The Watchtower — December 15, 1963

A Time for the Head and a Time for the Heart

“USE your head!” shouted the impatient mechanic to his helper, a newcomer on the job. “Have a heart! I’m trying hard to find work!” pleaded the unemployed debtor of the banker who threatened to foreclose the mortgage if payments on the interest were not at once forthcoming.

By expressions such as these is recognized the difference between the various faculties of the mind, such as reason, thinking, memory and volition on one hand, and affection, sympathy and pity on the other hand. While some situations obviously call for one or the other, in other situations one must choose. For example, were you to walk along 14th Street in New York City on a busy Saturday morning you would be importuned for help several times in each block. It might be a blind man, or an invalid in a wheelchair, a legless cripple propelling himself along on roller skates or it might be a black-garbed nun. Are they all deserving or are none? Your heart may want to give to all that ask but your head tells you that you cannot afford to do so. Besides, how many of those asking are truly deserving of help?

It calls to mind the principle long ago stated by a wise king: “For everything there is an appointed time, even a time for every affair under the heavens: . . . a time to love and a time to hate.” (Eccl. 3:1, 3) Yes, the Creator, having equipped us with such qualities as wisdom, justice, love and power, expects us to determine which situation requires the application of which quality. One situation may primarily require the application of justice, another of wisdom, another of love. Thus even as it would be a mistake to enforce the demands of strict justice when the facts allow for mercy to be shown, so it would be a mistake to yield to sentiment when the facts dictate that strict justice should be enforced. There is a time for the head and a time for the heart.

Illustrating this principle is the parable Jesus once gave regarding the prodigal son. When, after wasting his inheritance, that son repented and returned to his father’s home, the father freely forgave him, even preparing a feast for him. The father’s feelings took over out of sheer joy to have his son back. But not so with the elder brother. His head governed. What he said was all only too true. He had not been a prodigal but had served his father faithfully for many years and yet his father had never prepared a feast for him as he had for “this your son.” All that the elder son said was true, yet how mistaken he was, for this was, not a time to take an accounting, but a time for the heart, a time for one’s feelings to go out, a time to rejoice because “this your brother was dead but has become alive, and he was lost but has been found.”—Luke 15:11-32.

Illustrating the converse is the Bible record of the time when it became necessary for King David to relinquish his throne because of his old age. One of his sons, Adonijah, instead of waiting for his father to designate his heir to the throne, proudly and ambitiously kept saying: “I myself am going to rule as king!” He even “proceeded to have a chariot made for himself with horsemen and fifty men running before him. And his father did not hurt his feelings at any time by saying: ‘Why is this the way you have done?’ And he was also very good-looking in form.”—1 Ki. 1:5, 6.

Why did David let this good-looking son of his do as he pleased? Why could he not say anything to hurt the feelings of his son? Because David failed to realize that there was a time for the head, a time to be firm and to administer rebukes, and a time for the heart, a time for sentiment, and so he reared a son who tried to snatch the throne from his father before it could be given to the rightful heir, Solomon.

Apparently King David had made the same mistake as regards his even more handsome son, Absalom, for when that traitorous and insolent son was killed in an unsuccessful attempt to usurp the throne of his father, David seemed inconsolable, his grief knew no bounds. He wept: “My son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! O that I might have died, I myself, instead of you, Absalom my son, my son!” Fittingly, his general, Joab, reproved David: “You have today put to shame the face of all your servants, the ones providing escape for your soul today and for the soul of your” household, “by loving those hating you and hating those loving you.” Yes, how unfitting David’s sentiment and grief for his wicked son Absalom were at this time!—2 Sam. 18:33; 19:5, 6.

Today there are ever so many parents who are making the same mistake that King David made, letting the heart govern when the head should, being swayed by sentiment when they should be firm and adhere to and enforce righteous principles, and who are reaping similar results. Thus in the recently published book Teen-Age Tyranny two authorities in the field of youth and education express concern because of “the abdication of the rights and privileges of adults for the convenience of the immature,” the teen-agers. Among other things they tell that police officials in leading vacation states “appear to agree that the most typical reception they get from parents informed by phone at night that their teen-age children have been arrested for drunkenness and disorderly behavior is a mixture of disbelief and anger—at the police.”

But you have no children? Still this principle concerns you because you can apply it in dealing with yourself. There are times when you may be kind to yourself but also times when you must be firm, be hard on yourself, as it were. Thus when Peter wanted Jesus to be kind to himself when Jesus knew that God had marked out for him a course of suffering, Jesus said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan!” And it might be said that Peter’s wanting to be kind to himself when he should have been firm accounts for his denying his Master three times.—Matt. 16:21-23; 26:69-75.

No question about it, there is a time for the head and a time for the heart. Happy are we when we know the time for each!

The Sure Word of God

Is the Bible reliable? How can we be sure?

IN THESE troublous times that face mankind, how reassuring it is to have the comforting Word of God! Despite man’s gloomy prediction that nuclear weapons will soon annihilate the human race, God promises that He will make “wars to cease to the extremity of the earth.” According to his Word, the earth will then enjoy an “abundance of peace until the moon is no more.”—Ps. 46:9; 72:7.

But can we be sure of the Word of God? Can we rely on its promises? Will God actually cause wars to cease and usher in permanent peace earthwide? Jesus Christ, the wisest man to walk the earth, found no reason to question the reliability of God’s written Word. He believed what it said. In fact, he repeatedly quoted it as an authority, and, in appreciative prayer to his Father, confessed: “Your word is truth.”—John 17:17.

Long before Jesus’ day other outstanding leaders expressed similar confidence in God’s Word. Noteworthy are the words of aged Joshua, the military leader used by God to bring the Israelites into the Promised Land. Shortly before his death at the advanced age of 110 years, he said: “Now, look! I am going today in the way of all the earth, and you well know with all your hearts and with all your souls that not one word out of all the good words that Jehovah your God has spoken to you has failed. They have all come true for you. Not one word of them has failed.”—Josh. 23:14.

Joshua and his fellow Israelites were eyewitnesses to the fulfillment of many promises contained in God’s Word. These things that God had spoken in advance came to pass before their very eyes! It was miraculous! What assurance it was to them that God’s Word could be trusted and relied upon! A consideration of those words of God that did not fail in Joshua’s day will be strengthening to our confidence in the Word of God today.

EARLY COMPILATION OF THE SURE WORD

At the time of Joshua’s farewell address to his people the written Word of God included the first five books of the Bible, known as the Pentateuch. Moses had finished writing these books some forty years earlier, just prior to his death. He compiled much of the information from previously written documents, one of which he identifies as “the book of Adam’s history.” (Gen. 5:1) In all, Moses used eleven of such books or historical documents as source material for the first thirty-six chapters of Genesis. From that point on Moses could gather information regarding events before his time from his father Amram and other older Israelites.—Gen. 2:4; 6:9; 10:1; 11:10, 27; 25:12, 19; 36:1, 9; 37:2.

One of those early historical documents that Moses consulted told of God’s curse upon Noah’s grandson Canaan, evidently stated by Noah because of some immoral act on Canaan’s part. At Genesis 9:25 and 26 it is recorded: “Cursed be Canaan. Let him become the lowest slave to his brothers. . . . Blessed be Jehovah, Shem’s God, and let Canaan become a slave to him.”

Joshua and the Israelites, who were descendants of Shem through Abraham, were well acquainted with this inspired curse stated many years before. Would it be fulfilled? In obedience to God’s instructions Joshua and his people crossed the Jordan River to take possession of the land inhabited by the descendants of the cursed Canaan. After the Israelites had defeated the cities of Jericho and Ai, Canaanites from the city of Gibeon came out to sue for peace. “We are your servants. And now conclude a covenant with us,” they said to Joshua.—Josh. 9:11.

In keeping with their request Joshua concluded a covenant with them, and said: “And now you are cursed people, and a slave’s position and being gatherers of wood and drawers of water for the house of my God will never be cut off from you.” What striking fulfillment of God’s Word! “And it came about that Israel grew strong and proceeded to set the Canaanites to forced labor.” For hundreds of years the Canaanites served the Israelites, proving God’s Word to be true.—Josh. 9:23; Judg. 1:28; 1 Ki. 9:20, 21.

PROMISES TO ABRAHAM

But why did Jehovah instruct the Israelites to take possession of the land of the demon-worshiping Canaanites? someone might wonder. It was because of a promise made over 400 years before to faithful Abraham. When Abraham obeyed God’s instructions to leave his home in Ur of the Chaldeans and travel to the land of Canaan, Jehovah said to him: “Raise your eyes, please, and look from the place where you are, northward and southward and eastward and westward, because all the land at which you are looking, to you and to your seed I am going to give it until time indefinite. And I will constitute your seed like the dust particles of the earth, so that, if a man could be able to count the dust particles of the earth, then your seed could be numbered.”—Gen. 13:14-16.

What an amazing promise to make to a childless man! Even when Abraham reached eighty-five years of age and his beloved wife Sarah seventy-five, they were still childless. At that time it was decided that Abraham should take Sarah’s handmaid Hagar in order to produce an heir. In time, Ishmael was born, but when he reached thirteen years of age God told Abraham that he was not to be the heir to whom the land would be given. Jehovah said: Ishmael “will certainly produce twelve chieftains, and I will make him become a great nation. However, my covenant I shall establish with Isaac, whom Sarah will bear to you at this appointed time next year.”—Gen. 17:20, 21.

Although Joshua and the Israelites did not personally witness the birth of Isaac, its occurrence was certainly evidence to them of the reliability of God’s Word. But what about the promise that Ishmael would produce twelve chieftains? The inspired record says: “Now these are the names of the sons of Ishmael, by their names, according to their family origins: Ishmael’s first-born Nebaioth and Kedar and Adbeel and Mibsam and Mishma and Dumah and Massa, Hadad and Tema, Jetur, Naphish and Kedemah.” Yes, Ishmael had twelve sons, in keeping with God’s promise!—Gen. 25:13-15.

Joshua had firsthand evidence that the word of God did not fail, for peoples bearing the names of Ishmael’s sons existed in his day. For example, in the book of Job, evidently written in Joshua’s day by Moses, “the caravans of Tema” are spoken about, and the prophet Isaiah wrote concerning “the land of Tema.” Kedar is repeatedly mentioned in the Bible, and, on one occasion, the Israelites fought against “Jetur and Naphish.” Ishmael did indeed “become a great nation,” just as Jehovah said.—Job 6:19; Isa. 21:14, 16, 17; Jer. 49:28; 1 Chron. 5:19.

PROPHECIES OF ISAAC AND JACOB

Abraham’s son Isaac had two sons, the twins Jacob and Esau. In a prophecy concerning his son Esau, Isaac said under God’s inspiration: “Behold, away from the fertile soils of the earth your dwelling will be found, and away from the dew of the heavens above. And by your sword you will live, and your brother you will serve. But it will certainly occur that, when you grow restless, you will indeed break his yoke off your neck.”—Gen. 27:39, 40.

Joshua and the Israelites were eyewitnesses to the trueness of this word of God. They could see that “Esau [also called Edom] took up dwelling in the mountainous region of Seir,” away from the fertile soils of the earth. In time the rest of this prophecy also had its fulfillment. An ancient trade route between Palestine and Arabia ran through their territory and the Edomites made their living by robbing and pillaging the caravans. They lived by the sword.—Gen. 36:8.

Later, in fulfillment of the prediction that they would serve their Israelite brothers, “all the Edomites came to be servants of David.” However, in keeping with the final part of the prophecy, in the days of King Jehoram of Judah “Edom revolted from under the hand of Judah.” Truly, not one word that God spoke failed!—2 Sam. 8:14; 2 Ki. 8:20-22.

Under the direction of God’s spirit Isaac’s son Jacob blessed his twelve sons and his grandsons Ephraim and Manasseh. By this time Jacob and his large household had moved down to Egypt, and it was there that Jacob uttered his deathbed blessing. “The scepter [symbol of kingship] will not turn aside from Judah, neither the commander’s staff from between his feet,” Jacob foretold. And, true to this word, when the rulership came into Judah’s line with the crowning of David, it did not turn aside from the tribe of Judah.—Gen. 49:8-10.

Although Joshua did not live to see the fulfillment of this prophecy, he saw the prediction concerning Manasseh and Ephraim come to pass before his very eyes. Jacob had foretold: Ephraim “will become greater than [Manasseh], and his offspring will become the full equivalent of nations.” When the Israelites left Egypt about two hundred years later, the census showed that the tribe of Ephraim outnumbered the tribe of Manasseh by some thousands, and toward the end of the wilderness march Moses spoke of “the tens of thousands of Ephraim,” but only “the thousands of Manasseh.”—Gen. 48:19; Num. 1:33-35; Deut. 33:17.

FROM EGYPT TO THE PROMISED LAND

Joshua and his fellow Israelites saw many more marvelous fulfillments of God’s Word as they moved out of Egypt and on to the Promised Land. Jehovah had told Abraham: “Your seed will become an alien resident in a land not theirs,” but “they will go out with many goods.” Later, while the Israelites were still captives in that “land not theirs,” Jehovah said to Moses: “I am proceeding to go down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land . . . And I will give this people favor in the eyes of the Egyptians; and it will certainly occur that when you go, you will not go empty-handed.”—Gen. 15:13, 14; Ex. 3:8, 21, 22.

How exciting were the following developments! When Pharaoh refused to let Israel leave Egypt, Jehovah sent his messenger Moses to warn him that Jehovah was turning the Nile River to blood. True to God’s word, the Nile River became like blood, killing the fish and making the water undrinkable. Repeatedly God warned Pharaoh of plagues to come, and when, each time, Pharaoh became obstinate, Jehovah brought the plague according to his word. Not once did his word fail!—Exodus chapters 7 to 12.

After the tenth plague, which struck dead every firstborn in Egypt, Pharaoh urged the Israelites to leave. Did they “go out with many goods” as God had foretold hundreds of years before? They certainly did! “Jehovah gave the people favor in the eyes of the Egyptians, so that these granted what was asked; and they stripped the Egyptians.” How impressive it was to young Joshua to see Jehovah’s word repeatedly come true!—Ex. 12:35, 36.

In the wilderness Jehovah’s word continued to prove reliable. One month after bringing them out of Egypt, God promised: “Here I am raining down bread for you from the heavens; and the people must go out and pick up each his amount day for day.” And, sure enough, God provided that ‘bread from heaven.’ “When the sons of Israel got to see it, they began to say to one another: ‘What is it?’” It was the bread that Jehovah had promised, which the Israelites called “manna.”—Ex. 16:2-36.

After a while the Israelites complained because all they had to eat was this manna. They wanted meat. So Jehovah promised: “Sanctify yourselves for tomorrow, as you will certainly eat meat.” Although it seemed impossible to supply such a multitude in that wilderness, Jehovah kept his word. He caused a wind that “began driving quails from the sea and letting them fall above the camp.” The number of birds was staggering!—Num. 11:4-33.

Finally the Israelites came to the boundaries of the Promised Land. Because of their disobedience they had wandered forty years in the wilderness. Would God now give them this land, in keeping with his promise to Abraham? Even though the Canaanite inhabitants were a mighty foe, Jehovah encouraged: “You must take possession of the land and dwell in it, because to you I shall certainly give the land to take possession of it.” How reassuring to Joshua was this sure word of God!—Num. 33:50-53.

Years later, after the conquest of the land of the Canaanites, aged Joshua reminded his people: “You took possession of their land, just as Jehovah your God had promised you.” That is the point Joshua wanted to impress upon their minds: Rely on Jehovah’s word, for it always comes true! “You well know with all your hearts and with all your souls,” Joshua emphasized, “that not one word out of all the good words that Jehovah your God has spoken to you has failed. They have all come true for you. Not one word of them has failed.”—Josh. 23:1-14.

Do you doubt God’s Word? Can you point to any promise of His that was due for fulfillment that failed to be fulfilled at His appointed time? It is impossible to do so, for “they have all come true.” You therefore have every reason to put confidence in the sure Word of God. Believe it. Live according to its righteous principles, and enjoy everlasting life in God’s peaceful new system of things.

Biblically Accurate

A New Pronouncing Dictionary of the Spanish and English Languages, compiled by Mariano Velázquez da la Cadena, in the edition of 1902, gives as one of the definitions of the word “remnant” the following: “Los verdaderos siervos de Jehová” (The true servants of Jehovah).

Identifying the Spirit of the World

“Now we received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is from God.”—1 Cor. 2:12.

1. What spirit is abroad on earth, and with what effect?

THERE is a spirit abroad in all the earth today. A writer of ancient time called it “the spirit of the world.” It is influencing people everywhere, and that in a bad way; and the world finds itself kept in trouble that goes from bad to worse.

2, 3. (a) What are we not to understand by the “spirit of the world”? (b) What, then, is the “spirit of the world”?

² What are we to understand by the expression “the spirit of the world”? Not a demon or an unseen, superhuman, supernatural spirit person that wields great influence over the world of mankind. True, there is plenty of evidence to prove that there literally are invisible demons and also a prince or ruler over them. But the “spirit of the world” is not an invisible person, an unseen individual with intelligence. Yes, it is something invisible, and that is why it is called a “spirit.” But, instead of being confined to just one person, this spirit marks the world of mankind in general. It is displayed by the world of mankind. It is expressed by all this mass of people. What, then, is the “spirit of the world”?

³ It is the frame of mind, the inclination of the mind, the persistent tendency that controls the world of mankind. It moves the world to certain characteristic conduct, namely, to speak, to think and to take attitudes and viewpoints, and to decide and act in a certain way that follows a definite pattern. It results in a certain one kind of behavior, a uniform course of conduct. All this outward form of expression reveals or betrays the kind of spirit that the world of mankind has.

4. Can the many kinds of people today have the one “spirit of the world”?

⁴ The world today is made up of many kinds of people, of different races, of differing colors of skin, of many nationalities, speaking thousands of languages, following many sorts of customs, dressing differently, practicing many kinds of religion. Yet, can all these different peoples be possessing the one “spirit of the world”? The answer is Yes.

5, 6. According to the Christian Greek Scriptures, what different aspects does this common spirit that the world of mankind expresses have?

⁵ Surely all of us have not failed to notice the “spirit of fear” throughout the earth today. The “spirit of error” must also be rampant throughout the earth. There are such divided opinions and theories, even in the matter of religion. All these opinions, ideas, theories and cults that are at disagreement with one another cannot all be right; there must be widespread error.

⁶ To wide-awake persons it is clear that the “spirit of slumber” has settled down upon the mass of mankind. They choose to stay unconcerned, indifferent to the meaning of world events today. They do not want to wake up to what the world situation means and what they should do for their own safety and lasting welfare. There is also a certain universal bondage. Men show the “spirit of bondage,” although they do not like to admit that that is true. Also, under the tremendous pressures of the times a spirit of selfishness or self-seeking prevails everywhere. This selfish spirit expresses itself in so many ways, in politics, in commerce and business, in social affairs, in international relations, in pleasures, in religion, and in other fields of interest. Yes, the world is all one in the common spirit that it expresses.a

7. Because of the long prevalence of the “spirit of the world,” what does the world have today?

⁷ The “spirit of the world” has long been in operation, infecting and influencing people of the world. The ancient author who wrote about it lived nineteen centuries ago. He was an Asiatic, but traveled about considerably in the ancient Roman Empire. More than two thousand years before his day the “spirit of the world” had risen up and spread through the ranks of mankind. Because this spirit has long pervaded the human family the world today has what is called “the wisdom of the world” and also its “foolish things.” It presents a certain scene or fashion of things. It has its rudiments or elementary things that lie at the root of its teachings and actions. It has its sorrow that brings about no real change for the better but that is deathward. It has its nations and kingdoms; and it has its invisible heavenly ruler. Of the spirit of this powerful unseen ruler this world partakes.b

8, 9. (a) When did the “spirit of the world” become an active force to affect the people in general? (b) What was the one spirit that the eight Flood survivors had?

⁸ How and when did the “spirit of the world” become an active force, an influence, to affect the people in general? It did so more than a century after the great flood had swept over the whole earth and had cut down the human population to just eight persons, namely, the patriarch Noah and his wife and their three sons, Japheth, Shem and Ham, and the three wives of these. Thus from the eight human survivors of the Flood we all trace our line of descent and find ourselves to be really brothers and sisters. The ark in which Noah and his family lived through that global flood settled down on Mount Ararat in Armenia, in southwest Asia. When they came out of the ark after living a full solar year inside, these ancestors of ours had just one spirit. What was it? A worshipful frame of mind. It was an overwhelming tendency and mental inclination to worship the One who had preserved them alive during the long flood, the unseen Being who is Creator of heaven and earth.

⁹ This Preserver of Noah and his family had also destroyed the millions of bad people who had filled the earth with corrupt, immoral ways and violence. How Noah and his family expressed their one spirit of worship to the Creator, Preserver and Destroyer we read in the history that Noah’s sons, Shem, Ham and Japheth, kept:

10. How did those Flood survivors immediately express their one spirit? With what response from God?

¹⁰ “The earth had dried off. God now spoke to Noah, saying: ‘Go out of the ark, you and your wife and your sons and your sons’ wives with you. Every living creature that is with you of every sort of flesh, among the flying creatures and among the beasts and among all the moving animals that move upon the earth, bring out with you, as they must swarm in the earth and be fruitful and become many upon the earth.’ At that Noah went out, and also his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives with him. Every living creature, every moving animal and every flying creature, everything that moves on the earth, according to their families they went out of the ark. And Noah began to build an altar to Jehovah and to take some of all the clean beasts and of all the clean flying creatures and to offer burnt offerings upon the altar. And Jehovah began to smell a restful odor, and so Jehovah said in his heart: ‘Never again shall I call down evil upon the ground on man’s account, because the inclination of the heart of man is bad from his youth up; and never again shall I deal every living thing a blow just as I have done [by a flood] . . . . Be fruitful and become many and fill the earth.’”—Gen. 8:14 to 9:1; 10:1.

NIMROD DEVELOPS A DIFFERENT SPIRIT

11. Because of what or whom is the spirit of the Flood survivors not the spirit of the world today?

¹¹ However, the world of mankind today does not have that spirit of united worship toward the Creator, Jehovah God. Since all the human family today has descended from those eight Flood survivors, why is not the worshipful spirit that they had back there the spirit of the world today? It is principally because of a man who did not choose to follow the example of his great-grandfather Noah. He chose to cultivate an opposite spirit, one of opposition to Noah’s God, Jehovah. Who was this man? Nimrod, who descended from Noah through Ham and Ham’s son Cush. He wanted to become somebody big and mighty among mankind and to rule over others. He did not distinguish himself as a peaceable farmer or as a shepherd. He made a name for himself as a hunter, becoming finally a killer of men as well as a killer of wild animals. Nimrod’s spirit caught hold of other men, so that at last a proverb was composed and was applied to those imitators of that bad-spirited man: “Just like Nimrod a mighty hunter in opposition to Jehovah.”—Gen. 10:9.c

12. What did Nimrod plan on doing, and what project of his became world famous?

¹² No, Nimrod did not become a farmer like his great-grandfather Noah. (Gen. 9:20) He planned on building cities. He wanted to herd people together and rule over them as king, organizing them for his ambitious purposes. His first city became famous, and it has affected the history of the world of mankind. It was Babylon, as the Greeks called it, or Babel, as Noah and his son Shem called it. Most people remember Babylon for its tower of Babel, at which the language of the builders became all mixed up. Only a few people may remember Babylon as the capital city that was built by Nimrod, the starter of human politics.—Gen. 11:1-9.

13. With what facts of history does Genesis 10:8-12 reveal the spirit motivating Nimrod?

¹³ To reveal the bad, selfish, ambitious, bloodthirsty spirit motivating this builder of Babylon, the history written by Shem has this to say: “And Cush [son of Ham] became father to Nimrod. He made the start in becoming a mighty one in the earth. He displayed himself a mighty hunter in opposition to Jehovah. That is why there is a saying: ‘Just like Nimrod a mighty hunter in opposition to Jehovah.’ And the beginning of his kingdom came to be Babel and Erech and Accad and Calneh, in the land of Shinar. Out of that land he went forth into Assyria and set himself to building Nineveh and Rehoboth-Ir and Calah and Resen between Nineveh and Calah: this is the great city.”—Gen. 10:8-12; 11:10.

14. What was Babylon’s attitude toward Jehovah?

¹⁴ As King Nimrod was a huntsman in opposition to Jehovah God, the religion of Nimrod’s capital city Babylon (or, Babel) was also in opposition to Jehovah. It did not have the spirit of Jehovah God. (1 Cor. 2:12) It was not moved by any spirit of worship toward him. It did not pay any attention to the universal rulership of Jehovah God as the Creator and Sovereign of heaven and earth.

15. How did Babylon the Great come into existence, and what is it?

¹⁵ That is why Jehovah God miraculously mixed up the language of the builders of Babylon and caused the majority of them to scatter away from Babylon according to their language groups. But they carried with them to their new locations the spirit of Babylon, the religion of Babylon. In this manner a world empire of false, Babylonish religion was built up. It spread into what is now India and southeast Asia and China, and into Africa and Europe and, at last, to all other parts of the earth. This world empire of false religion is in opposition to Jehovah God because it had its basis in Babylon. Hence in his Holy Bible he calls this religious world empire by the name Babylon the Great. Babylon or Babel means “Confusion.” In agreement with that name the Babylonish world empire of false religion is a mix-up or confusion of hundreds of religions in opposition to Jehovah God the Creator.

16. How do ancient Babylon and Babylon the Great compare as to existence and as to the sway they held over people?

¹⁶ Babylon, the city built on the Euphrates River in southwest Asia, has long since perished. However, Babylon the Great as a world empire of Babylonish false religion remains and now holds sway over the mass of mankind, whether they realize that fact or not. The Holy Bible, inspired by Jehovah God, has much to say about Babylon. In Genesis, its first book, the Bible tells us how Babylon began; and in its last or sixty-sixth book, Revelation or Apocalypse, the Bible exposes Babylon the Great and tells us how she will be destroyed. Ancient Babylon became a world power in the seventh century before our Common Era, and the Babylonian Empire covered a large territory in the Middle East and Egypt. But Babylon the Great has worldwide sway. The last book of the Bible likens her to an immoral woman and says:

17. How does Revelation 17:1-18 picture the sway of Babylon the Great?

¹⁷ “‘Come, I will show you the judgment upon the great harlot who sits on many waters, with whom the kings of the earth committed fornication, whereas those who inhabit the earth were made drunk with the wine of her fornication.’ And upon her forehead was written a name, a mystery: ‘Babylon the Great, the mother of the harlots and of the disgusting things of the earth.’ . . . ‘The waters that you saw, where the harlot is sitting, mean peoples and crowds and nations and tongues. And the woman whom you saw means the great city that has a kingdom over the kings of the earth.’”—Rev. 17:1, 2, 5, 15, 18.

18. When and how did Babylon the Great come to include Christendom?

¹⁸ In the fourth century of our Common Era Babylon the Great came to include Christendom. The first ecumenical council of the bishops of Christendom was called together in the year 325, not on Vatican Hill, Rome, but at Nicaea, Asia. It was called by the unbaptized Roman emperor, Constantine the Great, who held the unchristian religious office of Pontifex Maximus. As such, he presided over the Council of Nicaea and decided in favor of the Trinity teaching, namely, God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost, a three-in-one God. This is Babylonish. A close examination of Christendom’s basic doctrines and practices reveals that they are Babylonish, although they are covered over with names taken from the Holy Bible. It is not surprising, therefore, to find Christendom filled with the “spirit of the world.” She is now the leading member of religious Babylon the Great.

DRUNK WITH BLOOD

19. What was ancient Babylon’s course toward Jehovah’s people, and how does Revelation picture Babylon the Great as having the same spirit?

¹⁹ Ancient Babylon was against Jehovah God and his people. The Bible goes to great length in telling us of how the Babylonian world power persecuted the chosen people of Jehovah God. Likewise, Babylon the Great has ever been against His people. A vision pointing to this fact was given to the apostle John. In this vision he was shown just how wicked Babylon the Great is. John says: “And I saw that the woman was drunk with the blood of the holy ones and with the blood of the witnesses of Jesus.” That was one of the main reasons for Babylon the Great to be destroyed, for Jehovah’s angel said to the apostle John: “Yes, in her was found the blood of prophets and of holy ones and of all those who have been slaughtered on the earth.” (Rev. 17:6; 18:24) Babylon the Great has shown the same bloodthirsty spirit as was shown by the founder of ancient Babylon, Nimrod, the “mighty hunter in opposition to Jehovah.” With whose blood, however, is Babylon the Great said to be drunk?

20. Against whom does the drunkenness of Babylon the Great show her to be, as illustrated in the case of the apostle John himself?

²⁰ Babylon the Great is plainly said to be drunk with the “blood of prophets and of holy ones.” That means the blood of the prophets and saints or holy ones of Jehovah God, who sent to the apostle John the prophetic vision of the judgment upon the world empire of Babylonish religion. John says that he saw the “woman” Babylon the Great to be “drunk with the blood of the holy ones and with the blood of the witnesses of Jesus.” This Jesus is the one by means of whom Jehovah God sent the Revelation vision to John. As regards “witnesses of Jesus,” John says that he himself “bore witness to the word God gave and to the witness Jesus Christ gave.” (Rev. 1:1, 2) So the apostle John was one of those “witnesses of Jesus”; and at the time of receiving the vision from God through Jesus Christ he was suffering persecution at the hands of the Roman emperor and Pontifex Maximus. So Babylon the Great was not only against Jehovah’s people who lived before our Common Era but also against Christ’s true followers, his true witnesses.

21. As regards such drunkenness, how has Christendom proved herself a real “daughter” of Babylon the Great?

²¹ In this matter of being drunk “with the blood of the witnesses of Jesus,” Christendom has proved herself to be a real “daughter” of Babylon the Great. Christendom claims to be the realm in which Christianity is practiced, but during the past sixteen hundred years of her existence she has been guilty of shedding the blood of more true Christians than even those nations that do not claim to be Christian. By her religious persecutions, her religious inquisitions and crusades against “heretics,” and her religious wars she has killed off more professed Christians than so-called pagan nations have killed off. And what about the two world wars of our twentieth century? History discloses that both these wars were launched by the nations of Christendom, with enormous losses of life all around the earth. Truly Christendom has played a tremendous part toward realizing the angel’s words in Revelation 18:24 that in Babylon the Great was found the blood of “all those who have been slaughtered on the earth.”

22. Before whom does Christendom bear bloodguilt, and how must it be wiped out?

²² As a part of Babylon the Great, which is the world empire of Babylonish religion, Christendom bears a heavy bloodguilt before God. According to the just law of Jehovah God, life must go for life, soul for soul. So the bloodguilt of Babylon the Great must be wiped out by her destruction, including that of Christendom.

23. By her spirit whom does Babylon the Great show to be her god?

²³ By her very spirit Babylon the Great betrays who her god is, whom she worships. She shows she has the “spirit of the world.” This is actually the spirit of the one whom Jesus Christ called “the ruler of this world,” namely, Satan the Devil, the great fallen angel who is the chief opposer of Jehovah God.—John 12:31.

24. (a) How does Babylon the Great’s god blind the people? (b) How does she aid him and show his spirit toward Jehovah’s people?

²⁴ Satan is the one who blinds the minds of the people with false religion so that they do not accept the Bible truth about Jehovah and his Son Jesus Christ. It is just as the Christian apostle Paul wrote, saying: “If, now, the good news we declare is in fact veiled, it is veiled among those who are perishing, among whom the god of this system of things has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, that the illumination of the glorious good news about the Christ, who is the image of God, might not shine through.” (2 Cor. 4:3, 4) Babylon the Great is a part of this system of things on earth, and the devilish “god of this system of things” is her god and she partakes of his spirit. She herself is deceived by him, and she aids him in deceiving and misleading the majority of earth’s inhabitants. Her god is the “one called Devil and Satan, who is misleading the entire inhabited earth.” He persecutes those who belong to Jehovah the Most High God. Hence Satan makes war upon those “who observe the commandments of God and have the work of bearing witness to Jesus.” (Rev. 12:9, 13, 17) Babylon the Great shows the same spirit of persecution toward these witnesses.

[Footnotes]

[Picture on page 748]

Nimrod manifested a spirit in opposition to Jehovah

Avoiding the Plague upon the Spirit of the World

“They were one and all filled with the holy spirit and were speaking the word of God with boldness.”—Acts 4:31.

1. What is Jehovah’s judicial decision regarding what Babylon the Great is to experience before her destruction?

RELIGIOUS Babylon the Great has the spirit of the world. She will be destroyed the same as ancient Babylon on the Euphrates was. God’s judicial decision is that before she is destroyed she must suffer plagues or blows from him. In ancient time he dealt Egypt a string of terrible blows or plagues because that ancient world power mistreated his people. He said to Egypt’s king or Pharaoh who refused to let Jehovah’s people go free from unjust slavery: “At this time I am sending all my blows against your heart and upon your servants and your people, to the end that you may know that there is none like me in all the earth. For by now I could have thrust my hand out that I might strike you and your people with pestilence and that you might be effaced from the earth. But, in fact, for this cause I have kept you in existence, for the sake of showing you my power and in order to have my name declared in all the earth.” (Ex. 9:13-16) Likewise, seven plagues are dealt to the modern system of things.

2. What actually are those seven plagues?

² Those seven plagues are judicial blows, the adverse expressions of judgment, that Jehovah God deals to the present system of things before Babylon the Great, the world empire of Babylonish religion, is destroyed.—Rev. 15:5 to 16:21.

3. (a) How has Babylon the Great conducted herself toward peoples and kings? (b) What has she felt for some years, and what can any reader of The Watchtower do about it?

³ As pictured in the vision to the apostle John, Babylon the Great sits oppressively upon peoples, crowds and nations of whatever language, and this at great material expense to the poor misled people. She also exercises a “kingdom over the kings of the earth.” With them she commits religious fornication, mixing religion with politics, in order to keep in good standing with political rulers and have their protection and support. With them she shares in bloodguilt before Jehovah God. For some years now she has felt the plagues, the judicial blows that he has been pouring out upon her. Possibly you who are reading this issue of the Watchtower magazine have complained about these divine plagues and have objected to them, because you belong to that world empire of Babylonish religion. Because the plagues are from the Most High God Jehovah, nobody on earth has been able to stop them from being poured out through his angels. What, then, can you do about it?

4. What does the voice out of heaven say to do, and why that without delay?

⁴ You can do as the apostle John says: “I heard another voice out of heaven say: ‘Get out of her, my people, if you do not want to share with her in her sins, and if you do not want to receive part of her plagues. For her sins have massed together clear up to heaven, and God has called her acts of injustice to mind.’” Her final plagues will be death and mourning and famine, and her death will be by burning with fire, “because Jehovah God, who judged her, is strong.” (Rev. 18:4-8) In order to avoid the plagues now being visited upon her and in order not to suffer the final destructive plagues with her, you will have to get out of her. Do so without delay, for as if “in one day” her final plagues will bring total ruin upon her.

5. What does getting out of her mean for one?

⁵ To “get out of her” means that you will have to become one of those whom God calls “my people,” Jehovah’s people. You will have to worship him, just as the patriarch Noah did right after the flood and kept on doing even after his great-grandson Nimrod set up Babylon with its false religion.—Gen. 6:9; 8:18-20; 9:28 to 10:12.

6, 7. (a) Why can one take courage in not being alone in this course? (b) Basically, what are these people, and how are they known now?

⁶ However, take courage. Already hundreds of thousands of God-fearing persons have obeyed that voice from heaven and have come out of Babylon the Great. They refuse to let her sit upon them and exploit and enslave them any longer. These lovers of religious freedom are found in most parts of the earth; we have reports from them in 194 lands and they speak and read 162 languages.

⁷ They have turned from the world empire of Babylonish religion and have taken up the worship of the one living and true God, the God of the Holy Bible, the One who alone bears the name Jehovah. (Ps. 83:18; Isa. 12:2; 26:4) They are Christians, but not the kind that Christendom produces. They look to Jesus Christ and imitate him as their Leader and Model, since Jesus Christ is the foremost worshiper of Jehovah as God. He proved himself the “faithful and true witness” of Jehovah and thus he was the chief one of the long line of witnesses from the first martyr Abel down to the Christian witnesses of our Common Era. (Heb. 11:4 to 12:3; Rev. 1:5; 3:14; John 18:37) Today these God-fearing people who have come out of Babylon the Great (including Christendom) are known as the Christian witnesses of Jehovah.—See Isaiah 43:10-12; 44:8.

8. What is the experience of these obedient ones regarding the plagues being poured out?

⁸ All those who have obeyed the command from heaven and have got out of the world empire of Babylonish religion do not feel the plagues that Jehovah God has commanded to be poured out upon this system of things before Babylon the Great is destroyed. In fact, now they themselves help in pouring out the symbolic plagues.

9, 10. (a) Under whose control are those plagues put, and what do they bespeak? (b) Why are they blows to worldly people?

⁹ According to the vision given to John in Revelation, chapter fifteen, the plagues are seven in number and are put under the control of seven angels who come out from God’s heavenly sanctuary or temple. In our time, in fulfillment of the prophetic Revelation, the seven plagues are not actually poured out from literal bowls and do not produce in a literal way the effects described in Revelation, chapter sixteen. As the bowls are said to be “full of the anger of God,” the plagues are expressions from God that bespeak his anger at the things upon which the plagues are poured out. They are God’s judicial decisions against such disapproved things.

¹⁰ The plagues are adverse judgments, which expose what such bad things really are, how they really appear in the eyes of God as Judge, and how people who favor, support and seek benefits from such things are really affected from God’s judicial standpoint. Such judicial decisions run contrary to the viewpoint of the world of mankind who are misled by the “ruler of this world.” So when the divine judicial decisions are poured out by worldwide publication, they are like plagues, blows, to people of this world.

11. (a) By whom must the publishing of God’s judicial decisions be carried out, and why? (b) Historically, who are the publishers?

¹¹ As these bowls full of plagues were entrusted to seven angels under God’s command, the making known of these judicial expressions of God’s anger must be under the invisible care and direction of holy heavenly angels. These angels do not materialize in flesh and appear to human eyes. Hence the work of publishing the divine judicial decisions against this system of things must be carried out by the faithful followers of Jesus Christ, such as the apostle John was in his day. The publishing work must be done by those on earth to whom the heavenly angels are “ministering spirits” or “spirits for public service.” (Heb. 1:13, 14, AV; NW) According to the facts of the case as recorded in modern history, the publishers are the Christian witnesses of Jehovah, who have obeyed his command and have got out of Babylon the Great!

POURING THEM OUT

12. When did these begin pouring out the message like the first plague?

¹² Go back to the year 1922. Consult the written record of that year, and you will find that then these dedicated Christian students of the Bible began pouring out a message upon organized human society that was trying to heal and steady itself by the League of Nations. It was a message from God’s Word that corresponded with the plague that the first angel poured out according to Revelation 16:2. It began with the Resolution adopted by those Bible students at their international assembly at Cedar Point, Ohio, in 1922, and the effect of it was as described in the prophecy.

13. When and where did the further plagues begin to be poured out?

¹³ For the next six years, without interruption, international or general assemblies were held—at Los Angeles, California (1923); at Columbus, Ohio (1924); at Indianapolis, Indiana (1925); at London, England (1926); at Toronto, Ontario, Canada (1927); and at Detroit, Michigan (1928). At these important assemblies also resolutions were courageously adopted for worldwide distribution in print in many languages. In these resolutions or in material linked with them, messages of divine judgment were proclaimed that corresponded with the rest of the symbolic plagues, whose effects are described in Revelation 16:3-21. Those resolutions, seven in all, together with related material in such years, were the spearhead for the pouring out of complementary judgment messages, the pouring out of which has not ceased to this day.

14, 15. (a) When did a tremendous affirmation of those plagues occur, and where? (b) What made such assembly gatherings one continuous round-the-world assembly?

¹⁴ The year 1963 is now passing out. But during its summer there occurred a tremendous affirmation of the contents of the seven plagues of Revelation, chapter sixteen, that has literally resounded around our earthly globe. A chain of assemblies featured by the title “Everlasting Good News Assembly of Jehovah’s Witnesses” was held during the ten weeks from June 30 through September 8, on the continents of North America, Europe, Asia, Australia, and islands of the Pacific Ocean north and south of the equator. The first of such assemblies was held in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and the final one in Pasadena, California, both of eight days’ length.

¹⁵ What made these assemblies all one continuous round-the-world assembly was not just the program for the platform but also this: Beginning with the New York assembly at Yankee Stadium (the second assembly of the series) an organized band of 583 conventioners flew eastward around the globe, stopping at all assembly points and taking part in the local gatherings of Jehovah’s witnesses. They stopped even in Greece, Lebanon and Jordania, touring places of Biblical interest and mingling with the local witnesses of Jehovah, although the law of those lands allowed the holding of no public general assembly.

16. (a) What was adopted at the public assemblies and also in Greece, Lebanon and Jordania? (b) How many all together thus adopted it, and how is it being circulated?

¹⁶ At each of the public assemblies, after an introductory talk to the conventioners on “Why We Should All Join in a Resolution,” a strongly worded resolution was adopted with the greatest enthusiasm and earnestness. Think of it: at Milwaukee 53,112 adopted the Everlasting Good News Assembly resolution; at New York, 84,890; at London, 39,663; at Stockholm, 22,009; at Munich, 91,748; in Milan, 16,262; in Manila, 24,508; in Melbourne, 9,427; in Auckland, 4,293; in Pasadena, 81,082. In Greece, Lebanon and Jordania copies of the Resolution were distributed to the local congregations, in their languages, and they adopted it after hearing the introductory talk. All together, in this manner, there was a grand total of 454,977 that adopted this identical resolution viva voce. And now this Resolution is being presented and adopted by national assemblies in still other lands. It has also been published in the Watchtower issue of November 15, 1963, in an edition of 4,200,000 copies in 66 languages, for circulation all around the earth.

17. What did this single resolution embrace within itself, and what did it put before earthly society?

¹⁷ With the introductory talk, this sweeping resolution took within its area of discussion the essence of all seven plagues of Revelation, chapter sixteen. Thus it included and covered the judgment messages that had at the first been spread out in seven successive resolutions and related material, over the seven years from 1922 through 1928. Uncompromisingly this single Resolution put the hard facts before all organized earthly society, let the effects be what they may. What were these hard facts? The following:

18. What was the first hard fact?

¹⁸ Man’s ignoring of God’s promised kingdom and man’s favoring the worship of the present political organizations will not preserve the man-made system of things on earth. In God’s sight the backers of this are plagued with a hurtful, malignant “ulcer” that they cannot heal but that spells death to them.

19. What was the second hard fact?

¹⁹ Radical political movements and organizations of restless men are likewise under the plague of an angered God. His judicial decision declares such radical efforts to be like spilled human blood that has congealed, unable to impart or sustain life.

20. What was the third hard fact presented?

²⁰ The preference of men for drinking in what human sources have to say, teach, preach and publish instead of drinking in the teachings and counsel from Jehovah God, the Fountain of life, has proved to be death-dealing. It has resulted in terrible bloodshed. Instead of drinking in life-sustaining water, men will at last drink their own blood in death at the hand of the great Judge.

21. What was the fourth hard fact?

²¹ Men have refused to recognize the Creator Jehovah God as the great spiritual Sun of life, light and healing. They have elevated men and women to their political, economic, social and religious heavens and look to these prominent humans for illumination and warmth. This has resulted in a plague from God; they have been scorched by their own chosen lights. As they suffer from the burning heat of oppressive human lights, they blaspheme God’s now revealed name and show no repentance toward him. So they get no shade from him, only a plague.

22. What was the fifth hard fact?

²² The political institutions on earth, from the kingdom of Nimrod onward, have sprung, not from God the Creator, but from his adversary, Satan the Devil! The seat or throne from which the whole human political system rules over the people represents a bargain made with God’s chief adversary. (Rev. 16:10; 13:1-4; Matt. 4:8-10; Luke 4:5-8) So God withholds the light of His blessing, and man’s kingdom is one of darkness, with the politicians not knowing any man-made way to get out of the world’s increasingly dark situation.

23. What was the sixth hard fact?

²³ Babylon the Great, the world empire of Babylonish religion, has dominated the peoples as ancient Babylon did the Euphrates. It has kept the people from seeking first the kingdom of God. Jehovah God and his deputy King Jesus Christ will see to it that Babylon the Great is drained of her “water” defenses, leading to her destruction. The militarized “kings” or political rulers of the earth, with whom she has committed spiritual fornication, have fallen prey to demons. Under demon influence they are being led on to an Armageddon disaster, in the “war of the great day of God the Almighty.” They will all lose their national sovereignties.

24. What was the seventh hard fact?

²⁴ For the past four thousand years an atmosphere has been created for the world of mankind, and in it and by it the world has lived. This atmosphere or “air” does not have the blessing of Jehovah God, who, on the second day of creation, produced the atmospheric expanse for the life of breathing creatures on earth. The “air” that the nations and cities and Babylon the Great breathe and live by is the “spirit of the world.” It is a spirit emanating from the “god of this system of things,” Satan the Devil. It comes under Jehovah’s judicial attention and receives from him a blow, a plague with all the disastrous effects therefrom.—Rev. 16:17-21.

25. In comparison with the preceding plagues, how does the seventh one affect man most vitally?

²⁵ The first six plagues all affected things that are vital to man’s existence on earth, namely, the earth from which he draws sustenance, the rivers and fountains of waters, the sun with its light, warmth and energy. But the seventh and last plague affects humankind most vitally. It is a blow against the “air” that man breathes. He cannot live for long without it. A plague on it should be most serious and should bring a climax of events. It does!

26. By the adoption of the 1963 Resolution how did Jehovah add greater force to the outpouring of the plagues?

²⁶ Through those 454,977 who adopted the Resolution at the series of Everlasting Good News assemblies of Jehovah’s witnesses this past summer, the great Judge of the Universe added greater force to the continued pouring out of all seven symbolic plagues. Hundreds of thousands of those adopting the 1963 Resolution had taken no part in the initial pouring out of the “seven last plagues” in the years 1922-1928 and had little appreciation of the contents of those plagues. Now, by this one comprehensive Resolution, they publicly declared themselves as favoring those plagues from the great Judge Jehovah God and as supporting the outpouring of the plagues that were prophetically pictured in Revelation, chapter sixteen.

27. Thus in one year what did those adopting the Resolution accomplish, and now what must they do?

²⁷ Thus, by one action, in adopting the 1963 assembly Resolution, they knowingly, understandingly, deliberately put themselves behind the pouring out of those plagues. Thus, too, in the one year, they accomplished what it had required earlier assemblies in seven successive years to accomplish. Now, however, they must be true to their spoken word; they must live up to the serious resolves expressed in the 1963 assembly Resolution.

THE NEED OF THE RIGHT SPIRIT

28. (a) Why was this 1963 Resolution very penetrating, as specially expressed in the last two paragraphs of it? (b) What did those two paragraphs resolutely declare?

²⁸ The 1963 Resolution is very penetrating. It directly touches upon the very spirit that permeates its adopters as dedicated, baptized Christians and that moves them to action as Christian witnesses of Jehovah God. This is specially clear in the last two paragraphs of the Resolution, which bear our reviewing here:

THAT, although at present we are obliged to be in this world, we will not breathe in the spirit of this world, for it is not the spirit of God but is the spirit of the devilish “ruler of this world.” Led by the spirit of its unseen ruler, the world of mankind has for thousands of years cultivated the works of the fallen, degraded flesh. Now the world is reaping the results of breathing in the spirit of Satan the Devil and cultivating the works of their flesh, which is at enmity with God. Babylon’s modern religious counterpart has not cultivated in the people the spirit of God, that they might reap the fruitage of God’s spirit to the attainment of eternal life in His new order of things. The world therefore faces an earthquake of world trouble the like of which it has never known, and all its political institutions and its modern religious Babylon will be shaken to bits, even human institutions as imposing and stable as mountains or isolated like islands disappearing;

THAT, therefore, we have immediately ahead of us the most momentous period in the history of mankind; the hour of the execution of God’s righteous judgment is about to strike, and we are in the day of decision. Whereas we see all the nations of this doomed world marching under superhuman demon influence, it is our resolution to remain immovable on the side of the established Messianic kingdom of Jehovah God, ever praying that he will give us more and more of his spirit. And as we endeavor to cultivate the fruitage of the spirit of God and carry on His pure and undefiled worship, we will keep on the full suit of armor of God and continue fighting, not against blood and flesh, but against the “wicked spirit forces in the heavenly places” until the satanic “ruler of this world” and his demons are abyssed for the thousand years of Christ’s reign. We thank Jehovah God for the ministry of his holy angels under Jesus Christ in our behalf. With their help and with the help of his holy spirit and Word we will continue to declare to all peoples without partiality the “everlasting good news” concerning God’s Messianic kingdom and concerning his judgments, which are like plagues to his enemies but which will be executed for the liberation of all persons who desire to worship God the Creator acceptably with spirit and with truth.

29. (a) By what means are those plagues poured out? (b) What does it require to take part in pouring out the plagues?

²⁹ The adverse judgments, the judicial decisions, in the seven symbolic plagues of God’s anger are not expressed and published in only the Assembly Resolution of 1963. They are declared and poured out in all the publications of the Watch Tower Bible & Tract Society, which Society Jehovah’s witnesses everywhere use as their administrative and publishing agency. For one to take part under invisible angelic guidance in this pouring out of the “seven last plagues,” it takes courage, boldness. It requires boldness to take a stand against the nationalistic worship of the political state and against the associated worship of the international organization for world peace and security, the United Nations of 111 members. The first plague directly strikes at this political worship.

30. (a) In democratic Western lands why may it be easy to be against the symbolic “sea”? (b) Yet even in such lands what must a true Christian stick to?

³⁰ In lands where radical forms of political government are unpopular and are legislated against and kept out of power, it may be easy for a person to be against the symbolic “sea” that rages against the stable symbolic “earth” of older, settled, traditional forms of government. But even in the “democratic” lands of the West a true, dedicated, baptized follower of Jesus Christ must stick to absolute neutrality toward all the political controversies of this world of mankind. He recognizes from where the symbolic wild beast, the visible political organization of the whole earth, got its seat or throne of authority. As shown in the fifth plague, the “wild beast” thrones over a kingdom of darkness, and its subjects blaspheme the God of heaven. Revelation 13:1-4 reveals that the political “wild beast” got its seat or throne of authority from the same source and on the same basis as Nimrod the “mighty hunter in opposition to Jehovah” got his throne.—Gen. 10:8-12.

31. In all lands to what must they be subject, but in what may they not participate?

³¹ In Romans 13:1-7 these neutral followers of Jesus Christ are commanded to be subject to the “higher powers” or “superior authorities” of this present earthly system of things. Yet they must be like their Leader Jesus Christ. They must be “no part of the world,” taking no part in the world’s political system and no part in its bloodshed, to which the third plague calls attention. (John 15:18, 19; 17:14-16) On this account the world hates them.

32. (a) In the sixth plague how is the militarism of the world shown? (b) What do the Christian witnesses refuse to do and why, and with what consequences to themselves?

³² Today, under slogans and propaganda inspired by devilish demons, as pictured in the sixth plague, all the earthly “kings” or political rulers and their armies are on the march. They are marching to a position like that at Har–Magedon, for a showdown fight with the Creator, the Sovereign of heaven and earth. The battle there is called “the war of the great day of God the Almighty.” What chance do such “kings” and their armies have against “God the Almighty”? Jehovah’s Christian witnesses know that those militarized opposers of His universal sovereignty do not have any chance of winning against the all-powerful God. The Christian witnesses refuse to march with people who want to do battle with the Lord God. Still, for a fact, it is popular among the nations to march with those political rulers and their battle forces. For this reason the Christian witnesses of God the Almighty suffer criticism. In a number of lands they are forbidden by law to preach the good news of God’s kingdom and even to meet together for united worship with fellow Christians. There they have to go underground.

33. What preaching is there to be done today, and despite what fact are Jehovah’s Christian witnesses hated by all nations?

³³ There is preaching to be done today in all the inhabited earth and to all nations without exception. With the force of a command Jesus Christ said to his true followers in his prophecy concerning the ending of this system of things: “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.” (Matt. 24:3, 14) The end of this system of things with its political rulerships does not mean the end of government over mankind, a state of anarchy. When imperfect human rulerships end at Har–Magedon, Almighty God’s kingdom by means of his Son Jesus Christ will take over fully for the everlasting blessing of all men of goodwill. Yet despite preaching such good news Jehovah’s Christian witnesses are hated by all nations, as Jesus foretold.—Matt. 24:9-12.

34. (a) But what do Revelation 13:10 and Re 14:12 say would be required of true Christians now? (b) Why do we want to avoid the seventh plague that is poured out?

³⁴ All this calls for endurance on the part of the preachers of the good news in these days of the activity of the symbolic wild beast and its image. But this is what Revelation 13:10 and Re 14:12 foretold would be required of true Christians at this stage of world politics. To show faith and to endure till final victory it calls for them to have a spirit different from the “spirit of the world.” Like a sea of atmosphere the worldly spirit envelops “the great city,” Babylon the Great, and all the “cities of the nations” and the symbolic “mountains” and islands. Because of the “god of this system of things” they are all immersed in this spirit and breathe it in like air. As pictured in the pouring out of the seventh and last plague, the anger of Jehovah God is against that spirit or “air” by which Babylon the Great and the cities of the nations live. This plague leads to disaster upon them all. Certainly we want to avoid God’s plague on that “air.”

35, 36. To avoid that plague and what follows it, what do we have to do according to the words of Ephesians 5:17-20?

³⁵ To avoid this plague of God and his destructive work by means of the symbolic earthquake and storm of huge hailstones, we have to do something. We have to do what is resolved in that Resolution adopted at the Everlasting Good News Assembly round the earth in 1963. The apostle Paul, who wrote against the “spirit of the world,” tells us what to do in this time of the symbolic plagues:

³⁶ “Go on perceiving what the will of Jehovah is. Also, do not be getting drunk with wine, in which there is debauchery, but keep getting filled with spirit, speaking to yourselves with psalms and praises to God and spiritual songs, singing and accompanying yourselves with music in your hearts to Jehovah, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ giving thanks always for all things to our God and Father.”—Eph. 5:17-20.

37. (a) What is the benefit of getting filled with the spirit of God? (b) What steps can we take to getting filled with it?

³⁷ If we get filled with God’s spirit, it leaves no room in us for the “spirit of the world.” Getting filled with His spirit does not result in any drunkenness, any stupefying of our senses, but it acts as a powerful stimulant in us to induce us to live according to God’s will, thus gaining his approval, not a plague. To get filled we must regularly read and ponder over his spiritual Word, the Holy Bible, and then apply it in our daily living. We need his spirit to help us to understand his written Word and to live in harmony with it. We can ask him for it in prayer. His Son Jesus Christ says: “If you, although being wicked, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more so will the Father in heaven give holy spirit to those asking him!” (Luke 11:13) So God is pleased to answer prayer for his holy spirit.

38. How was the keenly felt need of the new Jerusalem congregation for God’s spirit met, and with what effect?

³⁸ We remember how on one occasion the new Christian congregation in ancient Jerusalem keenly felt the need for God’s spirit. Men, the judges of the Jewish Supreme Court, had ordered them not to preach the good news of God’s kingdom by Christ. But God by his Son Jesus Christ had commanded and anointed them to preach such a message. They needed help and strength not to yield to men who were fighting against God. They prayed to Him. For what? For Him to grant them to “keep speaking your word with all boldness, while . . . signs and portents occur through the name of your holy servant Jesus.” How was this prayer answered? The account tells us: “And when they had made supplication, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken; and they were one and all filled with the holy spirit and were speaking the word of God with boldness.” (Acts 4:13-31) God’s spirit helped them to obey him—boldly!

39. How was the effect of the infilling of God’s spirit the same in the case of the prophet Micah?

³⁹ The infilling with God’s spirit had the same effect as that in the case of the Hebrew prophet Micah, who was commissioned by Jehovah God to point out the rebelliousness and sin of the nation of Israel (or Jacob). Micah said: “I myself have become full of power, with the spirit of Jehovah, and of justice and mightiness, in order to tell to Jacob his revolt and to Israel his sin.” (Mic. 3:8) Hence Micah preached despite the nation’s objections.

40. Besides personal Bible study and prayer, what else do we need to do to get filled with God’s spirit, and why?

⁴⁰ To get filled with the spirit of God we need more than just personal Bible study and prayer. We need also to meet with the congregation of Jehovah’s Christian witnesses, even as the members of the Christian congregation did in Jerusalem back there in the days of the twelve apostles. When we meet with them, as hundreds of thousands did on a great scale in the Everlasting Good News Assembly of Jehovah’s Witnesses around the globe in 1963, we come into an altogether different atmosphere, unlike the death-dealing “spirit of the world.” Why? Because the spirit of Jehovah God pervades these congregational meetings and guides them. So at these Christian gatherings we are bound to take into our receptive selves still more of the spirit of God. This is what we need.

41. Why do we need, today, to obey the command to get filled with God’s spirit?

⁴¹ Today we need to obey the apostolic command to get filled with God’s spirit, for we want to avoid the plague now being dealt to the “spirit of the world” and we want to go forth and preach publicly and from house to house the “word of God with boldness.”

Not the Way to Love One Another

◆ Introducing the first book of her trilogy on the Spanish Inquisition, Jean Plaidy writes, “It is important, I submit, to remember that Christianity and the Church do not always walk in step. In fact, the simple doctrines, founded on the teachings of Jesus Christ, have too rarely been followed. They are too simple to appeal to men who love power and wealth—but mostly power—and how can men acquire power by following the doctrines of Christ? What temporal glory could they find in taking staff and scrip, divesting themselves of their worldly goods, and going forth to preach the simple doctrine: ‘Love one another’?”

“Where in such a life were to be found the pomp and splendour, the ceremonial robes, the swaying censer, the fat incomes and the splendid palaces? Yet these were the signs of rank and importance necessary to induce that hypnotic state in which men might worship themselves whilst feigning to worship God.”

“Thousands were submitted to the cruellest torture these men could devise; the flesh of their victims was torn with red hot pincers, and molten lead poured into the wounds; many suffered the agonies of the hoist and the water torture; some were racked to death; some were burned at the stake; every means of dealing pain and indignity to the human body was explored; and all this was done in the name of One who had commanded his followers to love one another.”—The Rise of the Spanish Inquisition (Published by Robert Hale Limited, London, in 1959. It was followed by The Growth of the Spanish Inquisition and The End of the Spanish Inquisition.).

“Ominous Signs for Religion”

✔ Reminding the Bible student of the prophecy at Revelation 17:16, concerning the world empire of false religion and the political powers’ eventually turning against such religions, is an article by Associated Press writer George W. Cornell, which appeared in the Wilmington (Delaware) Morning News of February 1, 1963: “The world’s environment is spotted today with ominous signs for religion. They keep showing up, week by week, like shadows across the horizon of our times, threatening men’s rights to practice their faith. Missionaries are expelled from the Sudan. Another seminary is closed in Russia. Nuns are ordered out of Ceylon. Christian schools are ‘arabized’ in Egypt. Ministers are barred from Angola. Others are banished from Nepal, executed in Morocco. An antichristian massacre erupts in New Guinea. Mostly, the events are isolated, scattered here and there, not extensive in themselves, but adding up to a somber testimony about the modern era. . . .

“It is an era marked not only by the neo-nationalistic opposition to Christianity in many African and Asian areas, but the antireligious drive throughout the vast Communist orbit. . . . Dr. Paul Anderson, consultant on international affairs of the National Council of Churches . . . said that even in the martyrdoms under pagan Rome in the first four centuries of Christianity, the persecutions involved ‘one religion by another,’ but now the attempt is to ‘eliminate any concept of God.’ It is the vastest attack on religion, and involves more people, than ever before, he said.”

Bible Translation That Honors God

HONOR is due the Creator, Jehovah God. Why? Because of who he is and what he has done. As the Universal Sovereign, the Most High, the King of Eternity, the Creator of all things seen and unseen he is matchless, peerless, incomparable.

Fittingly, Jehovah God caused his Word, the Bible, to be written in such a way as to honor him; some of it in Hebrew, some in Aramaic and the rest in Greek. Since comparatively few persons today can read the Bible in its original tongues, it needs to be translated. To date the Bible, whole or in part, has been translated into 1,202 languages. Appreciating this need, the publishers of the New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures in English have already translated the Christian Greek Scriptures of that translation into six other languages: Dutch, French, German, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish.

Obviously, the better the translation, the more it honors God. What a weighty responsibility this places upon all who share in Bible translation! Unfortunately not all Bible translation is done with appreciation of this fact. For example, the most popular Bible version to date honors King James. It is popularly known as the King James Version, while its translators eliminated from its text the name of God in all but a few verses.

What is required of Bible translation for it to honor God? For one thing, it must be scrupulously honest. Secondly, it must be free from religious bias. Third, those doing the translation must have access to the best possible sources and be qualified as to both the language of the Bible manuscript and the one into which they are translating. Fourth, such translation must also be harmonious and consistent throughout. And fifth, since it is impossible for imperfect humans to be wholly objective, it follows that Bible translation that accepts the claims of the Bible to be God’s Word is far more likely to be correct than that which is based on the view that much of the Bible is pia fraus, that is, “a pious fraud.”

TRANSLATION THAT DOES NOT HONOR GOD

To the extent that Bible translation, because of religious bias, unduly exalts creatures, to that extent it does not honor God. Bible translation that lays itself open to this charge is that found in both the Douay (1610) and the Knox (1948) translations at Genesis 3:15. According to them the text reads: “She shall crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel.” “She is to crush thy head, while thou dost lie in ambush at her heels.” Since both the Greek Septuagint and the Masoretic Hebrew text have these pronouns in the masculine, there can be no excuse for rendering this text in this way, with a view to exalting the “Virgin Mary.” Not only do Jewish and other non-Catholic translations recognize this fact but so do even certain Roman Catholic translations, such as the Catholic Confraternity, which reads: “He shall crush your head, and you shall lie in wait for his heel.”

Another example of Bible translation that, by exalting a human creature, Mary, does not bring honor to God is John 2:4 as rendered by the Catholic Confraternity translation: “Jesus said to her, ‘What wouldst thou have me do, woman?’” Clearly religious bias here resulted in a translation that does not honor God, for it represents the Son of God as still being tied to his mother’s apron strings upon his starting out on his ministry at the age of thirty years. A footnote trying to justify this rendering only makes the bias more apparent. Both the Catholic Douay and the Knox translations agree with non-Catholic ones that Jesus spoke to his mother in just the opposite vein: “Woman, what is that to me and to thee?” (Dy) “Nay, woman, why dost thou trouble me with that?”—Knox.

Then, again, there is reason for concluding that most of 1 John 5:7, 8, which is used to teach a pagan Babylonish concept of God, crept into certain of the Latin versions of the Christian Scriptures by mistake. However, be that as it may, it is patently dishonest, in view of all the evidence at hand today against its being a part of John’s inspired letter, to continue publishing Bibles that contain this spurious matter, which reads: “In heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one. And there are three that bear witness in earth.”—AV.

According to A Catholic Commentary on Holy Scripture, this “is lacking in all Greek MSS except very late ones; in all ancient versions except the Latin; in about fifty Vulgate MSS, including the best, likewise in the majority of Greek and Latin Fathers. . . . It is now generally held that this passage, called the Comma Johanneum, is a gloss that crept into the text of the Old Latin and Vulgate at an early date, but found its way into the Greek text only in the 15th and 16th centuries.” Yet this verse is still found in many modern Catholic versions, English, Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, and so forth, as well as in some non-Catholic versions. To keep this spurious passage in the Bible does not honor God, for it robs him of his unique position as the Most High.

The Bible translation being done under the auspices of The Jewish Publication Society of America is also included among that which does not in all its renderings honor God. For one thing, it construes the third of the Ten Commandments to apply only to perjury, on the premise that to take the name of Jehovah in a worthless way is not of sufficient importance to be forbidden in the Decalogue. But if that is so, why did Jehovah invoke capital punishment upon one who did take his name in a worthless way in the days of Moses? (Lev. 24:10-23) This new translation would also rob God of the fame he gained for himself at the Red Sea by indicating that the Israelites crossed a sea of reeds rather than the Red Sea; as though Pharaoh and all his chariots, horses and cavalrymen perished in a reedy marsh! It is not surprising, therefore, that this kind of translation has been attacked by certain Orthodox rabbis.

By claiming to drop a lot of “nonsense” from the Bible the scholars working on the Hebrew Scripture portion of the New English Bible must also be charged with Bible translation that does not honor God. According to them the name “Jehovah” comes under such “nonsense.” But if, for the sake of argument, it is granted that Jehovah is not the most nearly correct way in which the four Hebrew characters יהוה, known as the tetragrammaton, could be rendered, is that any reason for robbing the one true God of a distinctive name? Then call him Yahweh, Javeh or Jave, as do various translations in differing languages, but do not hide his distinctive name under such a minor title as “Lord,” which may even be applied to the head of a family, even as when Sarah called her husband “lord.”

The term “leprosy” also is being dropped from this translation as just so much nonsense, and at times the term psoriasis is substituted for it. But, says an expert on skin diseases, Dr. Fred Levit, the writers of the Bible “were trying to detect leprosy in its earliest stages. It’s perfectly understandable they might have confused early cases of leprosy because of insufficient knowledge of the disease, but if you substitute the word ‘psoriasis’ for ‘leprosy’ in the Scriptures you’re not much better off.”

Included in Bible translation that does not honor God must also be abridgments that leave out the Ten Commandments and versions that put the Bible into the slang of modern teen-agers. Surely what is needed to get the Word of God across to these teen-agers is not reducing the Bible to slang but teaching them to understand and appreciate good language. Are textbooks that deal with the various sciences and arts reduced to slang for the benefit of teen-agers with moronic minds?

USING GOD’S DISTINCTIVE NAME

Bible translation that honors God must, above all, do justice to his distinctive name, which since as early as the year 1100 has been translated “Jehovah.” And so we read: “I am Jehovah. That is my name; and to no one else shall I give my own glory, neither my praise to graven images.” Now certainly it does not make sense to read, “I am the Lord, that is my name.” What is there distinctive, unique about “Lord”? It is not even a name but a mere title.—Isa. 42:8.

How seriously Jehovah took his distinctive name can be seen by the very number of times it appears in the Hebrew Scriptures, some 50 percent oftener than all other references to all deities, true and false, combined. Well did the translators of the American Standard Version state back in 1901: “This Memorial Name . . . designates God as the personal God, as the covenant God, the God of Revelation, the Deliverer, the Friend of his people, . . . the ever living Helper of those who are in trouble.”

While most Bible translations, Jewish, Catholic and Protestant, fail to give God the honor of his distinctive name, there are other notable exceptions in addition to the foregoing. Among such are Young and Rotherham (Yahweh) in English; Elberfelder, Parallel Bible in German; Moderna, Valera, Bover-Cantera, Nácar-Colunga, Straubinger in Spanish. But most noteworthy of all in this as well as in many other respects is the New World Translation in all the seven languages in which it is printed.

THE “NEW WORLD TRANSLATION”

In addition to using “Jehovah” whenever the tetragrammaton appears in the Masoretic or standard Hebrew text, the New World Translation also gives it in those instances where the Jewish scribes for one reason or another took the liberty to drop the tetragrammaton. It even has the name Jehovah 237 times in the Christian Greek Scriptures (or the New Testament).

Why also in the “New Testament”? Because it has a right to be there. In the first place, since Matthew quoted directly from the Hebrew text, it follows that whenever he came across the name Jehovah he would carry it over into his Gospel. Further, in view of the emphasis Jesus put upon Jehovah’s name,a we cannot imagine either his or any of his apostles being influenced by Jewish tradition in this matter, especially in view of their lashing out repeatedly against Jewish traditions. Besides, earliest extant fragments of the Greek Septuagint show that, at the first, Jewish scribes also were not bound by this tradition, for they copied the tetragrammaton rather than using a substitute. It follows, then, that in the days of Jesus and his apostles Jehovah’s distinctive name was given the honor due in that it must have appeared in the original autographs of the Bible. Nor is the New World Translation singular in this. Jehovah’s name appears in nineteen Jewish as well as almost forty missionary versions of the “New Testament.”

Among the various other ways in which the New World Translation honors God is by keeping clear from trinitarian bias. That is why it renders the controversial phrase of John 1:1, “The Word was a god,”b even as other translations put in the article “a” in rendering a like passage at Acts 28:6, namely, “He is a god.” (New English Bible) And, of course, it does not include the spurious passage in 1 John 5:7, 8, for reasons above given.

Hebrews 1:8, which is addressed to the Son of God, can be rendered either, “Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever,” or, “God is thy throne for ever and ever,” since there is no verb “is” in either the Greek or in the Hebrew at Psalm 45:6, from which this is a quotation. In keeping with its principles to honor God and remain consistent with the rest of the Scriptures, the New World Translation here reads: “God is your throne forever.”

Objection has been raised because the New World Translation at Philippians 2:9 states that “God . . . kindly gave [Jesus] the name that is above every other name,” because this implies that Jesus is inferior and a recipient of a favor. Yet this is but another example where the New World Translation honors God, for the Greek word here in question is charizomai, which means “to grant a favor, i.e., gratuitously, in kindness, pardon or rescue.” And while upward of twenty English versions read “given,” “bestowed,” and suchlike, there are a few that show that charizomai means more than simply “to give.” For example: “Freely gave,” Fenton, Diaglott; “favored,” Rotherham; “grace,” Verkuyl; “graciously bestowed,” Wuest.

Among other ways in which the New World Translation shows itself to be an outstanding translation is in its consistency and accuracy. For one thing, it distinguishes between gnosis (knowledge) and epignosis (accurate [full] knowledge); between makários, which means “supremely blest, . . . fortunate, well off,” and eulogetós, which means “blessed.”

The New World Translation also honors God by its accuracy in distinguishing between the various Greek words for “love,” “earth” and “world,” to mention but a few. In the same way it differentiates between the various Hebrew words for “man” and “death.”

Nor to be overlooked are the valuable aids the New World Translation has in its Appendix. Of the greatest value to Bible lovers is its 104-page concordance. Very useful also are its discussions of controversial subjects and texts, and its maps. It also gives interesting facts regarding each Bible book: writer, time of writing, place where written and time period covered.

Yes, for Bible translation to honor God it must be honest, informed, free from religious bias, harmonious and consistent, and must accept the Bible for what it claims to be, the Word of God. While many translations leave much to be desired in ever so many ways, it can truly be said that the New World Translation, in all the languages in which it has been published, honors Jehovah God.

[Footnotes]

A Most Satisfying Profession

As told by Kathe B. Palm

FOR more than thirty years it has been my great joy to have devoted all my time to the profession that was chosen by the apostle Paul—preaching the good news of God’s kingdom. They have been very satisfying years because I was giving of myself to help others rather than wasting my life in a selfish pursuit of materialism.

The choosing of my profession as a pioneer, one who preaches the good news of God’s kingdom as his chief occupation, began in 1931. That year Jehovah’s dedicated servants held a grand assembly in Columbus, Ohio. It was especially thrilling for me, as it was my very first assembly. For several years prior to it I had been growing in knowledge of God’s purposes with the help of publications printed by the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society, and group studies. So this first assembly with God’s people was a great thrill for me. It was during this assembly that it was revealed that his people had been given a new name—Jehovah’s witnesses. When I awoke the morning after this was made known, I made up my mind to dedicate my life to the only true God, Jehovah, and to work as shown in Matthew 6:33, “Keep on, then, seeking first the kingdom and his righteousness.”

After I was baptized, I turned in my application for pioneer service to the Watch Tower Society’s headquarters in Brooklyn. From that year, 1931, when I began the blessed profession of pioneering, more than thirty years of continuous blessings have passed. I could not have found any other work that could have brought me as much contentment or could have been so spiritually rewarding. I am humbly thankful to Jehovah for all the privileges of service he has given me during these years.

After I had proclaimed the good news of the Kingdom for a few months in New York City, I was invited by a friend to visit Dorchester County in Maryland and preach the good news there. While there, I received an invitation from the Society to go to South Dakota. Would I be interested in working there with a partner who had a horse-drawn house trailer? Yes! Of course I was interested, and I was free to go. When I arrived in Sioux City, Iowa, where my partner lived, I found the “prairie schooner,” as we called it, almost ready to go. My partner’s husband was not well and could not come. Today we would say that she was a vacation pioneer because our trip was for just the summer months.

Because the farmers in South Dakota were very poor at that time due to several years of drought and a grasshopper plague, they were in need of the comforting truths about God’s kingdom. We were happy to bring them those truths. In exchange for the Bible-study aids we left with them, they gave us food as well as fodder for our horse. When summer ended and my partner had to return to her domestic duties, I carried on alone, using a saddle horse that I obtained from a farm family of Witnesses in exchange for the horse that had pulled the “prairie schooner.”

When I learned that an assembly would be held in Los Angeles in 1934, I was most anxious to go. My only means for getting there was hitchhiking. Without ever having to put my thumb out to indicate that I wanted a ride, cars would stop and take me for several hundred miles at a time. By this means I reached Los Angeles, and during the course of the trip I was able to speak with the many car drivers about the comforting truths of God’s Word. It was during this assembly that a letter was sent to Hitler protesting his mistreatment of Jehovah’s witnesses in Germany. After a glorious week in Los Angeles with loving brothers, I returned to South Dakota in the same manner I came. Upon finishing my missionary work there, I received an invitation to help with the work in Colombia, South America.

SERVING IN SOUTH AMERICA

As soon as I got off the boat in Colombia, I went to work, using a card that had a printed sermon in Spanish, called a Testimony Card. Two months later I met Hilma Sjoberg in Cali, Colombia. She was the one who had written the Society for help and had paid for my passage to South America. Together we preached in Cali and then went on to Bogotá, the capital of Colombia. At the end of a year it was necessary for her to return to the United States, but, before going, she suggested that I go to Chile, where, during her travels, she had met a German friend. A letter to this friend was answered by an invitation to come and help spread the good news in Santiago.

It was in 1936 that I left Buenaventura, Colombia, and headed for Valparaiso, Chile, by means of a Chilean freighter. Brother Traub and his wife met me at the boat and showed me hospitality that has not diminished to this day. In that year there were only about fifty Witnesses in all of Chile. Can you imagine my joy to have seen these grow in number to more than 3,100 in 1963 and to realize that I had a part in helping to achieve this growth? I would not have had this heartwarming experience if I had not made pioneering my profession.

In those days our missionary work consisted of placing Bible literature with the people. Brother Traub thought it would be best for me to try to visit as many provinces in Chile as possible. So I worked from Chile’s northernmost town, Arica, to its southernmost possession, Tierra del Fuego. I took the good news to sulphur camps in the high Andes mountains, to nitrate camps in the Pampa of Tocopilla, Iquique and Antofagasta, to silver mines and to the great sheep ranches.

High on the slopes of Calbuco, an inactive volcano, there are immense redwood trees that are cut down by some poor families that live on the mountain slope and fashioned into roof shingles. They were surprised to see me and could not understand what had brought me away up there. They were overjoyed to hear the Kingdom message. They kept me up by their campfire until late at night as I read and explained the Bible to them. This was the first time they had seen a copy of God’s written Word.

Because the distance from one estancia or farm to another was a very long walk, I would wait for a ride on a passing truck. On these estancias there would be from 200 to 300 men working, providing fine opportunities to talk about God’s purposes and to leave Bible literature.

While in Tierra del Fuego, the southernmost part of South America, I went throughout the entire province. I even went to the Chorrillos where gold washers lived. They worked here washing gold while their families lived in Porvenir, the last town before the South Pole. They were surprised to see a lone woman away out there. When they learned why I was there, they got some five or six neighbors together in one hut to hear the good news I had to tell them. I left Bible helps with them, drank some of their maté and returned to town before nightfall. After working in this province, I returned to the north of Chile and finally began a new type of work in Santiago.

Following a visit to Chile in 1945 by the Society’s president and vice-president, N. H. Knorr and F. W. Franz, home Bible studies began to be held in Chile with interested persons. This was something new, very different from merely distributing Bible literature as I had been doing. How I trembled when I went to start my first home Bible study! But I soon realized that this was the best way to help an interested person become an active part of Jehovah’s organization. Assembly after assembly has brought me profound joy to see the person with whom I had my first Bible study zealously serving Jehovah. Using this new method, I began working the southern part of Santiago. Within a few months we had a new congregation established, the third in Santiago at that time.

Fourteen years passed while I worked in Santiago and in other assignments about 100 kilometers from there. Then the Society sent me to Valparaiso to take the good news of the Kingdom to the ships that come into that port. Like so many other places where I have been privileged to carry the good news of the Kingdom, this assignment has its joys, for many of the men I speak with on the ships never have heard the good news.

When I look back on the more than thirty years I have spent at my beloved profession, I feel that I have had a very rich life. Each year when I attend an assembly of Jehovah’s people, I get a warm, satisfied feeling as I see so many persons with whom I have had Bible studies publishing the good news, helping others to come to the water of life. I invited them to drink of the waters of truth, and now they are inviting others.—Rev. 22:17.

The year 1961 was an especially happy year for me. That was when I was helped by the Society to attend the United Worshipers District Assembly in Hamburg, Germany. Since 1935 I had not attended any of the big international assemblies. So it was a thrilling experience to be able to be among the more than 88,000 persons who were on the “Festwiese” (Lawn of Celebration) in the beautiful park of my hometown. What a blessed experience it was to be there once again and to see many old friends who are still preaching the good news of the Kingdom despite broken health from having been in the horrible Nazi concentration camps of Hitler’s days. Words fail me to express what an uplifting and rewarding experience this great assembly was for me.

As I continue working at my chosen profession in beautiful Chile, I give thanks to our great God, Jehovah, for all his loving-kindness. I am deeply grateful to him for the many privileges of service he has given me over the years. Like David, I am moved to say: “Because your loving-kindness is better than life, my own lips will commend you. Thus I shall bless you during my lifetime.”—Ps. 63:3, 4.

Questions From Readers

● According to Exodus 12:37, there were 600,000 able-bodied Israelite men who left Egypt, besides little ones. Since 600,000 adult males imply a total population of about two million persons, how could it be that there were only 22,273 firstborn males, as stated in Numbers 3:43? Would not this make families unreasonably large?—A. R., Panama.

As for the firstborn, we are told: “All the first-born males by the number of the names from a month old upward of their registered ones came to be twenty-two thousand two hundred and seventy-three.” (Num. 3:43) Superficially there might seem to be some discrepancy, as this would make about ninety persons to a family, if one male firstborn were counted for each family. However, it should be noted that it is reasonable to conclude that there were as many female firstborn as male. So this would cut the size of families in half, or to about forty-five persons to each.

Secondly, what of the firstborn males who were fathers themselves? We note that the number of 600,000 able-bodied male Israelites (exclusive of the Levites) included those “from twenty years old upward.” (Num. 1:18) We remember, too, that when the tenth plague struck Egypt, it did not kill Pharaoh, who himself most likely was a firstborn; but it killed his son who was not yet of age. So there would be many more firstborn males in Israel than the 22,273, but they would not be included in the figure given at Numbers 3:43, since that number refers only to minors. It would not refer to fathers or grandfathers or great-grandfathers who were firstborn. Since it is reasonable to conclude that about three generations were living at one time, this would cut down the size of the families still more.

Families of such numbers may still seem large, but we remember that Jacob had thirteen children by two wives and two concubines. This points to another factor: that in Israel both polygamy and concubinage were practiced, and only the firstborn of the father, not the firstborn of the mother, was considered the firstborn. Thus in the case of Jacob, each of his wives and concubines had her firstborn, but Jacob had only one firstborn, Reuben.—Gen. 49:3.

From where did excess wives and concubines come? For one thing, the Bible record tells us that at the time Jacob’s sons Simeon and Levi took it arbitrarily upon themselves to avenge the honor of their sister Dinah, they killed every male of the city of Shechem but took women and children as spoils, the women doubtless serving as both servants or slaves and concubines. Further, it may be that there were more women in Israel than men just as in some lands today the number of women exceed the number of men. Under the institution of polygamy such women had husbands and families.—Gen. 34:29.

Especially enlightening as to how the large families can be accounted for is Jehovah God’s direct blessing: “The sons of Israel became fruitful and began to swarm; and they kept on multiplying and growing mightier at a very extraordinary rate, so that the land got to be filled with them.” “With seventy souls your forefathers went down into Egypt, and now Jehovah your God has constituted you like the stars of the heavens for multitude.” (Ex. 1:7; Deut. 10:22) With Jehovah’s blessing upon them, the Israelites increased so rapidly that Egypt’s king became alarmed. So we see that there is nothing incongruous about the estimated total of two million Israelites and the number of 22,273 male firstborn.

● Are we to understand from Genesis 8:22 that seasons as we know them today, with their extreme conditions, will exist in the new world?—E. E., United States.

In his heart Jehovah said, as recorded at Genesis 8:22: “For all the days the earth continues, seed sowing and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night, will never cease.” Some years ago an inquirer posed a problem in this connection, in saying:

“My question is as stated in Genesis 8:22. As long as the earth endures there shall be winter. Now we know the winter season brings aggravation. Streets become covered with snow and ice, cars slide, accidents are caused, people fall on the slippery ice, get their feet wet, catch cold, and winter certainly is not comfortable. Would you regard that in a sense as living under perfect conditions? Contending with that would not be like living in a paradise. Would it?”

Now, these sentiments are quite understandable. Yet, even today, is the winter season always as bad as all that? It depends on one’s outlook. It is a thrill to behold descending snowflakes! Silently the hills, the trees, the fields—yes, and even city streets—take on a soft, white blanket of snow. Really, it is a joy to behold! Many see the seasonal beauty in their surroundings, if they live in areas of the earth where this spectacle takes place. Of course, they must properly equip their automobiles to drive under such conditions, or they may simply choose not to use them at all when the roads are slippery. Persons who dress properly are not uncomfortable, nor do they get their feet wet. Human imperfection does play a part at any time of the year, and so, in ice and snow, some may fall or others catch cold. But even today under present conditions winter, in regions where it graces the terrain with snowy whiteness, can be a beautiful and enjoyable time of the year. There are, of course, many places on earth that do not have snow and ice in the winter season, with the conditions these produce.

The statement at Genesis 8:22 must, of course, be taken in conjunction with other promises concerning the perfect conditions due to obtain under God’s kingdom. What Jehovah meant at Genesis 8:22 was that the condition of equable climate that prevailed over all the earth before the Flood would no longer exist. Why? Because the great water canopy responsible for such a condition had fallen, resulting in the seasons described at Genesis 8:22. However, as God produced sudden revolutionary changes in earth’s living conditions by the deluge of Noah’s day, with extremes now of heat and cold, so at Armageddon and with the inauguration of his Messianic kingdom he can produce rapid changes that will ameliorate any hard conditions of winter or disagreeable features of other seasons.

Will this be accomplished by a restoration of the water canopy? Will the Creator again suspend it in space so as to produce a hothouse condition on this earth in order that a uniform temperature may again prevail around the globe? The Bible does not say so, whereas the formation of the antediluvian water canopy was part of God’s creative work on one of his workdays before he began his seventh day by ceasing from such creative works for the earth. His rest day has yet a thousand or more years to go. It is sufficient to say that Jehovah God, who already knows what he will do, will handle matters perfectly. He will bring about the most desirable and enjoyable conditions through his King Jesus Christ. This change, which will do away with unpleasant seasonal conditions, will harmonize with God’s restoration of paradise and his removal of death, pain, sorrow, sickness and crying.—Rev. 21:4; Deut. 32:4.

Announcements

FIELD MINISTRY

Servants of Jehovah must be faithful and dependable during this “time of the end” of Satan’s wicked system of things. In December Jehovah’s witnesses will continue to prove their faithfulness to God by sharing fully in the ministry, offering to all persons the New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures, and a Bible study booklet, on a contribution of $1.

GROW IN SPIRITUAL STRENGTH DAILY

Begin each day of the new year with a thought from the Bible. A timely and extremely helpful selection of texts has been made a part of the 1964 Yearbook of Jehovah’s Witnesses. Furthermore, a brief analysis of each text is presented as quoted from The Watchtower. You will grow in knowledge and spiritual strength by taking advantage of this provision contained in the annual report of preaching activity of Jehovah’s witnesses. Send 50c. You will also want a copy of the 1964 calendar, which beautifully illustrates the year’s text. Send an additional 25c.

“WATCHTOWER” STUDIES FOR THE WEEKS

January 19: Identifying the Spirit of the World, and Avoiding the Plague upon the Spirit of the World, ¶1-7. Page 745.

January 26: Avoiding the Plague upon the Spirit of the World, ¶8-41. Page 752.