s destruction, and how will Armageddon survivors fare under it?

⁵⁵ Christianity could not end after Christendom’s destruction in Armageddon. Why not? Because after that the kingdom of Christianity’s Leader, Jesus Christ, will reign for a thousand years for the blessing of obedient mankind. At the climax of the battle of Armageddon Christ the King will bind Satan the Devil, who is the “god of this system of things” and the founder of Christendom with its hypocritical Christianity. Thus true Christianity will have the opportunity to flourish unopposed, earthwide. Jehovah’s witnesses who survive Armageddon will no longer be persecuted for bearing God’s name nor for preaching “this good news of the kingdom” in all the inhabited earth “for a witness.”—Rev. 20:1-3; Matt. 24:14.

56. What unity and peace will then come upon earth, and because of what spirit?

⁵⁶ Racial, color, language and social discrimination and segregation must then become a hated thing of the hideous past. One of the basic teachings of true Bible Christianity is this: “There is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, foreigner, Scythian, slave, freeman, but Christ is all things and in all.” “For you are all one person in union with Christ Jesus.” (Col. 3:11; Gal. 3:28) True unity will at last have come to all men who live. With unity, together with the fruit of God’s spirit, which is love, there will come to be among all men peace, which is also a fruit of God’s spirit. The spirit of this world, with its “works of the flesh,” will be gone!—Gal. 5:22; 1 Cor. 2:12.

57. In what worship will there be unity, and so what will displace Christendom’s present enmity with God?

⁵⁷ This means there will be unity of religion and the absence of religious sects of any kind. It will be unity in the one “form of worship that is clean and undefiled from the standpoint of our God and Father.” (Jas. 1:27) Because of practicing Christianity, the form of worship approved by God the heavenly Father, earth’s inhabitants will enjoy peace with him. He will be a friendly God to them, a God of good will. (Luke 2:14) Friendship with God will thus take the place of Christendom’s present enmity with God.

58. What fact about government will help and maintain such unity, and so to what things will there be no end?

⁵⁸ This unity of all living mankind will be helped and maintained by the fact that there will then be one government over all the earth, God’s kingdom by Christ. Political governments married to the churches of a divided Christendom will have gone down in Armageddon. These Church-State unions gone, there will be no selfish politics with all its corruption. Instead of the increase of Communism, there will be an increase of something not a threat to all mankind. Says Isaiah 9:6, 7, with reference to Jesus’ birth: “There has been a child born to us, there has been a son given to us; and the princely rule will come to be upon his shoulder. And his name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace. To the abundance of the princely rule and to peace there will be no end, upon the throne of David and upon his kingdom in order to establish it firmly and to sustain it by means of justice and by means of righteousness, from now on and to time indefinite. The very zeal of Jehovah of armies will do this.”

59. Of what protective things of today will there be no need then, and why?

⁵⁹ The world domination will thus be by Jehovah’s kingdom with his Prince of Peace in the throne over all mankind. Deliverance from fiendish nuclear bombs and radioactive fallout is sure to come. No need for bombproof, fallout-proof underground shelters then. There will be no polluting of the earth’s atmosphere and waters with radioactive debris from inhuman explosion of war devices. Those who today ruin the earth and exploit it for commercial gain will themselves have gone down in ruin in Armageddon.

60. What will the fulfillment of Isaiah 2:4 result in, and to whom will go the credit for realizing this?

⁶⁰ Taxation for the upkeep of an expensive war machine will be no more. Not only will war-supply factories be gone, but the materials of any relics of war will be reworked into useful instruments for taking good care of the earth and for changing the face of the earth into a paradise of pleasure, a garden of Eden like that which our first parents inhabited during their perfect obedience to Jehovah God. To Christendom’s “last hope for peace,” namely, to the United Nations, will not go the credit for realizing the words of Isaiah 2:4 as inscribed on a wall at the UN headquarters in New York city: “They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruninghooks. Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.” To the real kingdom of God will go the thanks for such a war-free new world. Already the New World society of Jehovah’s witnesses is enjoying the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy among themselves on earth.

61. Besides Armageddon survivors, for whom are those earthly blessings reserved, and what will be extended to these by the survivors?

⁶¹ Ah, but the blessings of everlasting life, peace and paradise on earth are not for just those true Christians who have not failed God and who survive the battle of Armageddon into His new world. Regarding the Prince of Peace who died for all mankind it is written: “He must rule as king until God has put all enemies under his feet. As the last enemy, death is to be brought to nothing.” (1 Cor. 15:25, 26) To bring death to nothing means not only to lift the condemnation of death off the living survivors of Armageddon but also to resurrect the dead. Those dead ones whom divine justice has not already sentenced to everlasting destruction will return from the death state to the opportunity to live forever on the paradise earth, under God’s kingdom by Christ. (2 Tim. 4:1; Acts 10:42, 43; 24:15) To all those who return from the memorial tombs Christianity will be extended by the Armageddon survivors.

62. What healing will take place, and with what will those who finally do not fail God on earth be favored?

⁶² The miracle of resurrecting the dead will be followed by other miracles of spiritual and physical healing to human perfection as sons of God through Christ the King. All those who do not then fail God but whose knees bend to God in his name and whose tongues “openly acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father” will be favored with the gift of everlasting life in the earthly paradise of the new world.—Phil. 2:9-11; Rev. 21:1-4; John 3:16.

63. If we do not fear the consequences of Christendom’s end, what should we now do?

⁶³ Do we need to fear, then, the consequences that will follow the end of Christendom for having failed God? No! In view of what is to follow, we should separate ourselves from Christendom and adopt true Christianity. We should then live as sincere Christians in joyful expectation of all the precious blessings of God’s kingdom that will follow the end of hypocritical religion.

Young and Old Honor Jehovah

● Often refugees from East Germany have to content themselves with a single room of a house, and the children often visit other families. This also was true of a little girl who frequently visited in the room of one of Jehovah’s witnesses. There, however, she noticed something that she had not seen before—thanks being said to Jehovah before each meal. At her own home when father came home he would wish the family “Good appetite!” and then all would start eating. After repeatedly hearing thanks being said, what did this little girl do? One day, just before beginning her meal at home, she bowed her head and prayed aloud: “We thank you, Jehovah, for this food. Amen.” Were the parents surprised! The mother at once asked her little girl how it came about that she knew this simple prayer, and her child told her what she had heard and seen at the home of one of Jehovah’s witnesses. As a result the mother visited the Witness family and inquired about the prayer as well as asking many other Bible questions. This led to a home Bible study with both father and mother and the little girl, and, before long, all three were baptized in symbol of their dedication to do Jehovah’s will.

● Then again, in the Philippines not long ago, a person of good will, wanting to come in line with God’s righteous requirements, presented himself at one of the missionary homes of the Witnesses to be married. His age? He was ninety-seven years old, and his bride eighty-nine years. They had been living together as husband and wife for thirty-seven years, and now, as a result of being taught the truth about marriage, they wanted to live together in a Scripturally honorable state.

The Thought Behind the Proverb

When Solomon sat on the throne in Jerusalem, the capital was a center of world culture and trade. Wealth, merchants and goods poured into the city from all sides. However, people enjoying such prosperity were also potential victims of laziness, greed, sharp business practices and other poisons against which the inspired proverbs would act as an effective antidote.

PROVERBS 6:6-8

“Go to the ant, you lazy one; see its ways and become wise. Although it has no commander, officer or ruler, it prepares its food even in the summer; it has gathered its food supplies even in the harvest.”

Solomon does not specifically say that the ant stores up this food for winter use, but commends the industrious creature as an example of foresightedly gathering supplies in the season when food is plentiful. Some critics have asserted that Solomon was in error, supposing that he mistook ant larva for grain. However, a number of groups of ants known as “harvester ants” normally eat only seeds. These ants occur mostly in arid lands, “gathering seeds during the proper season and storing them in chambers below the surface of the ground for use when the supply is short.” (The Encyclopedia Americana, Vol. 2, 1946 Ed.) The black ant (Atta barbara) and a brown ant (Atta structor), two of Palestine’s most common varieties, are strictly seed feeders that store up large supplies of grain in the summer. In the vicinity of threshing floors farmers destroy ant colonies to prevent the energetic creatures from carrying away large quantities of grain, which they are otherwise certain to do with startling efficiency. Instead of sleeping in the season favorable for work, the lazy person should learn wisdom from the lowly ant.

PROVERBS 11:15 AND PROVERBS 22:26

“One will positively fare badly because he has gone surety for a stranger, but the one hating handshaking is keeping carefree.” “Do not get to be among those striking hands, among those who go security for loans.”

Borrowing and lending money was common in Solomon’s day. The speculators found many opportunities to lend funds at high rates of interest and on responsible suretyship. One’s entry into such a bond was signified by the act of striking the hands. To allow a stranger to talk you into “cosigning” for him so he could borrow money would expose you to the possibility of the stranger’s vanishing, leaving you with the obligation to repay his loan. Solomon may have had his son Rehoboam particularly in mind in this connection. If the heir apparent would allow court parasites to impose upon his generosity through flattery, his royal inheritance would be foolishly administered and the people exposed to a bad example.

PROVERBS 18:24

“There exist companions disposed to break one another to pieces, but there exists a friend sticking closer than a brother.”

Companions attracted by gifts are not the kind that stick in time of adversity (Prov. 19:6) In those days when a man might have sons by several legal wives, the ties of brotherhood were not as strong as they might have been otherwise. Solomon knew the difference between true and false friends. His brother Absalom attracted friends to himself and usurped the throne that Jehovah had appointed for Solomon. After Absalom’s death, and before Solomon was anointed as king, his brother Adonijah also attempted to seize the kingship. In contrast with these unloving brothers was Solomon’s friend Nathan the prophet, who remained loyal to the king, sticking closer than a brother.

PROVERBS 25:12

“An earring of gold, and an ornament of special gold, is a wise reprover upon the hearing ear.”

From earliest times fine earrings have been appreciated for their value and attractiveness. Gold jewelry would be a gift gladly accepted and eagerly worn. How much more treasured is the wise counselor who gives you words of correction and wisdom from Jehovah! By meekly listening to such instruction and cheerfully complying with it, the hearing person allows the valuable reproof and the reprover to adorn him like an earring of gold. Yes, getting true wisdom is better than getting silver or gold.—Prov. 3:13, 14.

The Bible—Authentic and Inspired

THAT God would give his earthly children a revelation of his will and purpose is a reasonable expectation. To suppose that man’s Creator would prefer to remain anonymous, expose himself to the charge of desertion, stigmatize the human race as illegitimate and forever hold man incommunicado respecting his greatest Benefactor and Highest Judge is wholly unreasonable. That God actually did provide an authentic, inspired revelation is evident from an honest examination of the facts.

From early times the books of the Bible have provided much-needed guidance for mankind. Across sixteen centuries of writing time the Bible consistently made known a God of love, wisdom, justice and power. From its pages groping man has learned the history of creation, the purpose of his existence, the origin of sin and death and the thrilling hope of paradise regained. In all ages its friends have found it an inexhaustible fountain of holiness, courage, beauty and practical wisdom. Even its enemies hail it as a literary masterpiece and do their bit toward making it the all-time best seller. And yet the Book of books has not been free from many bitter attacks.

“HIGHER CRITICISM”

In the nineteenth century, hard on the heels of Darwin’s revival of the Greek evolution theory, some German professors and clergymen launched a critical attack against the reliability of the Scriptures. Their “Higher Criticism” spread to many parts of the world. Many whose faith had already been weakened by Darwin suffered complete spiritual shipwreck. The dual attack illustrated Aesop’s adage: “An open foe may prove a curse, but a pretended friend is worse.”

As the storm of criticism raged against the Bible a startling voice began to speak in its defense. Archaeologists digging in Egypt, Palestine and Mesopotamia began to unearth exciting proof of the Bible’s truthfulness. Biblical cities, kings and nations suddenly came to life through discovery of clay tablets, pottery, statues, inscriptions and long-buried ruins. The Hittites and Canaanites had actually existed! (Ex. 3:8) Assyrian and Babylonian documents vouched for many of the people named at Genesis 10:1-32. Fierce Sennacherib and other kings were proved factual. Jericho’s walls were found, not to have decayed, but to have been knocked down by a great force; the city’s foodstuffs obviously had been burned, just as Jehovah had commanded Joshua. Even King Solomon’s stables were found at Megiddo. Archaeologists began to write books about archaeology and the Bible.—Isa. 36:1; Josh. 6:17, 24; 1 Ki. 4:26.

“The effect of these discoveries,” wrote Sir Charles Marston in The Bible Comes Alive, “is to further discredit the whole process of destructive criticism. Archaeology, a strictly objective science, is disproving the subjective negations spun from the mentality of critics. Those who have shaken popular faith in the Bible, and undermined its authority, are in turn undermined themselves by the evidence that has been brought to light, and their authority destroyed. The spade is driving destructive criticism out of the field of questionable facts into that of recognized fiction. And it is pretty certain that the process will continue.”

While archaeology vindicated the Bible, it did nothing for Darwin’s theory of evolution. In fact, evolution’s notion that early man could not write was flatly contradicted by discovery of what are considered pre-Flood inscribed tablets. Also, geologists and paleontologists were amazed to find that their most authentic acquisitions fully agreed with the Bible account of creation. To this day, evolution has been unable to prove its premise, and much of Darwin’s theory has been abandoned. What remains is a science-fiction faith that asserts what cannot be demonstrated by any field of science.

HONESTY OF THE BIBLE

Minds unprejudiced by discredited “Higher Criticism” and evolution can find ample proof of the Bible’s authenticity. At a time when their neighbors were corrupted by polytheism, magic, necromancy and gross immorality, Bible writers were making known one true God who demanded holiness, purity, and who legislated marvelous laws that were to become the basis of enlightened legal systems. (Deut. 5:6-21) Did those writers lie in saying that they wrote under inspiration? Could liars invent the purest concept of God, morality and justice ever known? Such invention would be a miracle in itself.

After reading in the Bible, columnist Sydney J. Harris wrote: “No other book ever written has vibrated with more agonizing honesty.” Yes, Moses wrote of his failure to give Jehovah credit for a miracle. King David’s sin with Bath-sheba was not hushed up. Peter’s denial of Christ was not glossed over or excused. Obviously Bible writers had genuine fear of the God they served. Their candor makes the Bible a literary phenomenon explainable only by its divine authorship.—Num. 20:7-12; 2 Sam. 11:2–12:14; Mark 14:66-72.

Such events as Israel’s deliverance through the Red Sea were woven into the daily lives and history of Israel, just as France has its Bastile Day and America its Independence Day. The sacred historians were not liars. Nor can the charge of hoax be leveled against the Christians. Liars could not invent a personality possessed of the love, integrity and wisdom found in Christ. Nor would such an unselfish man cheat his friends by false promises. Profane historians, of course, confirmed his existence. In the Roman historian Tacitus’ Annals, XV:44, we read: “Christ, from whom they derive their name, was condemned to death by the procurator Pontius Pilate in the reign of Emperor Tiberius.”

Not to be overlooked is the time of Christianity’s birth. It was an age of Jewish, Greek and Roman culture, an age of doctors, lawyers, courts, writers, administrators and practicing religionists who would have ample motive and means for unmasking Christian imposture. Such an age was hardly the time to undertake a colossal fraud, nor would it be possible to do so in view of the intricate web of details related in the four Gospels. As attorney Irwin H. Linton observes in his book, A Lawyer Examines the Bible: “While romances, legends and false testimony are careful to place the events related in some distant place and some indefinite time, thereby violating the first rules we lawyers learn of good pleading, that ‘the declaration must give time and place,’ the Bible narratives give us the date and place of the things related with the utmost precision.” In proof he cites Luke 3:1, 2, where the Gospel writer mentions seven public officials in order to establish the time Christ began his ministry.

What is more, had the Christians been convicted of lying or fraud, their case before the Jewish Sanhedrin would have been lost. As it was, Supreme Court Judge Gamaliel warned his associates: “Do not meddle with these men, but let them alone; (because, if this scheme and this work is from men, it will be overthrown; but if it is from God, you will not be able to overthrow them;) otherwise, you may perhaps be found fighters actually against God.” (Acts 5:38, 39) Would Judge Gamaliel entertain such fear of Christianity’s possible divine backing, would the Sanhedrin have followed his advice, if there had been any evidence of a hoax? That the Christians told the truth about Christ’s miracles and resurrection is vouched for by their willingness to endure a lifetime of persecution and even martyrdom for speaking such things. Criminals will deny proved facts in hope of escaping death; the Christians gladly died rather than brand God’s truth a lie. Nor did they die as others have done for fanatically believed dogmas. The Christians had seen and heard things. They knew the difference between a decomposing body and a resurrected Lazarus. There was no mistaking the fact that the blind, deaf, mute and crippled were suddenly able to see, hear, speak and walk. (John 11:32-46; Luke 7:22) What they had seen and heard the Christians could not and would not deny, even under penalty of death. Happily their faith in the teachings that accompanied such miracles gave them sure hope of a resurrection.—John 5:28, 29.

CODE OF HAMMURABI

“But did not Moses borrow from the Code of Hammurabi?” No, nor from any written source except the original documents handed down by Adam and the patriarchs, which Moses identifies as the histories written or possessed by such men as Adam, Noah and Shem. (Gen. 5:1; 6:9; 11:10) Likewise, Moses’ knowledge of the Flood came from the written reports of its survivors, not from Babylonian or other legends based on the catastrophe. To these original histories and laws Moses added the law covenant and the Ten Commandments given by God. Principles and precepts that Jehovah gave the patriarchs were incorporated into the law covenant under direction of holy spirit.

In this connection a statement by Philip Biberfeld, a rabbi, in his Universal Jewish History, is of interest: “The Code of Hammurabi, the Hittite Laws, and the Biblical Laws contained in the Book of the Covenant and other parts of the Bible go back to a common source which is best preserved in the Bible where it has retained its original simplicity . . . The common source that can be traced in all these codes is identical with the Noahidic Laws which, according to the tradition, were the inheritance of all mankind. In the Book of the Covenant this original divine law was promulgated again with the modifications of Biblical legislation . . . All this establishes beyond any doubt the conviction that the simple and lucid formulations of the Bible were not the product of an artificial process of elimination but those of the original version in all their purity and simplicity. This conclusion has implications which extend far beyond the realm of these ancient legislations. It has a decisive bearing on all those instances where the pure and beautiful Biblical traditions are confronted by mythological parallels with all their ugly distortions.”—Pages 153, 154.

INSPIRED PROPHECY

Of the many evidences establishing the truth of the Bible, no greater proof could be desired than its inspired prophecy. Man cannot reliably foretell the future. True prophecy comes from the true God, Jehovah, who says: “The first things—here they have come, but new things I am telling out. Before they begin to spring up, I cause you people to hear them.” (Isa. 42:9) Examine the chart of prophecies accompanying this article. The events fulfilling prophecy are occurrences known to you through personal observation or history, Biblical and secular. The predictions were made many years or many centuries before the fulfillments. The fulfillment of these prophecies proves the divine inspiration of the Bible. Any one of Jehovah’s witnesses will be glad to give you further details at your request. Investigate and discover why prophecy has been called a continuing miracle.

This chart by no means exhausts all the fulfilled Bible prophecies, nor have all the evidences of the Bible’s authenticity been explored here. But what we have learned from archaeology, history, prophecy and reason should be enough to convince any honest person that Paul’s statement at 2 Timothy 3:16 is positively true: “All Scripture is inspired of God.”

[Chart on page 247]

BIBLE PROPHECIES FULFILLED

FULFILLMENT PROPHECY

Conquest and destruction of Jerusalem Luke 19:41-44; (by Romans A.D. 70) Lu 21:20-24

Applying Bible Principles in an Ungodly World

MAN is faced with problems that constantly seem to grow more critical instead of being solved: broken marriages, delinquency and crime, friction between employers and employees, loneliness, and fear of nuclear war—and these things on such a scale that they seem to engulf all mankind. But is it necessary for your life to be marred by these woes simply because they are characteristic of our times? Happily, the Bible points out a better way, not only directing attention to life in God’s righteous new world, but showing us how to live right now in the midst of this ungodly world in such a way as to enjoy security, contentment and happiness.

It is evident that the problems to be met are great. For example, notwithstanding all her Bibles and churches, America is called “the most divorced and most delinquent country in the world.” It has been estimated that some 10,000,000 living Americans have been divorced. One in every four marriages ends in divorce. Something is obviously wrong. The Bible contains the answer to the situation, but for you to benefit you must do more than possess a Bible; you must apply its counsel.

For success in marriage it is essential to recognize that it is a divine institution. When husband and wife accept this fact they reinforce the marriage bond, because they realize that they are accountable to someone higher than themselves. Their marriage bond becomes a responsibility before God. With this view of marriage, husbands and wives, if dedicated to this God, respond to the command: “Let marriage be honorable among all, and the marriage bed be without defilement, for God will judge fornicators and adulterers.” (Heb. 13:4) They are drawn together in love. Guided by Bible principles, Christian husbands ‘love their wives as their own bodies,’ and Christian wives are “in subjection to their husbands as to the Lord.” This makes for mutual cooperation and security in the marriage relationship.—Eph. 5:21-28.

But what if one mate does not abide by Christian principles? Admittedly, the situation can be difficult. Yet application of Bible principles on the part of the believer will have a bettering effect. It will bring inner peace to the believer and may even win the unbeliever over to seeing the benefit of doing things God’s way. So believing wives are admonished: “Be in subjection to your own husbands, in order that, if any are not obedient to the word, they may be won without a word through the conduct of their wives.”—1 Pet. 3:1-6.

Praying together, too, which is a practice in Christian homes, has a healing effect when misunderstandings arise. When husbands and wives pray together and ask God to forgive them as they forgive each other, they are drawn together into a closer bond of union. Wrote the disciple James: “A righteous man’s supplication, when it is at work, has much force.”—Jas. 5:16.

According to Professor Lewis M. Terman’s exhaustive study of 792 couples, wives complained most seriously when their husbands were “selfish and inconsiderate, unsuccessful in business, untruthful, complaining, not affectionate and harsh with the children.” Husbands placed “nagging” first on their bill of complaints against wives, then listed, in order: “not affectionate, selfish and inconsiderate, complaining, slovenly, quick-tempered, given to interfering with hobbies.” Yet all of these problems will respond to the application of Bible principles, because the Bible helps even imperfect persons to manifest the godly fruitage of “love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faith, mildness, self-control.” (Gal. 5:22, 23) It is true that the application of Bible principles on your part is not going to erase all the marital unhappiness in the world, but it can make your marriage a happy one and one that is an honor to Jehovah God, the Author of marriage.

DEALING WITH DELINQUENCY AND CRIME

When worldly persons fail to apply Bible principles and so fail to make a success of marriage, they are not the only ones that are hurt. Their children suffer too. There are two to four million children of divorce, separation and annulment in the United States today. And each year another 300,000 youngsters under eighteen are added to the total. Many of these become delinquents and resort to crime. Other children from apparently “good” homes have also picked up the rebellious spirit of our times. During the years between 1950 and 1960 serious crimes increased 98 percent, while population in the United States rose only 18 percent in the same period.

If this matter of child delinquency is one with which you are confronted, Bible principles can help. You may have a rebellious child that worries you. One mother says: “I have lost control of my daughter, not quite sixteen. She is impudent to her father, and listens to me only when she wants to. . . . She’s not bad or vicious, but so unruly and rebellious I can’t do anything with her. Is there any way I can bring her under control?” Another mother complained to police that she was unable to control her ten-year-old son who was out to become a burglar. Child psychologists differ on how to handle children, but God, who made man, knows what is best and he tells us in his Word the Bible.

He tells parents to take the time to teach their children the Word of God. “You, fathers, do not be irritating your children, but go on bringing them up in the discipline and authoritative advice of Jehovah.” (Eph. 6:4) This is the best way to mold the child’s thinking in godly channels and to protect it from corrupting influences of the world in which he lives. By teaching the child godliness, that it is wrong to lie, steal or covet, and by coupling such instruction with their own good example, parents create a desire in the child to resist temptations. It learns self-control. Then, too, by emphasizing that these are God’s principles, that God says: You must not murder, steal, lie or covet; that God says: You must “honor your father and your mother” and be “obedient to your parents,” the child learns that it must obey under all circumstances, because, even when the parents are not watching, God is.—Ex. 20:13-17; Eph. 6:1, 2; 1 Pet. 3:12.

Discipline, too, is a necessary part of child training, and it is recommended in the Scriptures. “The one holding back his rod is hating his son, but the one loving him is he that does look for him with discipline.” (Prov. 13:24) Discipline administered in harmony with that Bible principle is not out of irritation or in anger but motivated by love, and “love builds up.” It builds up right patterns of conduct and warm relations between parents and children. It is a strong factor in curbing delinquency in homes where it rules.—1 Cor. 8:1; Heb. 12:7-9.

SOLVING SOCIAL PROBLEMS

Racial discrimination and mistreatment of persons simply because of their national background are other problems that prevail because of failure to apply Bible principles. The Bible is not a nationalistic book, teaching that people in one land are better than those anywhere else, breeding feelings of national or racial superiority, causing one group to look down on another. Rather, it makes clear that God “made out of one man every nation of men, to dwell upon the entire surface of the earth,” and it commands all: “You must love your neighbor as yourself.” (Acts 17:26; Matt. 22:39) Application of its principles has made it possible for true Christians out of all nations to be drawn together as members of one large spiritual family. They are able to meet together, work together and live together in peace and harmony. They find contentment, not only among persons of the same race or those of the same nationality, but among their Christian brothers in every part of the world.—Isa. 2:2, 3; Rev. 7:9.

Even toward those who discriminate against them they pursue a course of peace. They follow the counsel of Jesus: “Continue to love your enemies and to pray for those persecuting you,” and, “Whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other also to him.” They know that “an answer, when mild, turns away rage.” Thus they find that applying Bible principles is the most practical course in this ungodly world.—Matt. 5:44, 39; Prov. 15:1.

Another area where the application of Bible principles brings great blessings is in the field of employer and employee relations. Just think of the amount of time lost as a result of employees’ not giving a full and fair day’s work. Consider, too, that, according to John S. Mee, a top insurance executive, American businessmen, organizations and industry are being swindled out of more than $200,000,000 each working day by their employees. But those who apply Bible principles are not a party to any of this dishonesty. They follow the rule: “Let the stealer steal no more, but rather let him do hard work, doing with his hands what is good work.” (Eph. 4:28) Not only stealing of merchandise and equipment from the shop but also “loafing on the job” is recognized by Christians as thievery, and they are under command not to steal. They know that they are accountable to God for what they do; so they do even their secular work as unto God and not man. They have in mind the Bible counsel to workers: “Be obedient in everything to those who are your masters in a fleshly sense, not with acts of eyeservice, as men pleasers, but with sincerity of heart, with fear of Jehovah. Whatever you are doing, work at it whole-souled as to Jehovah, and not to men, for you know that it is from Jehovah you will receive the due reward.”—Col. 3:22-24.

Employers too have Bible principles to govern them. Advice given to slaveholders in the first century gives food for thought to modern-day employers: “You masters, keep dealing out what is righteous and what is fair to your slaves, knowing that you also have a Master in heaven.” (Col. 4:1) Sincere neighbor love on their part and an awareness that they are accountable to God move them to conduct their business affairs in such a way that they have a clear conscience before God and men and they are able to enjoy good relations with their employees. Yes, applying Bible principles bears good fruit even in the midst of an ungodly world.

LONELINESS AND FEAR

Today the problem of loneliness, and of the depressing boredom that often comes with it, seems to be more widespread than ever before. In what way can an application of Bible principles aid people to overcome these problems?

Basic to Christian living is association. Their very way of life is to be useful and helpful to others. They are admonished to ‘consider one another to incite to love and fine works, not forsaking the gathering of themselves together.’ (Heb. 10:24, 25) In regular association at congregation meetings several times a week they enjoy fellowship with others who are interested in them, and even on other days their Christian activity draws them close to their families and keeps them in touch with others in the Christian congregation. The very nature of the work God gives Christians to do fills one with a sense of worth, bringing deep satisfaction. Their bright hope of God’s righteous new world fills them and overflows to others around them. In giving of themselves and sharing with others the good things they have learned from God’s Word, they find happiness. For did not Jesus say: “There is more happiness in giving than there is in receiving”? (Acts 20:35) As persons who apply Bible principles, they are an active, happy people.

Fear is another overwhelming problem—fear of nuclear annihilation in a global war. Your applying Bible principles will not prevent the ungodly from using their weapons, but those with confidence in God do not fear what the nations may do. They know that God will not permit the earth to be ruined for human habitation, because he has promised to destroy the wicked and make this a paradise home for obedient mankind. (Rev. 11:18; Ps. 37:10, 11) Even in the face of death they do not lose their hope. They know that God, the Creator of life, can give them life again by a resurrection from the dead. That is why the apostle Paul said: “We do not . . . sorrow just as the rest also do who have no hope. For if our faith is that Jesus died and rose again, so, too, those who have fallen asleep in death through Jesus God will bring with him.”—1 Thess. 4:13, 14; Acts 24:15.

Are there actually people on earth today who believe and live in harmony with these Bible principles? Yes, indeed! The New World society of Jehovah’s witnesses. Because of this the Milwaukee Sentinel, for August 24, 1961, in speaking of Jehovah’s witnesses, said: “Their agreement is not on just the trivialities of life, but the vital things—rules of conduct, adherence to principles, worship of God.” Prove it for yourself. Visit the Kingdom Hall of Jehovah’s witnesses in your vicinity. You will find Jehovah witnesses glad to share with you and others the Bible answers to the problems we all face in this ungodly world.

How I do love your law! All day long it is my concern. . . . More insight than all my teachers I have come to have, because your reminders are a concern to me. With more understanding than older men I behave, because I have observed your own orders. . . . Owing to your orders I behave with understanding. That is why I have hated every false path. Your word is a lamp to my foot, and a light to my roadway.—Ps. 119:97-105.

God’s Kingdom—Mankind’s Only Hope

A SOLID hope for the future—that is what mankind needs as never before. Can man through his disarmament talks, defense programs and efforts at world government provide such a solid hope for survival? Does God offer mankind any other hope?

Indicating that survival has become an overtowering question, when thousands of scientists gathered a few months ago in Denver, Colorado, for the 128th meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the survival of mankind in the atomic age was a major topic for consideration. The establishment of a Science of Human Survival was urged, to prepare mankind in the event of a nuclear war. Recently Bertrand Russell, the well-known philosopher, estimated “the odds at forty percent in favor of survival and sixty percent against.”

The steps that have been taken toward the annihilating of the human family have caused sickness of mind and heart among the masses of people. There have been various possibilities offered for the solution of the world’s problems. But the big question is, Which hope will prove to be sound?

HOPES FOR THE FUTURE

Millions have placed their hope for a better world in the glowing promises of plenty, prosperity and equality for all under communism. They are presented with tangible proof of communism’s tremendous power and are therefore led to believe that the promises made by communism will be fulfilled. Has not the Soviet Union launched men into space and even hit the moon with one of its rockets? Yes! Not only that, but look at its arsenal bristling with multimegaton bombs!

On the other hand, multitudes of people look to the democratic governments of the West for protection. Their hopes for survival, prosperity and blessings rest on the promises of these powers. From them millions of persons realize tangible benefits and therefore feel they are the best for mankind and must prevail. They hopefully put their confidence in the weapons of the United States, which U.S. Secretary of Defense McNamara said, recently, are “capable of destroying the Soviet target system, even after absorbing an initial attack.”

Despite the fact that the communistic East and democratic West stand opposed to each other, they are joined together in an organization ironically labeled the United Nations. Many hail this organization as the best hope for peace because, in spite of what actually does take place, its purpose is not to pit one side against the other, but to bring them both together as one. Early in its history Pope Pius XII called the United Nations “the fond and holy hope of all men of good will.” Recently a Presbyterian clergyman said “the United Nations is our last best hope for building a peaceful world and avoiding an atomic holocaust.”

The vast majority of mankind place their hopes for the future in these kingdoms and worldly organizations. However, not to be discounted is the hope that God offers. Long ago he promised to establish over mankind a kingdom, a real government, that would provide survival through this time of trouble, and grand blessings in a new world of plenty. His Word promises that “the God of heaven will set up a kingdom” and “it will crush and put an end to all these kingdoms, and it itself will stand to times indefinite.”—Dan. 2:44.

The vital question that must be resolved is, Where is one going to place his hope for survival? There is only one hope that will prove successful; all others will lead to disappointment and eventual death. Why? Because Jehovah, who is Almighty, declares that his kingdom will crush out of existence the governments of both the East and the West, including the United Nations, and it alone “will stand to times indefinite.” There will be no coexistence with selfish human governments. So what choice will you make? To whom will you lend support? In what will you hope?

GOD’S KINGDOM VERSUS WORLDLY GOVERNMENTS

Will you look to human governments and trust in them? Many do. It is not that they have dismissed God from their thoughts, but they feel that man must bring about the kingdom of God by winning worldly governments over to godly ways. They believe that this is the means by which God’s kingdom will come. But not so. It is not God’s way. This is made unmistakably clear in the example that the Lord Jesus set for Christians to follow. During the entire period of his earthly ministry he never engaged in the political movements around him. He did not try to reform the Roman government, and he even turned down a draft on the part of the Jews to make him their king to liberate them from Rome. Jesus said that his kingdom was no part of this world, and he further said that his followers, those who followed his example in these matters, were to be no part of it. They would pay their taxes, obey all the laws of the Caesar governments that did not conflict with God’s law and be exemplary in their love for their neighbor; but as for the political movements of the nations, in this they would be absolutely neutral.—John 6:15; 15:19; 17:16; 18:36; Matt. 22:17-21, 39.

Others among men have no illusions about causing righteousness to prevail through their efforts, but they are not ready to abandon all hope of survival. They may even agree with the opinion expressed in the London Daily Express of July 27, 1961: “The League of Nations was supposed to ensure the peace and progress of the world. It lasted twenty years and ended in disaster. The United Nations . . . is an even greater flop than the League was.” Yet as long as there is a United Nations or any other agency working for peace, they feel that in the interest of survival the only thing to do is to support it and hope against hope that disaster will be averted. They admit that the outlook is not bright; but the fact is that what they cling to is really no hope at all. There is no government of men that can possibly guarantee to mankind the security they so much desire. Why so?

Because the bringing in of enduring peace involves much more than negotiations among the rulers of the nations. Even if all men should agree on some peace program, they are not in position to put an end to the warmongering activities of the “god of this system of things,” Satan the Devil. Nor can they root out the sin that inclines men in ungodly ways. For these things they must look to God.—2 Cor. 4:4; Rev. 12:9; Heb. 2:14, 15.

Furthermore, God has not commissioned the political rulers of mankind as the creators of a new world. It is his Son Jesus Christ whom he has anointed as King. Therefore, when men presumptuously set themselves up as the ones who will bring peace and prosperity to all mankind, they are not seeking the good of their fellowmen, but are grasping for personal glory by usurping the role that God has given to his Son; and in this they can never succeed.—Ps. 2:6-12.

The only hope for mankind lies in the kingdom of God, His heavenly government administering the affairs of the earth in righteousness. It is for this that Jesus taught us to pray: “Our Father in the heavens, let your name be sanctified. Let your kingdom come. Let your will take place, as in heaven, also upon earth.”—Matt. 6:9, 10.

SUPERIORITY OF THE KINGDOM HOPE

God made provision for that kingdom right after the first human pair rebelled in the garden of Eden. He knew that “it does not belong to man who is walking even to direct his step.” (Jer. 10:23) So he promised a Seed that would crush the originator of the rebellion, Satan the Devil, and that would become a righteous ruler for the blessing of all mankind. That Seed, the long-looked-for Messiah, was born as the babe Jesus in Bethlehem some 1,900 years ago. At the announcement of his coming birth the angel said: “He will rule as king . . . and there will be no end of his kingdom.”—Luke 1:30-33; Gen. 3:15; 22:17, 18; Gal. 3:16.

After his death and resurrection Jesus “sat down at the right hand of God, from then on awaiting until his enemies should be placed as a stool for his feet.” (Heb. 10:12, 13) This waiting was to span many centuries. Jesus indicated this when he gave his prophecy concerning his second presence in Kingdom power. He explained that in the then distant future he would begin to rule amid world turmoil. An examination of this prophecy recorded in Matthew chapter 24, Mark chapter 13 and Luke chapter 21 establishes conclusively that we are now living in the generation of unprecedented trouble that Jesus was talking about. Scriptural evidence pinpoints the year 1914 as the time God’s long-prayed-for kingdom was established in the heavens. That kingdom assures survival through this time of trouble into a new world of righteousness to all who will put their hope and trust in it.

While man is limited in power and in ability to fulfill his promises, Jehovah is not. Consider for a moment his unlimited power. When man releases the energy from just a small package of invisible atoms of matter he can blow whole cities apart. Just imagine then the incomprehensible power of the One who created the entire material universe, including the vast star systems! Scientists estimated that just one of last fall’s hurricanes generated more energy than would forty-five 100-megaton bombs. Jehovah God, the one who has control of all the forces of nature, will soon use such power to crush all opposers of his kingdom.

There is every reason to trust and hope in Jehovah’s power to save. Call to mind the ancient nation of Israel standing at the edge of the Red Sea with the Egyptian hordes closing in from the rear. Did not Jehovah save his people by opening the waters to provide a way of escape, only to close them upon the Egyptian pursuers? Yes! (Ex., chap. 14) Jesus used two other examples to illustrate God’s power to provide deliverance for his people and yet destroy all those that would oppose his purposes. “For just as the days of Noah were,” Jesus said, “they took no note until the flood came and swept them all away, so the presence of the Son of man will be.” “Likewise,” Jesus continued, “on the day that Lot came out of Sodom it rained fire and sulphur from heaven and destroyed them all. The same way it will be on that day when the Son of man is to be revealed.” Just as in the past God acted in behalf of those hoping in him, so he will do again for all who hope in his kingdom.—Matt. 24:37-39; Luke 17:28-30.

How marvelous the grand blessings of the Kingdom rule that are in store for the survivors! Man has not succeeded in bringing peace even between himself and his neighbor. But not only does God promise that “he is making wars to cease to the extremity of the earth,” but he assures that even man and the animals will dwell together peacefully.—Ps. 46:9; Isa. 11:6, 9.

With God’s kingdom directing all of man’s energies toward peaceful pursuits the earth’s appearance will be transformed to that of a parklike paradise. “The earth itself will certainly give its produce” so that never again will there be a food shortage. Under the administration of the Divine Physician man will finally be delivered from his age-long affliction with sickness and disease. Even death must bow to the irresistible power of the Kingdom, for God promises that “he will wipe out every tear from their eyes, and death will be no more, neither will mourning nor outcry nor pain be any more. The former things have passed away.”—Ps. 67:6; Rev. 21:4.

If you want to be assured of survival and to realize these grand blessings of peace, prosperity, health and security, then make the Kingdom your hope, for it is the only hope that will not lead to disappointment. Study God’s Word the Bible regularly and be convinced of Jehovah’s power to deliver his people. Do not put your hope and trust in the feeble efforts of man to bring about Kingdom blessings, but let your attitude be that expressed by the faithful prophet: “Look! This is our God. We have hoped in him, and he will save us. This is Jehovah. We have hoped in him. Let us be joyful and rejoice in the salvation by him.”—Isa. 25:9.

Announcements

COURAGEOUS MINISTERS ASSEMBLIES

Have you made arrangements to attend one of the three-day Christian assemblies scheduled for this summer? Study the list of assembly locations listed here, discuss the matter with your family, and decide now where you will attend. Plan to be present right from the start to hear the upbuilding Bible counsel that will be given. Beginning five weeks before the date of the assembly you plan to attend, you may write to Watchtower Convention, at the rooming address, for assistance in obtaining accommodations.

UNITED STATES

JUNE 29–JULY 1: Casper, Wyo., Industrial Building, Natrona County Fairgrounds. Rooming: 826 East A, Casper. Mobile, Ala., Hartwell Field, S. Ann St. Rooming: 2453 Emogene St., Mobile. Shreveport, La., State Fair Youth Center, Fairgrounds, 3200 Greenwood Rd. Rooming: 7033 Brandtway St., Shreveport.

JULY 6-8: Grand Island, Nebr., Fonner Park. Rooming: 825 N. White, Grand Island. Jackson, Tenn., Grandstand, The West Tennessee District Fairgrounds, 700 Short St. Rooming: 819 N. Royal St., Jackson. Johnstown, Pa., War Memorial Auditorium, Napoleon St. Rooming: 605 Franklin St., Johnstown. Ogden, Utah, Ogden Senior High School, 2828 Harrison Blvd. Rooming: 660 W. 24th St., Ogden. Worcester, Mass., Worcester Memorial Auditorium, Lincoln Square. Rooming: 44 Randolph Rd., Worcester 6. Yakima, Wash., Eisenhower Senior High School, S. 42d Ave. & Tieton Dr. Rooming: 112 W. Lenox Ave., Yakima.

JULY 13-15: Columbus, Ga., Municipal Auditorium. Rooming: 4000 Beallwood Ave., Columbus. Greensboro, N.C., Greensboro War Memorial Coliseum, 1921 W. Lee St. Rooming: 918 Glenwood Ave., Greensboro. Hammond, Ind., Hammond Civic Center, 5825 S. Sohl Ave. Rooming: 636 Conkey St., Hammond. La Crosse, Wis., Mary E. Sawyer Auditorium, 5th & Vine Sts. Rooming: 418 N. 16th St., La Crosse. Oakland, Calif., Oakland Municipal Auditorium, Tenth & Fallon Sts. Rooming: 1739 Eighth Ave., Oakland 6. Pomona, Calif., Grandstand, Los Angeles County Fairgrounds. Rooming: 1546 Garey Ave., Pomona. Pueblo, Colo., Grandstand, Colorado State Fairgrounds, Beulah Ave. & Summit St. Rooming: 523 E. Pitkin, Pueblo. Saginaw, Mich., Grandstand, Saginaw Fairgrounds, E. Genesee St. at Webber St. Rooming: 2112 W. Genesee St., Saginaw. Sheboygan, Wis., Municipal Auditorium & Armory, 516 Broughton Dr. Rooming: 1324 Michigan Ave., Sheboygan. Toledo, Ohio, Toledo Sports Arena, 1 Main St. Rooming: 2409 Wayne St., Toledo 9. Trenton, N. J., Grandstand, New Jersey State Fairgrounds, 1648 Nottingham Way. Rooming: 2044 Greenwood Ave., Trenton 9. Tucson, Ariz., Rillito Racetrack, 4502 N. First Ave. Rooming: 207 W. Flores St., Tucson. West Palm Beach, Fla., Jai Alai Fronton, West 45th St. Rooming: 532 Iris St., West Palm Beach.

JULY 20-22: Cape Girardeau, Mo., Arena Building, Arena Park, Highway 61 N. Rooming: 313 N. Fountain St., Cape Girardeau. Helena, Mont., Helena Civic Center, Cor. Benten & Neill Sts. Rooming: 1018 Cole St., Helena. Jersey City, N.J., Roosevelt Stadium, End of Danforth Ave. Rooming: 582 Bramhall Ave., Jersey City 4. Lexington, Ky., Bryan Station Senior High School, Edgeworth Dr. Rooming: 746 N. Broadway, Lexington. Lima, Ohio, Grandstand, Allen County Fairgrounds, Rte. 30S & Bowman Rd. Rooming: 1401 S. Sugar St., Lima. Northridge, Calif., Grandstand, Devonshire Downs, 18000 Devonshire St. Rooming: 7441 Tampa St., Reseda. Springfield, Mo., Shrine Mosque Auditorium, 601 St. Louis St. Rooming: 534 W. Catalpa, Springfield. Timonium, Md., Grandstand, Timonium Fairgrounds. Rooming: 1625 Bellona Ave., Lutherville, Md.

JULY 27-29: Bakersfield, Calif., Grandstand, Kern County Fairgrounds, 1142 South P St. Rooming: 1631 Lake St., Bakersfield. Canton, Ohio, Canton Memorial Auditorium, 1101 Market Ave. N. Rooming: 416 High Ave., SW., Canton 11. Eureka, Calif., Grandstand, Redwood Acres Fairgrounds, 3750 Harris St. Rooming: 1324 5th St., Eureka. Fargo, N. Dak., Civic Memorial Auditorium, 201 N. 4th St. Rooming: 1014 S. 19th St., Moorhead, Minn. Jackson, Mich., Grandstand, Jackson County Fairgrounds. Rooming: 219 W. Prospect St., Jackson. Orlando, Fla., Orlando Municipal Auditorium, 401 W. Livingston Ave. Rooming: 1701 Lee St., Orlando. San Angelo, Tex., San Angelo Coliseum, Fairgrounds. Rooming: 1502 N. Magdalen St., San Angelo. Terre Haute, Ind., Memorial Stadium, E. Wabash & Brown Aves. Rooming: 303 S. 14th St., Terre Haute. Utica, N.Y., Utica Municipal Auditorium, Oriskany St. W. Rooming: 910 Kellogg Ave., Utica.

AUG. 3-5: Charleston, W. Va., Watt Powell Ball Park, 35 McCorkle Ave. SE. Rooming: 812 Bigley Ave., Charleston 2. Longview, Wash., Mark Morris Junior & Senior High School, 16th & Oak. Rooming: 1206 Douglas, Longview. Macon, Ga., Luther Williams Field, Central City Park. Rooming: 2230 Menden Ave., Macon. Manchester, N.H., State Armory, Cor. Canal & Salmon Sts. Rooming: 450 Hanover St., Manchester.

AUG. 10-12: Costa Mesa, Calif., Grandstand, Orange County Fairgrounds, 20391 Newport Blvd. Rooming: 2277 Canyon Dr., Costa Mesa. Peoria, Ill., Exposition Gardens, Northmoor Rd. & University St. Rooming: 127 W. Duryea Ave., Peoria Heights.

AUG. 17-19: Hutchinson, Kans., Grandstand, Kansas State Fairgrounds, 23d & Main. Rooming: 328 East B, Hutchinson.

AUG. 24-26: San Antonio, Tex., (Spanish only), Villita Assembly Bldg., 401 Villita St. Rooming: 114 Apperson Ave., San Antonio 7.

CANADA

JULY 6-8: Moose Jaw, Sask., Civic Centre, Exhibition Grounds, Main St. N. Rooming: 302 Athabasca St. E., Moose Jaw.

JULY 13-15: Nanaimo, B.C., Nanaimo Civic Arena. Rooming: 305 Prideaux St., Nanaimo.

JULY 20-22: Kamloops, B.C., Kamloops Memorial Arena, 740 Victoria St. Rooming: 260 Leigh Rd., North Kamloops. Prince Albert, Sask., Exhibition Grandstand. Rooming: 1204 3d Ave. W., Prince Albert.

JULY 27-29: Edmonton, Alta., Edmonton Gardens, 118th Ave. & 79th St. Rooming: 12425 125th St., Edmonton. Quebec, Que., Palais de l’Agriculture, Terrain de l’Exposition. Rooming: 215 rue Anna, Quebec 8.

AUG. 3-5: Hamilton, Ont., Civic Stadium, Beechwood Ave. Rooming: 64 1⁄2 Wentworth St. N., Hamilton. Lethbridge, Alta., Live Stock Sales Pavilion. Rooming: 125 13th St. N., Lethbridge.

AUG. 10-12: Brandon, Man., Wheat City Arena. Rooming: 834 10th St., Brandon.

AUG. 17-19: Sault Ste. Marie, Ont., Sault Ste. Marie Memorial Gardens. Rooming: 54 Wellington St. W., Sault Ste. Marie.

AUG. 24-26: Moncton, N.B., Moncton Stadium, St. George St. Rooming: 15 Granville Dr., Moncton.

BRITISH ISLES

JUNE 22-24: Belfast, Northern Ireland, Ulster Hall, Bedford St. Rooming: Kingdom Hall, Magdala St., Belfast. Plymouth, Dev., Guildhall, Great Square. Rooming: Kingdom Hall, Gordon Terrace, Mutley, Plymouth, Dev.

JUNE 29–JULY 1: Liverpool, Liverpool Football Ground, Anfield Rd. Rooming: 57b Breck Rd., Anfield, Liverpool 4. Portsmouth, Hants, Portsmouth Football Ground, Fratten Park. Rooming: Kingdom Hall, Raglan St., Portsmouth, Hampshire.

JULY 6-8: Leeds, The Queens Hall, Sovereign St. Rooming: Kingdom Hall, Stocks Lane, Town St., Bramley, Leeds. Southend, Roots Hall Football Ground, Victoria Ave. Rooming: Kingdom Hall, Fairfax Dr., Westcliff-on-Sea, Southend-on-Sea, Essex.

JULY 13-15: Coventry, War., Coventry City Football Ground, Highfield Rd. Rooming: Kingdom Hall, Holyhead Rd., Coventry, Warwickshire. Edinburgh, Scotland, Murryfield Ice Rink, Riverdale Crescent. Rooming: 5 Millar Place, Edinburgh 10.

FIELD MINISTRY

Being aglow with Jehovah’s spirit, lovers of Bible truth are moved to share its message of life with others. (Rom. 12:11) And since The Watchtower has done more than any other journal to help persons to understand the Bible, Jehovah’s witnesses encourage all lovers of Bible truth to read it regularly. During April they will be inviting others to obtain a one-year subscription for it, with three booklets, for only $1.

FAVORITE OF THOUSANDS

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“WATCHTOWER” STUDIES FOR THE WEEKS

May 20: Christendom Has Failed God! After Her End, What?, ¶1-21. Page 228.

May 27: Christendom Has Failed God! After Her End, What?, ¶22-43. Page 232.

June 3: Christendom Has Failed God! After Her End, What?, ¶44-63. Page 237.