The Watchtower — January 15, 1965

Do You Express Appreciation for Kindnesses?

KINDNESS is a heartwarming quality. The Creator made us so that we would want to show kindness, which really is a form of love. That this should be so is easy to understand in view of Jesus’ words: “There is more happiness in giving than there is in receiving.”—Acts 20:35.

Even though this is true, kindness is not often shown. No doubt one reason for it is that kindness is so seldom appreciated. As an old German proverb puts it, “Ingratitude is the world’s pay.” And an English writer once said, “Brutes leave ingratitude to man.” Yes, as a rule this old world is cold, ungrateful, not appreciating kindness.

In fact, the world seems to be getting ever more so. However, this should not surprise us in view of the inspired prophecy: “In the last days critical times hard to deal with will be here. For men will be . . . unthankful.” In particular is humankind unthankful to God their Maker. They give little if any thought to the many kindnesses they daily receive from him as the Giver of “every good gift and every perfect present.” How far short they come of “giving thanks always for all things”! Not appreciating God’s kindnesses to them, many parents are lax about teaching their children to appreciate kindness. As a result, we see a large proportion of the younger generation growing up without feeling any obligation to express appreciation for kindnesses received from their parents and others.—2 Tim. 3:1, 2; Jas. 1:17; Eph 5:20.

Quite likely many a kindly disposed person has become discouraged because his expressions of kindness either have not been appreciated or have selfishly been taken advantage of. Especially is this true in the marital relationship, where often the more generous one is expected to keep on giving with little appreciation being expressed on the part of the other. But let such remember Jesus’ counsel to ‘do good, not hoping for anything back, and you will be sons of the Most High, because he is kind to the unthankful.’ Of course, the fact that Jesus counseled us to do good to the unthankful does not justify or excuse those who are unthankful.—Luke 6:35.

As a sincere lover of righteousness you will want to be careful in both respects. On the one hand, you will want to show kindness whenever you have the opportunity to do so and, on the other hand, you will want to express appreciation for kindnesses received. Here also the “golden rule” applies: “Just as you want men to do to you, do the same way to them.”—Luke 6:31.

Perhaps the simplest way to express appreciation for a kindness shown you is to utter or, on occasion, write a few words of thanks. Words of appreciation cost little if anything, and yet what joy they bring to the one receiving them! Why? Because you show that you value the kindness received. The one who did the kindness knows that it was worthwhile showing kindness to you. It might be said that the Creator felt the same way about the kindnesses he showed to Adam and Eve. He wanted some assurance from them that they appreciated these and so he asked of them obedience in just one simple matter: not eating the fruit of a certain tree. By their disobedience they betrayed that they lacked appreciation of God’s kindnesses, and so they were no longer permitted to enjoy them.—Gen. 2:17; 3:19.

Yes, a person who neglects to express appreciation betrays a measure of selfishness and raises a question as to his having deserved the kindness. He puts himself in the same class as nine of the ten lepers whom Jesus once cured and of whom only one appreciated the kindness sufficiently to return at once and express thanks. “He fell upon his face at Jesus’ feet, thanking him.” This caused Jesus to ask: “The ten were cleansed, were they not? Where, then, are the other nine?” They lacked appreciation of kindness.—Luke 17:14-18.

Not that appreciation for kindness is limited to just words. Not at all! Here too the Scriptural counsel is fitting: “Let us love, neither [or only] in word nor with the tongue, but in deed and truth.” You can show appreciation for kindnesses received by the very way you accept and make use of the kindnesses extended. A great help in this regard is modesty.—1 John 3:18.

Then again, you can show appreciation for kindnesses received by reciprocating in some way. There are ever so many little ways of being helpful by which you can show appreciation for hospitality received. At times it may mean your offering to help with the expenses, and doing so in sincerity.

Often the kindness consists of the loan of a book, a garden tool or some kitchen utensils. Here you can show appreciation of the kindness in several ways: by being willing to loan something you have that the other may need; also, by taking good care of what you have borrowed and returning it promptly.

However, there are times when appreciation of a kindness dictates your refusing it, as when your friends overextend themselves. Thus the Bible tells that on one occasion King David expressed a longing for water from a certain cistern. Hearing it, three of his friends risked their lives to pass through the lines of the enemy to get him the longed-for water. Did David drink that water? No, he did not, for it had been obtained at too high a price. It would have been as though he were drinking their blood, and so he offered it to Jehovah, pouring it out as a drink offering to Him. For him to have drunk the water not only would have shown a lack of respect for God’s law about the sanctity of blood, but would have betrayed an indifference to the lives of his friends, as though a mere drink of water were worth such a risk.—1 Chron. 11:17-19.

The foregoing are but a few of the ways in which you can show appreciation for kindnesses received. By so doing you bring joy to the ones showing kindness and you benefit yourself by not becoming hard and selfish, and that applies to all kindnesses, whether received from God or your fellowman.

Death and Hades to Give Up the Dead

“As regards the resurrection of the dead, did you not read what was spoken to you by God?”—Matt. 22:31

1. What ancient religious book alone teaches resurrection?

THE resurrection of the human dead during the reign of God’s kingdom—no ancient sacred book of religion teaches this but the Holy Bible. The Bible is the sacred book that was written, the first part of it mostly in Hebrew and the second part of it in the common Greek of nineteen hundred years ago. However, the first part of it was translated from Hebrew into Greek before ever the second part of the Holy Bible was written in common Greek. The Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures has been called the Greek Septuagint and is symbolized by the sign LXX, meaning “Seventy.” Nineteen centuries ago Greek was an international language, and thus back there a person who knew Greek could read the whole Bible. In our day the Holy Bible has been translated, as a whole or in part, into upward of 1,202 languages, most likely into your own native language. This sacred Book has the greatest circulation of all books and in the most languages. It stands out alone in its teaching of the raising of dead mankind to life in a righteous order of things during the reign of the kingdom of Almighty God.

2. Why may some scoff at the idea of a resurrection?

² You, the reader, may see no need for the human dead to be resurrected, because your religion has taught you such a thing as the “immortality of the soul.” So, because the departed ones are dead only as to the human body but are alive in some invisible realm as souls or have transmigrated to another earthly body, you see no need for a resurrection. Some readers may therefore scoff at the idea of a resurrection from the dead. That is quite natural. But the Bible teaching of the resurrection of the dead has such a solid basis on which to rest that the better thing to do is to investigate honestly rather than scoff. We do not want to be like those Grecian philosophers who believed in the immortality of the human soul and to whom the Christian apostle Paul preached the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.—Acts 2:31, 32; Matt. 26:38; Isa. 53:12; Ezek. 18:4, 20.

3. Why do we not want to be like those Greek philosophers?

³ Of those Greeks the historical record says: “Some would say: ‘What is it this chatterer would like to tell?’ Others: ‘He seems to be a publisher of foreign deities.’ This was because he was declaring the good news of Jesus and the resurrection.” And after the apostle Paul told the Supreme Court of judges in Athens, Greece, that God had raised up his Son Jesus Christ from the dead in order to act as judge of all the inhabited earth the record says, “well, when they heard of a resurrection of the dead, some began to mock.” (Acts 17:18, 31, 32) Those Greeks believed in the immortality of the human soul and that there were therefore no dead. Hence they could not accept the teaching that human souls are dead and need to be resurrected in order to live again.

4. How were ancient Greeks like Babylonians in their belief regarding the human dead?

⁴ The ancient Greeks believed that the human dead were living as shades in an underground, unseen place, over which the god named Haʹdes ruled as king. Afterward this underground place of departed souls over which he ruled was also called by his name, Haʹdes. The name also came to be applied to the grave.a Those ancient Greeks were like the Babylonians of Asia who called the god of their underground realm of departed souls Nergal and who spoke of this invisible realm of the dead as “the land of no return.” Those ancient Babylonians therefore did not believe in a resurrection of the human dead.b

5. How did action by the Reform Jews point up the fact that belief in human immortality and the resurrection teaching run contrary to each other?

⁵ This Babylonian belief in the immortality of the human soul runs contrary to the Bible’s teaching of the resurrection of the human dead. This fact can be seen in the action taken by the Reform Jews of our twentieth century. On this The Jewish Encyclopedia, under the subject “Resurrection,” says: “In modern times the belief in resurrection has been greatly shaken by natural philosophy, and the question has been raised by the Reform rabbis and in rabbinical conferences . . . whether the old liturgical formulas expressing the belief in resurrection should not be so changed as to give clear expression to the hope of immortality of the soul instead. This was done in all the American Reform prayer books. At the rabbinical conference held in Philadelphia it was expressly declared that the belief in resurrection of the body has no foundation in Judaism, and that the belief in the immortality of the soul should take its place in the liturgy [the collection of formularies for public worship].”—Vol. 10, page 385, ¶2 (1905).

6. In what plain Bible statement do such Reform Jews not believe?

⁶ Thus those Reform Jews do not believe in the plain statement of the Holy Bible, in Ezekiel 18:4, 20: “The soul which sinneth that alone shall die.”—Isaac Leeser’s translation of 1853.

7. What did Paul, a one-time Pharisee, say to Felix about resurrection?

⁷ The Christian apostle Paul, who lived in the earthly days of Jesus Christ, miraculously saw him after his resurrection from the dead. By birth Paul was a Jew. He had been one of the Jewish Pharisees, who believed in the resurrection of the dead. When he stood before the Roman judge Felix, who likely believed in Pluto the Roman god of the underworld of dead souls, Paul said, with reference to the Jewish Pharisees: “I believe all the things set forth in the Law [of Moses] and written in the Prophets; and I have hope toward God, which hope these men themselves also entertain, that there is going to be a resurrection of both the righteous and the unrighteous. . . . this one utterance which I cried out while standing among them, ‘Over the resurrection of the dead I am today being judged before you!’”—Acts 24:14-21.

8. (a) How many witnesses were there of Christ’s resurrection?’ (b) What does his resurrection mean for dead mankind?

⁸ In his writings about the resurrection the apostle Paul told of more than five hundred eyewitnesses, including himself, who saw the resurrected Jesus Christ after he had been put to death publicly on a torture stake and had been buried in a sealed tomb, under guard by soldiers to prevent any theft of the dead body inside. (1 Cor. 15:3-9; Matt. 27:57 to 28:4) In proving that he and his fellow believers were not false witnesses of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, Paul pointed out what Christ’s resurrection meant for dead mankind by saying: “Now Christ has been raised up from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep in death. For since death is through a man [Adam, the first man], resurrection of the dead is also through a man.” (1 Cor. 15:20, 21) The resurrection of Jesus Christ opened up the way for others, namely, dead mankind, to be resurrected.

9, 10. (a) Why could Jesus face a martyr’s death courageously? (b) How do Jesus’ words make sure there will be a resurrection?

⁹ In the year 33 of our Common Era Jesus Christ courageously faced a martyr’s death, because he had confidence that Almighty God his heavenly Father would raise him from the dead on the third day. Thereby God would permit him to return to heaven and present the value of his human sacrifice to God personally. On earth Jesus Christ had much to say about resurrection. Once, when he talked about bringing dead humans to final judgment by means of a resurrection, he said: “Just as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted also to the Son to have life in himself. And he has given him authority to do judging, because Son of man he is. Do not marvel at this, because the hour is coming in which all those in the memorial tombs will hear his voice and come out, those who did good things to a resurrection of life, those who practiced vile things to a resurrection of judgment. I cannot do a single thing of my own initiative; just as I hear, I judge; and the judgment that I render is righteous, because I seek, not my own will, but the will of him that sent me.”—John 5:26-30.c

¹⁰ We can be sure, then, that there will be a resurrection.

A PERSONAL QUESTION

11. What very personal question, therefore, suggests itself?

¹¹ A very personal question, therefore, suggests itself to us. It is this: If, sometime in the future, you and I die and get buried in a tomb or grave, will a resurrection, a return to life from the sleep of death, be granted to us according to God’s will? If so, how may we know? Who will be resurrected with us? Will any not be resurrected from the dead? This very question has caught the interest of many Jews, even though they hold to only the Hebrew Scriptures, the first part of what we call the Holy Bible.

12. What kind of picture of resurrection day does the Bible give?

¹² Some religious clergymen of Christendom have attempted to picture what the resurrection day will be like to a person who is still alive on earth at that time. They have imagined some wild and really gruesome things about it, such as widely scattered parts of human corpses whizzing through the air to join the other members to which they belonged in one body at death. The Bible presents no such frightful picture of the resurrection time, not even in the prophet Ezekiel’s vision of the valley of dry bones that Almighty God’s power brought together and clothed with living flesh again. (Ezek. 37:1-10) Far differently, by means of suitable symbols, the last book of the Bible gives us a picture of the earthly resurrection after the wicked powers in heaven and on earth have been chased away. This hope-inspiring vision enables us to determine who will take part in the earthly resurrection.

13. In Revelation 20:11-15, what vision was given to John?

¹³ The vision, as seen by the Christian apostle John, is described in Revelation 20:11-15 in these words: “And I saw a great white throne and the one seated on it. From before him the earth and the heaven fled away, and no place was found for them. And I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne, and scrolls were opened. But another scroll was opened; it is the scroll of life. And the dead were judged out of those things written in the scrolls according to their deeds. And the sea gave up those dead in it, and death and Haʹdes gave up those dead in them, and they were judged individually according to their deeds. And death and Haʹdes were hurled into the lake of fire. This means the second death, the lake of fire. Furthermore, whoever was not found written in the book of life was hurled into the lake of fire.”—See also Revelation 21:8.

14. Why is Revelation 20:13 more inclusive than Jesus’ words in John 5:28, 29 regarding resurrection?

¹⁴ Not all persons dying have died on the dry land and been buried in a grave in the bosom of the earth. (Gen. 1:9, 10) Countless numbers have died at sea in shipwreck and storm and battle and have been buried at sea or their bodies have never been recovered to be given a burial on dry land. (1 Ki. 22:48, 49; 2 Chron. 20:36, 37; Ps. 48:7; Dan. 11:40) Therefore, in describing the day of the resurrection of mankind, Revelation 20:13 says that not only “death and Haʹdes gave up those dead in them” but also “the sea gave up those dead in it.” We can appreciate that this verse, Revelation 20:13, is a more inclusive statement of the resurrection than that of Jesus when he said: “All those in the memorial tombs will hear his voice and come out, . . . to a resurrection.”—John 5:28, 29.

15. Why is the “sea” not hurled into the “lake of fire” also?

¹⁵ One other point to notice is this: Whatever Haʹdes is here understood to be, those who are dead in it are not in the same place as those who are dead in the sea, for the dead in the sea are in a watery place. The sea will never cease, in a literal sense, to exist on the earth. That is why Revelation 20:14 says: “Death and Haʹdes were hurled into the lake of fire. This means the second death, the lake of fire.” If the literal sea were hurled into the “lake of fire” it would put out the lake of fire, and the lake of fire would cease to exist, rather than the sea cease to exist. However, the Bible is definite that the “second death” that is symbolized by the “lake of fire” will never cease to exist. Symbolically, that “lake of fire” will burn forever.

16. Is the Bible Haʹdes like that imagined by the Greeks? Why?

¹⁶ What, then, is this Haʹdes that is cast into the symbolic “lake of fire”? What is the condition of those in such Haʹdes? One thing is sure, the Haʹdes described in the Holy Bible is not the Haʹdes imagined by the ancient non-Christian Greeks and described in their mythologies. There was no general resurrection from the mythological Haʹdes of the pagan Greeks.

17. In what twofold sense did ancient Greeks speak of resurrection?

¹⁷ Under the subheading “B. Resurrection in the Greek World,” the Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, Volume 1, page 369, says: “Apart from transmigration of souls, . . . the Greek speaks of resurrection in a twofold sense. a. Resurrection is impossible. . . . b. Resurrection may take place as an isolated miracle. . . . The raising of an apparently dead girl in Rome by Apollonius of Tyana is recounted. . . , 150,000 denarii being contributed as additional endowment. . . . The idea of a general resurrection at the end of the age is alien to the Greeks. Indeed, it is perhaps attacked on a Phrygian inscription: [Indeed are the wretched ones all looking to a resurrection?]. In Acts 17:18 anástasis [resurrection] seems to be misunderstood by the hearers as a proper name (compare Ac 17:31 and following).”d Of course, the “apparently dead girl” whom Apollonius raised died again.

18. Unlike the heathen, what hope did God’s people have?

¹⁸ In its article on “Haʹdes” the Cyclopædia by M’Clintock and Strong, Volume 4, 1891 edition, makes this admission, on page 9, last paragraph: “To the believing Hebrew alone the sojourn in sheol appeared that only of a temporary and intermediate existence. The heathen had no prospect beyond its shadowy realms; its bars for him were eternal: and the idea of a resurrection was utterly strange alike to his religion and his philosophy. But it was in connection with the prospect of a resurrection from the dead that all hope formed itself in the breasts of the true people of God. As this alone could effect the reversion of the evil brought in by sin and really destroy the destroyer, so nothing less was announced in that first promise which gave assurance of the crushing of the tempter.”—See Genesis 3:15; Romans 16:20

19. So how does the Bible Haʹdes differ from that of the Greeks?

¹⁹ Thus in the Bible Haʹdes is different from that of the pagan Greeks, in that the Bible repeatedly states that there will be a resurrection from Haʹdes of those who are there. It is not such a place as the ancient Babylonians talked of, that is to say, “the land of no return.” But where, then, is this Biblical Haʹdes, and what is the condition of those in it? Is it a place of “intermediate existence” for the dead? Only if we get the Bible’s own answers shall we get the correct answers, the true answers on which our faith may rest unshakably. What does the Bible say?

HAʹDES

20. What must the condition of those in Haʹdes be?

²⁰ In the oldest known handwritten copies of the Christian Greek Scriptures the word Haʹdes occurs ten times.e Are people alive in the Biblical Haʹdes? Honest Bible readers will say that they are lifeless inasmuch as Revelation 20:13 says that those whom “death and Haʹdes gave up” were “those dead in them.” Certainly the dead in death are not alive. Likewise those dead in Haʹdes could not be alive either. However, the religionists of Christendom are infected with pagan Greek mythology and they will say: “Not so. The dead in Haʹdes are not really dead. Only their body is dead, but their soul is alive because it is immortal. For them death means only that they are separated from God. In other respects, those immortal souls in Haʹdes are really alive.” But is this argument of the religionists of Christendom right? Is it what the Bible teaches regarding the condition of those who are dead in Haʹdes and who will have a resurrection from Haʹdes? Search the Bible.

21. (a) Is Haʹdes in heaven? (b) Does the Christian congregation go to Haʹdes?

²¹ In the Christian Greek Scriptures the first use of the word Haʹdes is in Matthew 11:23. There the Lord Jesus Christ says: “And you, Capernaum, will you perhaps be exalted to heaven? Down to Haʹdes you will come.” (Also in Luke 10:15) For this reason Haʹdes cannot be in heaven. The next use of the word Haʹdes is in Matthew 16:18, in which Jesus says to his apostle Peter: “Also, I say to you, You are Peter, and on this rock-mass I will build my congregation, and the gates of Haʹdes will not overpower it.” This saying of Jesus means that the congregation of his followers would die and enter in through the gates into Haʹdes. They would thus get to be among those who are dead in Haʹdes.

22. Why would Haʹdes’ gates not overpower Jesus’ congregation?

²² However, why would the “gates of Haʹdes” not overpower Jesus’ congregation? Why would those “gates” not remain forever closed upon Jesus’ followers and thus make Haʹdes a “land of no return”? It was because of what Jesus later said to the aged apostle John in the last book of the Holy Bible, in Revelation 1:17, 18. In those verses the resurrected Jesus Christ in heaven said to John: “Do not be fearful. I am the First and the Last, and the living one; and I became dead, but, look! I am living forever and ever, and I have the keys of death and of Haʹdes.” Since he has the keys of death and of Haʹdes, the heavenly Jesus Christ can unlock those “gates of Haʹdes” and let his dead congregation out, in this way restoring them to life.

23. Jesus promised to overpower Haʹdes thus at what time?

²³ Because of having this in mind, Jesus said that those gates of Haʹdes would not overpower his congregation. Rather, Jesus would overpower Haʹdes and free his congregation from Haʹdes. Jesus made a direct promise of this when he said, in John 6:39, 40: “This is the will of him that sent me, that I should lose nothing out of all that he has given me but that I should resurrect it at the last day. For this is the will of my Father, that everyone that beholds the Son and exercises faith in him should have everlasting life, and I will resurrect him at the last day.”

24. (a) In the Bible what word is associated with Haʹdes? (b) At death where did Jesus go, according to Psalm 16:10, 11?

²⁴ It is interesting to note that in the ten cases where Haʹdes occurs in the Christian Greek Scriptures the word “death” occurs with it. (Rev. 1:18; 6:8; 20:13, 14) So death, not life, is associated with Haʹdes. In this connection, then, we ask the question, When Jesus Christ himself died and was buried in the memorial tomb of his friend, Joseph of Arimathea, that same day, where did Jesus himself go? (Matt. 27:57-61) A person upon whom we can rely to tell us the truth about this is Jesus’ own close apostle, Simon Peter. On the festival day of Pentecost at Jerusalem, fifty-one days after the death and burial of Jesus, God’s holy spirit was poured down upon Peter and other disciples of Jesus. So under inspiration of God’s spirit Peter spoke and quoted Psalm 16:10, 11, saying: “Because you will not leave my soul in Haʹdes, neither will you allow your loyal one to see corruption. You have made life’s ways known to me, you will fill me with good cheer with your face.” Those words quoted by Peter were written by King David, who wrote as an inspired prophet of God.

25, 26. On Pentecost what did Peter say regarding David and Jesus?

²⁵ Then the apostle Peter, filled with God’s spirit, went on to say to the thousands of Jews observing the festival of Pentecost:

²⁶ “Brothers, it is allowable to speak with freeness of speech to you concerning the family head David, that he both deceased and was buried and his tomb is among us to this day. Therefore, because he was a prophet and knew that God had sworn to him with an oath that he would seat one from the fruitage of his loins upon his throne, he saw beforehand and spoke concerning the resurrection of the Christ, that neither was he forsaken in Haʹdes nor did his flesh see corruption. This Jesus God resurrected, of which fact we are all witnesses. Therefore because he was exalted to the right hand of God and received the promised holy spirit from the Father, he has poured out this which you see and hear. Actually David did not ascend to the heavens, but he himself says, ‘Jehovah said to my Lord: “Sit at my right hand, until I place your enemies as a stool for your feet.”’ Therefore let all the house of Israel know for a certainty that God made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you impaled.”—Acts 2:27-36.

27. How did Jesus Christ become able to resurrect his congregation from Haʹdes?

²⁷ In that speech the inspired Peter plainly says concerning the Lord Jesus Christ that he was not “forsaken in Haʹdes,” and that in fulfillment of Psalm 16:10 his soul was not left in Haʹdes. Thus when the dead Jesus was buried in the memorial tomb his soul went to Haʹdes. On the third day Almighty God resurrected him from Haʹdes, and then God committed to the resurrected Jesus the “keys of death and of Haʹdes,” so that Jesus could say, in Revelation 1:18: “I became dead, but, look! I am living forever and ever, and I have the keys of death and of Haʹdes.” Because of his possessing those keys, he is able to resurrect all those who are dead in Haʹdes, including his own congregation.f

28. (a) In what language did Peter on Pentecost quote Psalm 16:10? (b) How, then, shall we find out what and where the Bible Haʹdes is?

²⁸ The apostle Peter, being a Hebrew or Jew, evidently spoke in the Hebrew of that day when he gave his speech on the day of Pentecost. So, when he made his quotation from Psalm sixteen, he quoted directly from the Hebrew text, not from the Greek Septuagint translation of the Hebrew text. That being so, Peter did not use the Greek word Haʹdes but used the original word in the Hebrew text, namely, Sheol. The fact of the matter is that the word Haʹdes is the Greek word used in the Septuagint Version in translating the Hebrew word Sheol.g In the inspired Hebrew Scriptures the word Sheol occurs sixty-five times in sixty-three different verses, including Psalm 16:10, which Peter quoted. In the Hebrew this verse reads: “For you will not leave my soul in Sheol. You will not allow your loyal one to see the pit.”h Consequently, if we find out what and where Sheol is and what the condition is of those in Sheol we shall at the same time find out what and where the Bible Haʹdes is and what the condition is of those in Haʹdes.

[Footnotes]

[Picture on page 39]

RESURRECTED JESUS APPEARS TO PAUL

Part Two

1. How does Job 17:13-16 indicate Sheol is a low place and is the grave?

AS ALREADY noted Haʹdes or Sheol is not in heaven but is a low place. (Matt. 11:23; Luke 10:15) The patient man Job of ancient times indicates that it is a low place. When he was near death from a terrible disease, Job said: “If I keep waiting, Sheol is my house; in the darkness I shall have to spread out my lounge. To the pit I shall have to call out, ‘You are my father!’ to the maggot, ‘My mother and my sister!’ So where, then, is my hope? And my hope—who is it that beholds it? To the bars of Sheol they will go down, when we, all together, must descend to the very dust.” (Job 17:13-16) Now, just what is Job describing here? Any honest reader will answer, “The grave!” It is in the dust of the earth. It is a dark place, where the dead body is laid out as on a lounge; it is a pit, and there the maggot is to be found, feeding on the rotting corpse. It has bars, in the sense that those buried in it cannot free themselves. In fact, the Authorized Version Bible of King James of England uses here the words “grave” and “pit” instead of the Hebrew word Sheol.

2. In Psalm 141:7, what remains are associated with Sheol?

² Having in mind a woodchopper scattering chips and sticks of wood around, the psalmist David said: “As when one is doing cleaving and splitting on the earth, our bones have been scattered at the mouth of Sheol.” (Ps. 141:7) Instead of Sheol, the English Authorized Version uses the words “the grave,” and fittingly so, for bones are scattered at the mouth of the grave before burial.

3. How does Isaiah 28:15-18 indicate that Sheol is the grave?

³ When speaking about the enemies of God, the prophet Isaiah links death (not life) and Sheol together, saying: “Because you men have said: ‘We have concluded a covenant with Death; and with Sheol we have effected a vision; the overflowing flash flood, in case it should pass through, will not come to us. . . ’; therefore this is what the Lord Jehovah has said: ‘ . . . your covenant with Death will certainly be dissolved, and that vision of yours with Sheol will not stand. The overflowing flash flood, when it passes through—you must also become for it a trampling place.”’ (Isa. 28:15-18) This very language indicates that Sheol is the common grave of dead mankind, for the grave is the place of death.

4. How is Sheol shown to be a low place also in Isaiah 57:9?

⁴ Isaiah 57:9 also indicates that Sheol is a low place, as low as the grave. After telling how the Jewish kingdom of Judah tried to lure other nations, Gentile nations, into political alliances with her, this prophecy says: “You proceeded to descend toward Melech with oil, and kept making your ointments abundant. And you continued sending your envoys far off, so that you lowered matters to Sheol.” In her political dealings with Gentile nations the unfaithful kingdom of Judah stooped so low in God’s view that she was bringing upon herself the condemnation of death in the grave, thus ceasing to be an independent nation with a king.

5. (a) How is lowness associated with Sheol in Psalm 86:12, 13? (b) How does Psalm 88:2-6 associate burial, pit and loss of strength with Sheol?

⁵ Associating lowness and death with Sheol, Psalm 86:12, 13 says: “I laud you, O Jehovah my God, with all my heart, and I will glorify your name to time indefinite, for your loving-kindness is great toward me, and you have delivered my soul out of Sheol, its lowest place.” Associating the burial place, the pit and the loss of strength with Sheol, Psalm 88:2-6 says: “Before you my prayer will come. Incline your ear to my entreating cry. For my soul has had enough of calamities, and my very life has come in touch even with Sheol. I have been reckoned in among those going down to the pit; I have become like an able-bodied man without strength, set free among the dead themselves, like slain ones lying in the burial place, whom you have remembered no longer and who have been severed from your own helping hand. You have put me in a pit of the lowest depths, in dark places, in a large abyss.”

6. How does Psalm 116:3, 7-10 add proof that Sheol is the grave?

⁶ Piling up further evidence in the Bible to show that Sheol or Haʹdes is the common grave of dead mankind, from which there is to be a resurrection, Psalm 116:3, 7-10 says: “The ropes of death encircled me and the distressing circumstances of Sheol themselves found me. Distress and grief I kept finding. Return to your resting place, O my soul, for Jehovah himself has acted appropriately toward you. For you have rescued my soul from death, my eye from tears, my foot from stumbling. I will walk before Jehovah in the lands of those living. I had faith, for I proceeded to speak. I myself was very much afflicted.” In those words, please, note the continual association of Sheol with death, not with immortal life. Once while under affliction as a Christian the apostle Paul quoted from those words of Psalm 116:10 and linked them up with the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, in 2 Corinthians 4:13, 14.

7. How do 2 Samuel 22:6 and Psalm 18:4, 5 suggest David’s being pulled down into the grave?

⁷ Using language similar to the above, the psalmist David felt that he was being pulled down into the grave of death, when he said: “The ropes of Sheol themselves surrounded me; the snares of death confronted me.” (2 Sam. 22:6) Referring to the same experience, the psalmist David said, in Psalm 18:4, 5: “The ropes of death encircled me; flash floods of good-for-nothing men also kept terrifying me. The very ropes of Sheol surrounded me; the snares of death confronted me.” A violent death stared David in the face; the common grave of dead mankind seemed a certainty for him. But he called to the Almighty God and was spared from death and from Sheol or Haʹdes. It was as if he had been resurrected from the dead by the power of Jehovah God.—Ps. 18:8-19.

8. To what did the prophet Jonah liken his experience in the fish’s belly three days?

⁸ To the prophet Jonah it looked as if the belly of a big sea monster would be his grave, when this tremendous fish swallowed him in the storm at sea and did not vomit him out onto the dry ground till the third day. So the prophet’s account of his experience says: “Then Jonah prayed to Jehovah his God from the inward parts of the fish and said: ‘Out of my distress I called out to Jehovah, and he proceeded to answer me. Out of the belly of Sheol I cried for help. You heard my voice. To the bottoms of the mountains I went down [inside the fish]. As for the earth, its bars [like those of a grave] were upon me for time indefinite. But out of the pit you proceeded to bring up my life, O Jehovah my God.”’ (Jonah 2:1, 2, 6) For three days Jonah was as if dead in the grave or Sheol or Haʹdes. The Lord Jesus Christ showed this when he referred to his own death and burial and said: “Just as Jonah was in the belly of the huge fish three days and three nights, so the Son of man will be in the heart of the earth three days and three nights.”—Matt. 12:40.

9. Of what was the deliverance of Jonah from the fish’s belly a prophetic picture, and through whom is escape from Sheol possible?

⁹ It was Almighty God, whose name is Jehovah, who miraculously brought up Jonah the prophet out of the belly of the huge fish on the third day. This same God, Jehovah, brought up his faithful prophet Jesus Christ out of the “heart of the earth” on the third day. Hence the deliverance of Jonah was a prophetic picture of the resurrection of the Son of God from the dead. After his resurrection the “keys of death and of Haʹdes” were given to Jesus Christ, that he might be God’s Agent in raising all the others who are in Haʹdes or Sheol and in the condition of death. No man can, by his own means and arrangements, escape death and Sheol or Haʹdes, the grave that is common to dead mankind in the dust of the earth.

10. (a) How do Psalm 89:47, 48 and Job 7:8, 9 indicate man’s helplessness in Sheol? (b) So how will survivors of Armageddon escape going into Sheol?

¹⁰ The psalmist Ethan the Ezrahite painfully realized this fact, when he said to Jehovah God: “Remember of what duration of life I am. Is it all in vain that you have created all the sons of men? What able-bodied man is there alive who will not see death? Can he provide escape for his soul from the hand of Sheol?” (Ps. 89:47, 48) For this reason those dedicated Christians today who will survive the coming battle of Armageddon and enter into a righteous new order on earth with the opportunity of never dying will survive only by means of God’s miraculous power of protection and preservation. Likewise, those who die and are buried in Sheol or Haʹdes cannot come up out of that place of death and decay by their own power. The deathly diseased prophet Job spoke of this inability of man when he mournfully said: “The eye of him that sees me will not behold me; your eyes will be upon me, but I shall not be. The cloud certainly comes to its end and goes away; so he that is going down to Sheol will not come up.”—Job 7:8, 9.

11. (a) Psalm 49:7-10 shows what inability of rich men? (b) Ps 49 Verse 15 shows trust in God for what miracle?

¹¹ Not all the wealth of the richest man on earth today can buy for him an exemption from death and the grave or pay for a resurrection from Sheol or Haʹdes, either for himself or for his closest relative. Psalm 49:7-10 tells him that fact, saying: “Not one of them can by any means redeem even a brother, nor give to God a ransom for him; . . . that he should still live forever and not see the pit. For he sees that even the wise ones die, together the stupid one and the unreasoning one perish, and they must leave to others their means of maintenance.” Unlike a materialistic rich man, the inspired psalmist trusts in Almighty God Jehovah and says: “However, God himself will redeem my soul from the hand of Sheol, for he will receive me.”—Ps. 49:15.

12. (a) In Psalm 30:2, 3 for what did David praise God? (b) To what power of Jehovah God did Hannah refer in 1 Samuel 2:6?

¹² When the psalmist David recovered from a sickness that had seemed to mean his certain death and burial, he gratefully directed his praise to his God and said: “O Jehovah my God, I cried to you for help, and you proceeded to heal me. O Jehovah, you have brought up my soul from Sheol itself; you have kept me alive, that I should not go down into the pit.” (Ps. 30:2, 3) Not only can this God of David keep a person from going down into death and the grave prematurely but he can also bring up the dead from Sheol or Haʹdes by means of a resurrection, just as he did in the case of his own Son Jesus Christ. The mother of the prophet Samuel voiced that same fact when she said: “Jehovah is a Killer and a Preserver of life, a Bringer down to Sheol, and He brings up.” (1 Sam. 2:6) Mary, the mother of Jesus, spoke in praise to Jehovah with a similar thought in mind.—Luke 1:46-55.

DEAD OR CONSCIOUSLY ALIVE—WHICH?

13. In proof of the true meaning, how do numbers of Bible translators render Sheol and Haʹdes into English?

¹³ Thus the Bible evidence is so abundant, plain and simple that no doubt should exist about it: the Biblical Sheol or Haʹdes is the common grave of dead mankind. That is why numbers of Bible translators render these two words into English as “the grave” (not, a grave). The Authorized Version or King James Bible Version renders the Hebrew word Sheol as “the grave” thirty-one times and as “the pit” three times, and the Greek word Haʹdes as “grave” once (in 1 Corinthians 15:55). But for centuries the religious clergy of Christendom have taught that Haʹdes is a place of fiery torment. So now our question is, What is the condition of people who are dead in Sheol or Haʹdes? Are they consciously alive as immortals, or are they really dead and out of existence? What does God’s own Word, the Holy Bible, not the clergy of Christendom, say in answer to this question?

14, 15. According to Ecclesiastes 9:4-6, 10, in what condition are those in Sheol?

¹⁴ In answer the words of King Solomon, who specially received wisdom from Jehovah God, are found in Ecclesiastes 9:4-6, 10: “As respects whoever is joined to all the living there exists confidence, because a live dog is better off than a dead lion. For the living [though like dogs] are conscious that they will die; but as for the dead, they [even though like lions] are conscious of nothing at all, neither do they any more have wages, because the remembrance of them has been forgotten. Also, their love and their hate and their jealousy have already perished, and they have no portion any more to time indefinite in anything that has to be done under the sun. All that your hand finds to do, do with your very power, for there is no work nor devising nor knowledge nor wisdom in Sheol, the place to which you are going.”

¹⁵ According to that, those people dead in Sheol must really be dead, not even having an “intermediate existence.” Certainly they must be dead and out of existence if they are “conscious of nothing at all,” and if their love, hatred and jealousy, which are strong emotions, have “perished” with them, and if they have no wisdom and no knowledge and are not working at something or devising something. Little wonder why those in Sheol are called “dead” and why death, not life, is always associated with Sheol.

16. (a) According to Psalm 6:4, 5, about whom is there no talk or thought in Sheol? (b) According to Isaiah 38:17-19, why did King Hezekiah not want to die at thirty-nine years of age?

¹⁶ In Sheol the dead do not even think about God or talk about him. That was why the God-fearing psalmist David prayed: “Do return, O Jehovah, do rescue my soul; save me for the sake of your loving-kindness. For in death there is no mention of you; in Sheol who will laud you?” (Ps. 6:4, 5) The same thought was expressed by King Hezekiah, when he was spared from dying at thirty-nine years of age. He said to God his Savior: “You yourself have become attached to my soul and kept it from the pit of disintegration. For you have thrown behind your back all my sins. For it is not Sheol that can laud you; death itself cannot praise you. Those going down into the pit cannot look hopefully to your trueness. The living, the living, he is the one that can laud you, just as I can this day.” (Isa. 38:17-19) Fifteen years later, when King Hezekiah died and went to Sheol, he was not able to praise Jehovah God and he had no consciousness to be able to hope in his God. However, he died with hope of a resurrection from Sheol.

17. How do Psalm 139:7, 8 and Proverbs 15:11 prove that the clergy are not correct in teaching that the dead are still alive but only separated from God?

¹⁷ In the face of this it is foolish for the clergy of Christendom to argue that those in Sheol or Haʹdes are still alive as immortals and are dead only in the sense of being separated from God. The psalmist David does not agree with those clergymen, for he says to Jehovah God: “Where can I go from your spirit, and where can I run away from your face? If I should ascend to heaven, there you would be; and if I should spread out my couch in Sheol, look! you would be there.” (Ps. 139:7, 8) Confirming that fact, King David’s son Solomon said, in Proverbs 15:11: “Sheol and the place of destruction are in front of Jehovah. How much more so the hearts of the sons of mankind!” Just as Jehovah knows what is in the hearts of men, so he knows who are in Sheol.

18. What does Amos 9:1, 2 show about the reach of God’s spirit?

¹⁸ In illustration of how his spirit or active force can reach to all places, even to Sheol, Jehovah God says, in the prophecy of Amos 9:1, 2: “No one fleeing of them will make good his flight, and no one escaping of them will make his getaway. If they dig down into Sheol, from there my own hand will take them; and if they go up to the heavens, from there I shall bring them down.” Here, because of height, the heavens are contrasted with Sheol because of depth. How could men ever dig into Sheol? Only because Sheol is in the earth where men live and dig graves.

19. What does Job 26:5-7 show regarding God’s knowledge of Sheol?

¹⁹ Those in Sheol or Haʹdes are not beyond the knowledge and power of Jehovah. This fact is emphasized by the deathly sick Job, when he spoke of earth’s Creator in these words: “Those impotent in death keep trembling beneath the waters and those residing in them. Sheol is naked in front of him, and the place of destruction has no covering [from him]. He is stretching out the north over the empty place, hanging the earth upon nothing.” (Job 26:5-7) Thus Sheol has no covering with which to hide its dead from God’s eyes, but it lies naked before him. He knows who are there.

20, 21. Because of what facts about those in Sheol did Job pray, in Job 14:12-15, for God to hide him there?

²⁰ Away back there in the sixteenth century before our Common Era patient Job knew that those dead in Sheol are really dead; they feel no pain, even as they experience no pleasure, and are not conscious of anything at all. With good reason, then, Job prayed that his painful and shameful sickness might be terminated soon in death and that he might be laid in Sheol, out of sight from the staring eyes of men. Hence he prayed to Jehovah God:

²¹ “Man also has to lie down and does not get up [by his own power]. Until heaven is no more they will not wake up, nor will they be aroused from their sleep. O that in Sheol you would conceal me, that you would keep me secret until your anger turns back, that you would set a time limit for me and remember me! If an able-bodied man dies can he live again? All the days of my compulsory service I shall wait, until my relief comes. You will call, and I myself shall answer you. For the work of your hands you will have a yearning.”—Job 14:12-15.

22. By his words in Job 14:12-15, how did Job show he did not believe Sheol to be a “land of no return”?

²² Judged by these words, Sheol (Haʹdes, LXX) was not a “land of no return” to Job. It was not a place in which the dead ones were forgotten, abandoned, by God. Instead, the God of Job remembered those in Sheol, and in his own set time he would call forth those in that common grave of mankind, awakening them from their death state as if awakening them from a natural sleep. For that reason the painfully sick Job was willing for God to take his life then and there, to end his terrible sufferings in the flesh, and to lay him away in death in Sheol. Job felt that God was angry with him. So if God let Job be buried out of sight in Sheol, Job could be kept secret until God’s anger had passed away and the time came for God to be favorable to those in Sheol and to resurrect them from death to life under favorable conditions.

23. Whose voice will Job hear in resurrection time, and what favorable mention is made of Job by Ezekiel and James?

²³ According to the words of Jesus in John 5:28, 29, the dead Job will hear the voice of the Son of God and will respond to the call of Jesus and come forth from the memorial tomb in a resurrection. About nine hundred years after Job’s going to Sheol Jehovah God mentioned Job favorably, in the prophecy of Ezekiel 14:14, 20. The Christian disciple James also spoke of Job as being an example of endurance for Christians to imitate.—Jas. 5:11.

24. What has our examination thus far showed about Sheol or Haʹdes and the state of those in it?

²⁴ Till now we readers of The Watchtower have examined only part way into the matter of Sheol or Haʹdes. But we are impressed with the fact that the Holy Bible gives an encouraging hope regarding those who are there. All the human dead who are there are really dead, not consciously or subconsciously alive, but out of existence, for Sheol or Haʹdes Biblically means the common grave of dead mankind. It is not one grave, not one memorial tomb, but is the common grave of countless millions of human dead whose remains lie in the dust of the ground. It is continually enlarging itself as humans continue to die and be buried. It seems never to get satisfied with the number of its countless dead.

ONLY ONE SHEOL OR HAʹDES

25. How do Proverbs 30:15, 16 and Song of Solomon 8:6 comment on the dissatisfaction of Sheol or Haʹdes?

²⁵ The wise king of old observed this fact and wrote: “There are three things that do not get satisfied, four that have not said: ‘Enough!’ Sheol and a restrained womb, a land that has not been satisfied with water, and fire that has not said: ‘Enough!”’ (Prov. 30:15, 16) As to how strong Sheol is in its demands upon condemned, dying mankind, the same wise man compares it to love in its insistence on exclusive devotion, saying: “Love is as strong as death is, insistence on exclusive devotion is as unyielding as Sheol is. Its blazings are the blazings of a fire, the flame of Jah.” (Song of Solomon 8:6) Death demands the lives of condemned mankind, and Sheol demands their bodies.

26. (a) To what did Habakkuk 2:5 liken the soulful desire of the king of ancient Babylon? (b) How does Isaiah 5:14, 15 describe Sheol, and why thus?

²⁶ The soulful desire of the ancient king of Babylon for conquest over more nations and peoples is likened to the desire of Sheol for more victims of death. When Babylon was on the way to becoming the dominant world power and was thus threatening Jerusalem, Jehovah’s prophet Habakkuk wrote concerning the reigning dynasty of Babylon: “Indeed, because the wine is dealing treacherously, an able-bodied man is self-assuming; and he will not reach his goal, he who has made his soul spacious just like Sheol, and who is like death and cannot be satisfied. And he keeps gathering to himself all the nations and collecting together to himself all the peoples.” (Hab. 2:5) Symbolically speaking, Sheol has a large mouth, to take in many at a time. That is the idea of the prophet Isaiah when he says: “Therefore [because so many die for their lack of knowledge of Jehovah God] Sheol has made its soul spacious and has opened its mouth wide beyond bounds; and what is splendid in [Jerusalem], also her crowd and her uproar and the exultant one, will certainly go down into it [Sheol].”—Isa. 5:14, 15.

27. (a) How do Haʹdes and individual burial places compare as to number? (b) Though many such graves may disappear, what about Sheol?

²⁷ Quite properly, because Sheol or Haʹdes is the common grave of the human dead in the dust of the ground, the Bible speaks of only one Sheol or Haʹdes, whereas it speaks of many graves. The ancient Israelites called attention to the many graves when they complained to the prophet Moses: “Is it because there are no burial places at all in Egypt that you have taken us here to die in the wilderness?” (Ex. 14:11) About nine centuries later the prophet Ezekiel said to God’s people who were exiled in Babylon and whose hopes seemed to be dead: “This is what the Lord Jehovah has said: ‘Here I am opening your burial places, and I will bring you up out of your burial places, O my people, and bring you in upon the soil of Israel. And you will have to know that I am Jehovah when I open your burial places and when I bring you up out of your burial places, O my people.”’ (Ezek. 37:12, 13) Yes, countless burial places or graves have been dug. All traces of many of them have disappeared. But there remains the one Sheol or Haʹdes, and it keeps on enlarging as humanity continues to die.

28. What questions arise as to the operation of Sheol or Haʹdes, and where do we get the reliable answer?

²⁸ However, will greedy Sheol or Haʹdes continue to devour human flesh forever? Will it continue to hold its human victims always? Will it continue to triumph over the race of Adam’s descendants forever? Will it forever continue to bear witness to the death that mankind has inherited from the sinful Adam, our first human father? The only reliable answers that we could get to such questions would be from man’s Creator, Jehovah God. He gives an answer in the prophecy of Hosea 13:14: “From the hand of Sheol I shall redeem them; from death I shall recover them. Where are your stings, O Death? Where is your destructiveness, O Sheol? Compassion itself will be concealed from my eyes.”

29. (a) In what form do some Bible translators, like An American Translation, render Hosea 13:14? (b) However, what question do such Bible translations leave unanswered?

²⁹ Some Bible translators put Hosea 13:14 in the form of four questions; for example, An American Translation: “Shall I rescue them from the power of Sheol? Shall I redeem them from death? Where are your plagues, O Death? What is your destruction, O Sheol?” After we read the previous verses, the logical answers to the first two questions would be No! God would not redeem or rescue the disobedient Israelites from the hand or power of Sheol; he would not recover them from death. He would show no compassion, no repentance on his part, but would let those disobedient ones die and be grabbed by the greedy hand of Sheol. Hence God would ask where the plagues of death are and where the destructiveness of Sheol is. Let Sheol and death come and plague and destroy the disobedient ones. However, this American translation of Hosea 13:14 still leaves open the question, What will God do about them after death has plagued them and after Sheol has destroyed them? Will God let them remain forever within the power of death and Sheol? Or will God resurrect them in his due time?

30, 31. (a) In whose favor does Paul answer the question, in 1 Corinthians 15:54-57? (b) How will the victory come through Jesus Christ, and in what frame of mind does this put us for our further study?

³⁰ The inspired Christian apostle Paul answers in favor of a resurrection of the dead ones. At the climax of his marvelous chapter on the resurrection Paul writes: “Then the saying will take place that is written [in Isaiah 25:8]: ‘Death is swallowed up forever.’ ‘Death, where is your victory? Death, where is your sting?’ The sting producing death is sin [inherited from Adam], but the power for sin is the Law [given through Moses, with its condemnation of all men as guilty of sin]. But thanks to God, for he gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!” (1 Cor. 15:54-57) Ah yes, Almighty God can swallow up death forever and nullify its victory! He showed his power to do so by raising up his own Son Jesus Christ from death and Sheol nineteen centuries ago. In fact, this resurrection of Jesus Christ stands as a sure guarantee that God will resurrect mankind in general by means of Jesus Christ as the reigning King in God’s promised kingdom.

³¹ So, then, with a most hopeful frame of mind we will pursue this wonderful subject in the further parts of our discussion of the question, Who will be resurrected from the dead?

Graduating Missionaries Receive Fine Counsel

THE afternoon of November 23, 1964, saw the graduating of the 39th class of the Watchtower Bible School of Gilead at the Society’s headquarters. Truly fine counsel was given the students by eight speakers, beginning with their four regular instructors.

First came W. Wilkinson, who stressed that you reap what you S-O-W, by means of the Spirit, the Organization and the Word. (Gal. 6:7) Next came F. Rusk, who drew attention to the need for patience, waiting upon Jehovah for the reward, in the meantime keeping happily active. (Lam. 3:26) Then followed U. Glass, who noted that, having received many assets, the students now had corresponding liabilities, to use in teaching others the things they had received. (Rom. 13:8) The final instructor, E. Dunlap, showed the need, not only to help men get free from false religion, but then to get them established in secure Christian communities.—2 Cor. 10:4, 5.

Reflecting the worldwide interest in the graduation were the seventy wire, radio and airmail messages received, of which a number were then read. Next, M. Larson, factory overseer, showed how the factory principle of the production line applied to the missionary ministry; and then G. Couch, the Bethel home overseer, noted that they were in position to become truly productive, even as is a fruit tree that is given good care.

After these six speakers had each given his five-minute capsule of fine counsel, the vice-president of the Society, F. W. Franz, was heard. He spoke on the fine missionary example set by the apostle Paul and other early Christians. Basing his remarks chiefly on the prophecies Paul quoted in Romans, chapter 15, he urged the graduating ministers: “Give them what you have received here! Make them glad you have come!”

Then, for the next hour, N. H. Knorr, president of the school as well as of the Watch Tower Society, spoke. He impressed upon his listeners the need to get the people to accept them. Why? Because in doing so they would be accepting or receiving Christ, and in receiving Christ they would be receiving God; thus by their ministry people would be coming close to God. (Matt. 10:40) He urged them to push forward with zeal and vigor. “People will receive you because of the spirit you show! You know you are right!”

After noting the great increase that had taken place since Gilead’s first class graduated, he revealed that, beginning with 1966, there will be two five-month missionary classes each year instead of one ten-month class. In conclusion Knorr observed that the training the students received will doubtless serve them in teaching those resurrected after Armageddon.

The students had come from 53 lands and were being sent to 57 lands. A letter of appreciation from the students was movingly read by the oldest student, who had been serving Jehovah for some forty-five years. Among other things, the letter stated: “Jehovah has lovingly demonstrated his goodwill toward us through the untiring and ceaseless efforts of all concerned with our training. The instructors have indeed been gifts in men. As patient, loving, understanding teachers, they have surely set a wonderful pattern for our own future activity. . . . The humbleness and loyalty of [all] have made a deep impression. Jehovah’s goodwill toward us has been truly great and we thank him with overflowing hearts. . . . We are resolved to extend the benefits to many more.”

After an intermission the evening program began. First came the weekly Watchtower study. After that, for about three hours the students presented a most interesting and beneficial program consisting, among other things, of native folk music, expressions of appreciation and impressions of the training received, portrayals of foreign missionary activity and Bible characterizations. Following the program all in attendance joined in song, the president of the Society closing the joyful occasion with prayer.

A Nation Awaits Liberation

WHEN Jehovah sets a time for an event it is futile for anyone to try to thwart or postpone it, or to try to force events to an earlier conclusion. Such a fact faced Israel in captivity in Babylon. God had said through his prophet Jeremiah that they would be captives there for seventy years. So there was no use for them to scheme to overthrow Babylon and effect an earlier release. To the contrary, God told them to go ahead and have families and be satisfied to live in Babylon and wait for his time to deliver them. Even when the seventy years would be up, they must not rise up in revolt to destroy Babylon or even to fight for their own freedom from slavery. God himself was to be their Liberator, and he would use an instrument other than the captive Israelites.—Jer. 29:4-10.

It required forbearance and endurance along with faith. Many of the Israelites enslaved in Babylon had repented of the wrongdoing of their nation. They were sick of the degrading worship of the demons that went on constantly all around them in Babylon. They greatly desired to see God’s true worship restored in Jerusalem. But Babylon had the reputation of never releasing its captives, and the Babylonians made mockery of them.—Ps. 137:3, 4; Isa. 14:17.

Since Jehovah God himself was going to be the Liberator, it was up to him to maneuver matters toward the liberation. It is interesting to see how he let the pagan Gentile governments follow their own selfish aims and desires and yet maneuvered them so that they fulfilled his purpose, and that exactly on time.

BABYLON’S WORLD RULE BECOMES ENDANGERED

God showed the prophet Daniel, in a vision, that he would use the Medo-Persian Empire to conquer Babylon, and that Persia would in turn fall to the Macedonian or Grecian Empire. (Dan. 8:2-22) But with Babylon so mighty as to be seemingly invincible, how would God work matters to the point where there was a real danger to Babylon’s position?

We must remember that Nebuchadnezzar, as the Chaldean army commander, had shared with the Medes and Scythians in destroying the Assyrian capital, Nineveh, in 633 B.C.E. Two years later the Median king defeated the Assyrian army at Haran (Harran) and took over all of northern Mesopotamia, while the king of Babylon held the lower Mesopotamian valley. The territory of Persia, east of the Persian Gulf, was subject to the Median Empire, but its kings held the province of Elam and occupied its capital at Anshan, or Anzan.a For protection against this rising power, King Nabonidus of Babylon made an alliance with Lydia and Egypt early in his reign.

King Cyrus I, ruler of Anshan, had a son named Cambyses (I), who married Mandane, the daughter of Astyages, the Median king. (Nebuchadnezzar also married a daughter of Astyages.) Cambyses I had a son named Cyrus (II), who succeeded his father as king of Anshan. Cyrus II revolted against Astyages and took the capital city of the Medes, Ecbatana, in 550 B.C.E., without a fight, then marched westward to subdue the Median Empire, to the eastern border of the Lydian Empire. He next defeated rich King Croesus of Lydia, thereby extending the Persian Empire to the Aegean Sea and the Hellespont or the Dardanelles, in 546 B.C.E. Danger was now at Babylon’s door. If Cyrus conquered Babylon, he would end Semitic domination of the Middle East and set up Aryan or Japhetic domination.

Jehovah’s people down in Babylon did not have to see how events turned out to realize that Babylon would be overthrown, for more than 190 years before this, Jehovah’s prophet Isaiah, who had accurately foretold the downfall of Jerusalem, had also foretold Babylon’s crash before the Medes and Persians. Isaiah set Zion and Babylon in sharp contrast. He had just foretold the deliverance of Jehovah’s organization Zion (Isa. 12:6), and then mentions Babylon: “The pronouncement against Babylon that Isaiah the son of Amoz saw in vision.” (Isa. 13:1) Micah, a contemporaneous prophet, did likewise, saying: “Be in severe pains and burst forth, O daughter of Zion, . . . And you will have to come as far as to Babylon. There you will be delivered. There Jehovah will buy you back out of the palm of your enemies.” (Mic. 4:10) So in Isaiah’s pronouncement against Babylon Jehovah God is really the Speaker. He shows that he, not the Jews, will bring liberation from Babylon, and he is the one who signals to Babylon’s enemies to come against her.

JEHOVAH CALLS NATIONS AGAINST BABYLON

“Upon a mountain of bare rocks [plain to view from a great distance] raise up a signal [the new world power of the Medes and Persians], you men. Lift up the voice to them [invite Jehovah’s executioners, the Medes and Persians and allies from other nations], wave the hand [beckoning them to the assault upon Babylon’s gates], that they may come into the entrances of the nobles [capture the entrances to the walled city and control it]. I myself [Jehovah, even though using worldly commanders] have issued the command to my sanctified ones [as in Israel the Jewish warriors were sanctified, and even pagan nations began a military campaign with religious ceremonies]. I have also called my mighty ones for expressing my anger, my eminently exultant ones [exultant at the grand distinction of overturning Babylon, who made so many nations drink the cup of her anger].”—Isa. 13:2, 3; Joel 3:9.

“Listen!” says the prophet Isaiah, as if hearing the movement of international affairs just prior to 539 B.C.E. “A crowd in the mountains, something like a numerous people! Listen! The uproar of kingdoms, of nations gathered together! Jehovah of armies [whose temple in Jerusalem was destroyed by Babylon] is mustering the army of war. They are coming from the land far away [from far outside the Babylonian Empire], from the extremity of the heavens [from places under the extreme parts of the heavens], Jehovah and the weapons of his denunciation [Cyrus’ armies as Jehovah’s instrument to enforce his judgment against Babylon], to wreck all the earth [all the land of Babylon as a world power].”—Isa. 13:4, 5.

Isaiah boldly continues: “Howl, you people [Babylonians], for the day of Jehovah is near! [His vengeance for Jerusalem’s desolation is near (becoming more evident after Cyrus subdued Lydia)]. As a despoiling from the Almighty it will come. That is why all hands themselves will drop down, and the whole heart itself of mortal man will melt [Cyrus’ armies chased the Babylonians into their walled cities, King Nabonidus taking refuge in Borsippa]. And people have become disturbed. Convulsions and birth pains themselves grab hold [as they drink the cup of defeat which they have made the nations swallow]; like a woman that is giving birth they have labor pains. They look at each other in amazement [so quick and unbelievable is their subjugation]. Their [proud] faces are inflamed faces [red with embarrassment].”—Isa. 13:6-8.

“Look! The day of Jehovah itself is coming, cruel [as Babylon had been] both with fury and with burning anger, in order to make the land an object of astonishment, and that it may annihilate the land’s sinners out of it [Babylon had sinned against Jehovah’s temple]. For the very stars of the heavens and their constellations of Kesil will not flash forth their light [it was to be a dark day, yes, a dark night for Babylon. The blackness of her situation as a world power would be appalling]; the sun will actually grow dark at its going forth, and the moon itself will not cause its light to shine [it was actually in the night of October 5-6, 539 B.C.E., that Babylon fell to her conquerors]. And I shall certainly bring home its own badness upon the productive land [repaying Babylon in kind, as she deserved], and their own error upon the wicked themselves. And I shall actually cause the pride of the presumptuous ones to cease [Babylon presumed against God’s sovereignty and exulted over destroying his typical kingdom. She thought she was strong enough to rule the earth forever], and the haughtiness of the tyrants I shall abase [her rulers and military officers had acted haughtily like tyrants toward Jehovah’s exiled people]. I shall make mortal man rarer than refined gold, and earthling man rarer than the gold of Ophir [now even one haughty, presumptuous Babylonian tyrant would become hard to find, as rare as refined gold at that time, even rarer than the prized gold of Ophir]. That is why I shall cause heaven itself to become agitated [the heavens over Babylon, which the demonized imagination of the Babylonians filled with false gods like Merodach (Marduk), would not be able to help those who trusted in them], and the earth will rock out of its place at the fury of Jehovah of armies and at the day of his burning anger [the earth of the Babylonian Empire was moved out of its place as the Third World Power and became merely a province of the Persian Empire].”—Isa. 13:9-13.

A CRUEL DAY FOR BABYLON

While the captive Jews would be merely spectators, waiting for God to deliver them as promised, Isaiah describes how Babylon would be utterly without help: “And it must occur that, like a gazelle chased away and like a flock without anyone to collect them together, they will turn, each one to his own people; and they will flee, each one to his own land [all Babylon’s foreign supporters would forsake her and flee, with a view to setting up new relationships with the conquering world power]. Every one that is found [who sticks to Babylon and upholds her domination] will be pierced through, and every one that is caught in the sweep will fall by the sword [it would be a clean sweep of Babylon’s hangers-on]; and their very children will be dashed to pieces before their eyes [thus the family lineage and family name would be wiped out]. Their houses will be pillaged [their wealth would go to the conquerors], and their own wives will be raped [not by their own husbands, but by soldiers, their wives would bear children not bearing the family name].”—Isa. 13:14-16; Ps. 137:8, 9.

God named beforehand the very ones he would use as leaders in overthrowing Babylon: “Here I am arousing against them the Medesb [this would include the Persians (See Isaiah 21:2-9.)], who account silver itself as nothing and who, as respects gold, take no delight in it [the Medes and Persians were not after silver and gold, but conquest, to overthrow Babylon as the Third World Power; so they could not be bought off]. And their bowsc will dash even young men to pieces [the Persian bows were made of metal and could dash their young men to pieces]. And the fruitage of the belly they will not pity; for sons their eye will not feel sorry [they would be bent on destroying the enemy, the fruit of Babylonian bellies].”—Isa. 13:17, 18.

What was to be the result of Jehovah’s arousing the bow-bearing Medes against the Babylonians? Jehovah’s decree declares: “And Babylon, the decoration of kingdoms, the beauty of the pride of the Chaldeans, must become as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah [utter desolation as by fire and sulphur (Gen. 19:23-25)]. She will never be inhabited, nor will she reside for generation after generation. And there the Arab will not pitch his tent, and no shepherds will let their flocks lie down there [they will fear it like a haunted place]. And there the haunters of waterless regions will certainly lie down, and their houses must be filled with eagle owls. And there the ostriches must reside, and goat-shaped demons themselves will go skipping about there. And jackals must howl in her dwelling towers, and the big snake [not the “Sirrush,” the dragon representing Babylon’s god Marduk, but a literal snake inhabiting the desolate place] will be in the palaces of exquisite delight. And the season for her is near to come, and her days themselves will not be postponed.”—Isa. 13:19-22.

Such desolation would be one of the features of the vengeance of Jehovah God upon that world-dominating center of false religion, enemy of God from its inception in the days of Nimrod. Though centuries would pass after Babylon fell to the Medes and Persians in 539 B.C.E. before this desolation would overtake her, it would come inescapably.

As the time for the end of the seventy-year captivity of the Jews drew near, Babylon’s fall drew even nearer, so the Jews who had faith in Jehovah God and who desired to see his true worship established did not worry or try to run ahead of God by causing a revolt and trying to free themselves from Babylon’s captivity. Today there is a Greater Babylond that is nearing its fall and horrifying desolation, but those who read God’s Word and have seen the fulfillment of many of his purposes exactly on time know that the Greater Babylon will likewise fall to her complete desolation in the very near future, and that it is not their duty to use any force of arms or fleshly weapons to accomplish it, but that it will be done by Jehovah and his invisible heavenly forces, to his own honor. Babylon the Great will be desolated forever, just as was ancient Babylon, which is now nothing more than a desolate ruin. Then pure worship will fill the earth, and the rule of Jesus Christ, the Greater Cyrus, will mean complete liberation for all who delight in his kingdom. Further discussions of Isaiah’s and Jeremiah’s prophecies on Babylon will appear in succeeding issues.—Rev. 18:21.

[Footnotes]

[Map on page 53]

(For fully formatted text, see publication)

THE BABYLONIAN AND RIVAL EMPIRES IN JEREMIAH’S DAY (647-607 B.C.)

(BLACK SEA)

Byzantium

GREECE

Athens

IONIA

LYCIA

CILICIA

Tarsus

KITTIM

CAPHTOR

THE GREAT SEA

Cyrene

LIBYA

EGYPT

Noph

Nile River

Thebes (No)

Read Sea

LYDIAN EMPIRE

Sardis

(CASPIAN SEA)

MEDIAN EMPIRE

Ararat

(Lake Van)

Gaugamela

Ecbatana (Achmetha)

ARABIA

Tema

Gaza

Jerusalem

Tyre

Damascus

Carchemish

Haran

Euphrates River

Babylon

Erech

Ur

Ancient Seacoast

Tigris River

(Persian Gulf)

Susa

ELAM

PERSIA

[Picture on page 55]

Persian Archers Under King Darius

Labdanum—Gift Fit for a Ruler

● This was one of the fine products that Jacob told his sons to take as a gift to one who was a ruler in Egypt second only to Pharaoh. (Gen. 43:11) Sometimes mistaken for myrrh, labdanum is an aromatic gum, the product of a beautiful-flowered, bushy little plant known as the rockrose. The shrub’s large flowers resemble the wild rose. Labdanum is the gum that exudes from the leaves and stems of the little shrubs. It is soft, dark brown or black and has a delicately scented, fragrant odor and bitter taste. It is used in perfumes and, at one time, was also used extensively in medicine.—Gen. 37:25.

Vatican Council Reaffirms “The Reality of Hell”

HELL is not a popular subject. That is why theologians and clergymen in general ignore it. Thus a leading New York City Protestant preacher noted in his book Heaven and Hell that the subject had not been the theme of a sermon in some sixty years in his, one of the city’s largest and most fashionable churches.

Apparently because of this reluctance on the part of the clergy to preach about hell as a place of eternal torment, Vatican Council II, in its third session, felt called upon to reaffirm the Roman Catholic belief in the reality of hell as a place of eternal torment. Thus a UPI dispatch reported: “The Ecumenical Council . . . voted in four nearly unanimous ballots to approve a text which calls for everyday awareness of the church’s future in heaven. The text, which will be Chapter 7 of a tract on the church, was amended to reaffirm the reality of hell as the place of eternal punishment of sins.”—Democrat and Chronicle, Rochester, New York, October 20, 1964.

Just a week later the New York Times reported that a prelate at the Council had said further on this subject: “Many millions of people fail to understand how God the Father can be expected to damn an individual to hell for all eternity for such a thing as eating meat on Friday, thus putting such an individual in the same category as an adulterous atheist. The mentality responsible for such legislation seems to be more legalistic than genuinely religious and makes the Church a laughing stock.” Note, however, that the prelate does not take exception to the teaching of eternal torment, only as to what would merit such punishment.

And just what is the “reality of hell”? While there is some disagreement among Roman Catholic theologians as to the nature of the suffering in hell, they are agreed that it is intense and that it is forever, for an eternity. As to the nature of the suffering, a leading spokesman for the Roman Catholic Church in the United States says: “People in hell are lost completely and hopelessly . . . They must go on living a completely frustrated and miserable life. It would seem almost impossible that anything could be added to the suffering to which the lost are afflicted by reason of the loss of God. It is by far the worst side of the picture of what it means to be a lost soul. . . . Our Lord repeatedly chose the word ‘fire’ to describe the cause of suffering in hell. The Catholic Church always has seen in His words the expression of a real fire which would affect lost souls and make them feel pain similar to that which we feel now when we are burned by fire. . . . The fire of hell [however] is never extinguished, does not give light and does not destroy.”—What Happens After Death, Supreme Council, Knights of Columbus.

WHAT DOES THE BIBLE TEACH?

What about all this teaching regarding a literal burning hell in which sinners will be tormented eternally? Does the Bible teach such a doctrine?

No, it does not! In the beginning God warned Adam that, “if ever thou eatest of this [the tree of the knowledge of good and evil] thy doom is death,” not eternal torment. And when man disobeyed, God did not change that law ex post facto, after the deed had been done, but said to Adam: “Thou shalt earn thy bread with the sweat of thy brow, until thou goest back into the ground from which thou wast taken; dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.” God did not tell Adam he would go to a burning hell, but that he would return to the ground.—Gen. 2:17; 3:19.a

Because Adam had willfully and inexcusably sinned, by which sin he brought death to the entire human race, Adam was returned—to where? Eternal torment? Of course not! But to where he had been before he was created. And where was Adam before he was created? In a state of nonexistence, as the lifeless dust of the ground. So, if he was to be returned to where he was before, where would he be? In a burning hell, consciously suffering indescribable torment? No, but in a state of nonexistence. In other words, Adam was destroyed when he died. This is in keeping with the psalmist’s words: “Vigilantly the Lord watches over all that love him, marks down the wicked for destruction.” When Adam deliberately sinned he was ‘marked down for destruction’ by God, and at the end of 930 years of life he died.—Ps. 144:20 (Ps 145:20, AV).

Let us reason on the subject. The Bible tells us that life is a gift from God. And it contrasts, not life in heaven with life in hell, but life and the absence of life, death: “I call heaven and earth to witness this day that I have set such a choice before thee, life or death.” (Deut. 30:19) Upon being created and given the breath of life, Adam received the gift of life. But by reason of his failing to appreciate it, as shown by his actions, God took it away from him.

It is perfectly just and reasonable for a giver to attach certain conditions to a gift, and the condition God attached to the gift of life was obedience. It was not an unreasonable or unjust condition. Because Adam failed to keep that condition, God took back his gift of life, this resulting in the death of Adam and Eve. As for their offspring, since parents could not transmit to their children what they did not have themselves, these were born with an inheritance of sin leading to death. All this is in keeping with the rule: “Sin offers death, for wages”—not eternal torment; “God offers us eternal life as a free gift, through Christ Jesus our Lord.”—Rom. 6:23.

This principle is seen in God’s laws to Israel. The severest penalty for any crime was death by stoning, which was comparatively merciful, as one stone on the head was sufficient to render the doomed one unconscious. After death the body might be hung on a tree as a warning, or, in the case of a notorious crime, it was burned. But there was no lasting torment inflicted even upon willful sinners. For lesser crimes there were fines and at times strokes, by a lash or leather strap, not to exceed forty. The very fact that God limited these strokes showed he was not a God who would inflict eternal torment upon anyone.—Deut. 25:3.

It might well be asked, What kind of sin could merit eternal torment? Even human institutions forbid cruel and unusual punishments. Is man more loving and just than God? God’s very principle of an eye for an eye and a life for a life would rule out eternal torment. What sin could merit an eternity of torture? Besides, what good would or could it do? To destroy the wicked is to get rid of bad rubbish, it might be said, but what profit is there in their being preserved and tormented forever?—Deut. 32:4; 1 John 4:8.

More than that, the Bible tells us that “God, at the beginning of time, created heaven and earth.” If hell is another place, how is it that we do not read of its having been created? And if it was created, when? Before Adam sinned?—Gen. 1:1.

But someone may ask, Do not the Scriptures refer to punishment by fire? Yes, Jesus does in his parables or illustrations and so does the book of Revelation. But let us note that in all such instances highly figurative language is used. For example, in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, Lazarus is pictured as being taken to Abraham’s bosom. Literally? Of course not! Then neither is the fiery torment of the rich man literal. The same is true of Jesus’ remark: “If thy eye is an occasion of falling, pluck it out; better for thee to enter blind into the kingdom of God, than to have two eyes when thou art cast into the fire of hell; the worm which eats them there never dies, the fire is never quenched.” Even as Jesus did not mean for us literally to pluck out our eyes, so he referred to the “fire of hell” in a symbolic way.—Mark 9:46, 47; Luke 16:19-31.

But why did Jesus use such an illustration? In Mark 9:46, 47 he had reference to the valley called Gehenna, the Greek word here rendered “hell.” In it the refuse of the city was thrown, and some say that the bodies or mortal remains of criminals not deemed deserving of a decent burial nor entitled to a resurrection were also thrown into that place. So to be cast into fiery Gehenna symbolized to be eternally destroyed, without hope of a resurrection. A parallel expression to that of Jesus is found at Isaiah 66:24, which shows that it is the “mortal remains” that will be “a prey now, to worm undying, to fire unquenchable.”

PREMISED ON A FALSE TEACHING

The fact is that the false teaching of eternal torment is premised on another false teaching, namely, that man has an immortal soul. The Bible says: “From the clay of the ground, the Lord God formed man, breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and made of man a living person,” or soul. (Gen. 2:7) So man is a soul, and that a soul can die is clear from Ezekiel 18:4, which tells us that “it is the guilty soul that must die.” So, since man is a soul, and since, when man dies, the soul dies, there can be no eternal torment for man after death, for it is impossible to torment a dead person.b As we read at Ecclesiastes 9:5: “When death comes, of nothing will they be aware any longer; no reward can they receive.” If aware of nothing, they cannot be “completely frustrated and miserable.” Further, the Scriptures tell us of a number of persons who have died and who came back from the grave, but none of them told about their experiences, which they certainly would have done had they been conscious after death!

So we can see that, while the Vatican Council may reaffirm its belief in the reality of hell as a place of eternal torment, the doctrine is not taught in the Scriptures. What is more, the teaching is neither reasonable nor just nor loving, all of which the Bible assures us that God is!

[Footnotes]

Smoking Synod

● Reported the New Zealand Herald of April 14, 1964: “The president of the 36th general synod of the Anglican Church, the Primate and Archbishop of New Zealand, . . . interrupted the morning session yesterday to allow the assembly to smoke. ‘I understand,’ he said, ‘that some of our weaker brethren cannot go through a full morning’s session without a smoke.’ The archbishop then lit a cigarette. He was accompanied by a large number of those present.”

Weddings of Worldly Acquaintances

OFTEN it happens that Christians are invited to attend and even participate in weddings of worldly relatives and acquaintances that are conducted in buildings dedicated to false religious worship. In this event, what decision will you make? Will you attend, or not? Is it wrong to participate in such a wedding ceremony? How would you determine the matter?

Christians realize that the Bible draws a sharp distinction between true worship and false. They know that God does not approve of religious organizations that do not adhere strictly to the teachings of his Word. Therefore, they do not share in any way in the services of such organizations. Rather, they heed the Scriptural counsel: “Do not become unevenly yoked with unbelievers. For what sharing do righteousness and lawlessness have? . . . Or what portion does a faithful person have with an unbeliever? . . . ‘Therefore get out from among them, and separate yourselves,’ says Jehovah, ‘and quit touching the unclean thing.”’—2 Cor. 6:14-17.

However, in regard to a wedding, in most countries it is basically a civil ceremony, although often conducted by a clergyman. The clergyman who legalizes the marriage receives his authority to marry people from the State. In view of this, a Christian may reason that there is no direct Scriptural command prohibiting him from attending and participating, regardless of whether the wedding is in the building of a false religious organization or not. This is correct; however, there are other factors that a Christian will want to consider.

RELIGIOUS CONNECTIONS

When a wedding ceremony is conducted in a religious building under the oversight of a clergyman, it is usually very closely linked with that religion’s worship. For instance, there may be singing and prayers offered, and in some instances those in attendance may be expected to kneel or perform some other religious acts. In view of what the Bible says, a Christian could not conscientiously join in the prayers offered to a triune god or in any way have a part in the religious exercises of an organization that misrepresents the true God Jehovah and his teachings. What would this situation mean?

It would mean that a Christian, particularly one participating as a member of the bridal party, would find himself very closely associated with what the Bible shows to be false worship. He would be out of place at such a wedding, perhaps conspicuously so. Everyone else may be performing religious exercises in which it would be an act of apostasy for him to share. (John 4:24) The clergyman, the bride and groom and others in attendance may be embarrassed and even angered by what seems to them the Christian’s extreme disrespect. Under the emotional pressure of the moment can one be sure that he would not compromise? Would he weaken under such pressure and do something that would merit God’s disapproval? Would he be able to determine what actions and movements actually involve false worship so as to avoid them?

A Christian will, therefore, want to consider carefully the advisability of participating in such a function. He certainly does not want to do anything that will endanger his relationship with Jehovah God. So he will have to decide: Is sharing in a wedding under the supervision of a false religious organization in keeping with God’s command to “flee from idolatry”? Does it harmonize with the injunction: “‘Get out from among them, and separate yourselves,’ says Jehovah, ‘and quit touching the unclean thing’”? A mature Christian does not want to see how close he can come to participating in false worship; rather, he wants to keep as far away as possible from any influence or associations that may endanger his relationship with God.—1 Cor. 10:14; 2 Cor. 6:17.

TO PLEASE OTHERS

But a dedicated Christian may reason that accepting an invitation to the wedding of a close worldly acquaintance will help to maintain friendly relations with that person. On the other hand, refusal to attend and participate in the wedding may create hard feelings and make it impossible any longer to talk to that one about the truth of God’s Word.

Of course, it is the purpose of Christians to help worldly acquaintances to become free from unbiblical teachings, but will participating in their weddings really serve to that end? Even if you feel that there is no danger that you will compromise, will your steadfastness at the wedding in refusing to have any part in the religious exercises contribute to the pleasantness of the occasion for them and their worldly guests? May not your conduct, rather, mar the occasion for them and cause embarrassment? It would be proper to explain these possibilities to your worldly relative or acquaintance in advance.

Likely an honest, straightforward explanation of your feelings and beliefs will not offend, but, rather, will create respect and a much firmer basis for continued Bible discussions. For example, should a close worldly relative or acquaintance ask you to participate as “maid of honor” or “best man” at his religious wedding, you may tell him how honored you feel that he should want you to be so closely connected with this important moment of his life. But then you might explain in words to this effect:

‘Since the Bible draws such a sharp distinction between true religion and false, I have reservations about attending weddings officiated at by clergymen who, as I believe, are not teaching the truths of God’s Word. Such clergymen pray to a triune god, and since I can pray only to Jehovah God, I could not participate in the prayers or in any of the religious symbolisms or exercises at your wedding. I do wish you happiness, but I am afraid that my presence might only be a source of embarrassment to you, your minister and others in attendance.’

Such an explanation will show your acquaintance that not only is your religion the most important matter in your life, but you are concerned about his feelings as well. He will probably agree that in the interest of all concerned it would be best that you were not so closely connected with his wedding. At the same time a fine opening is left for further explanation as to the importance of practicing a form of worship that is in harmony with God’s Word. One’s Bible-trained conscience may allow one to be an observer at such a wedding, but one would have to bear the responsibility for one’s actions.—Gal. 6:5.

POSITION OF PARENTS

Dedicated Christian parents want to see their children worship Jehovah, but sometimes youths decide they want to marry worldly acquaintances. Then what? While children are under the jurisdiction of parents, the parents could not consent to their marrying a person who is not dedicated to God. If the boy or girl insists on marrying an unbeliever, he would have to do it when he reaches the legal age, on his own, without the sanction or approval of the parents. Parents dedicated to Jehovah must make it crystal clear that they disapprove of allowing their children to marry those not dedicated to God. The Scriptural principles here are clear: “Do not become unevenly yoked with unbelievers.” Marry “only in the Lord.”—2 Cor. 6:14; 1 Cor. 7:39.

At the same time, neither will parents allow their minor children to make the final decision as to participating in or attending the wedding of a worldly acquaintance. Rather, parents will assume their God-given responsibility and make the decision for their children, determining what will be in the best interest of their spiritual welfare.—Eph. 6:1-4; Isa. 38:19.

But should children reach legal age and desire their parents to share in their wedding conducted under the auspices and in the edifice of a false religious organization, what then? Should parents agree to participate? Well, do the parents approve of such a wedding to a worldly acquaintance in a place of false worship? Do the parents approve of that form of worship? If not, does it seem consistent that the parents should actively participate in the wedding, perhaps with the father giving the daughter away? Parents want to be loving and tender with their children, but, at the same time, they do not want to be inconsistent—teaching their children one thing, and then later in life participating in that which they counseled against. This is not the way to elevate true worship in the minds of one’s children. As to whether the parents will attend such a wedding as quiet observers, this too they must personally decide.

WORLDLY RECEPTIONS

Another thing that sometimes has to be decided is whether to accept an invitation to the wedding reception of a worldly acquaintance. This affair may be quite divorced from religious ritual, but are the associations upbuilding? Will there be heavy drinking, smoking, sexy dancing and other behavior unbecoming a Christian? If so, is there good reason for a Christian to be there?—1 Cor. 15:33.

At worldly receptions special honor and attention are often given the bride. They toast her, they line up to kiss her, and in some places they even pay to dance with her. Stop and think. Consider, for example, 1 Corinthians 11:3, 8, 9 and Romans 1:24, 25. Is it in harmony with God’s principles thus to highly honor a creature, exalting a woman? What will you do? Join with the crowd, or refrain? Such a worldly atmosphere is certainly not a good one, though the Christian wife of an unbeliever may find that it is not always possible to avoid such surroundings.

If other members of the Christian congregation learn that you have attended a worldly religious wedding and reception, what effect will it have upon them? Is there a possibility that some might be stumbled by what may appear to them as a compromise of faith? Will their respect for you as a servant of God be undermined? This should be considered, for it may well affect your position in the congregation. But the decision is one that you must make.

As long as this old system of things exists, Christians, who are endeavoring to live in harmony with God’s Word, will have to make decisions relative to their association with it. It is not always easy to decide what to do, but a prayerful consideration of Jehovah’s direction through his Word and organization will help us to make straight paths for our feet.—Ps. 25:4, 5; Prov. 3:5, 6.

Where Is the Witnessing?

The publication Lutheran Witness of March 17, 1964, page 15, says: “Research indicates . . . that it takes 27 years for the average member of our church body to help bring another person to Christ and membership in his Church. . . . During 1962, according to official statistics, 1741 of the 5500 parishes affiliated with the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod did not gain a single adult by confirmation or confession of faith.”

Other churches in Christendom, if they did the necessary research, undoubtedly would come up with a similar or even higher figure than the twenty-seven years required for a member to bring a new person to his church. True Christians, Jesus Christ plainly indicated, would be known by their regular, busy Kingdom witnessing to people of all the nations.—Matt. 24:14.

Questions From Readers

● Please explain the application of Isaiah 14:12:14. Does it have any application to Satan the Devil?

Isaiah 14:12-14 reads: “‘O how you have fallen from heaven, you shining one, son of the dawn! How you have been cut down to the earth, you who were disabling the nations! As for you, you have said in your heart, ‘To the heavens I shall go up. Above the stars of God I shall lift up my throne, and I shall sit down upon the mountain of meeting, in the remotest parts of the north. I shall go up above the high places of the clouds; I shall make myself resemble the Most High.’”

The first application of Isaiah 14:12-14 is not to Satan the Devil, but is to the ruling dynasty of Babylonian kings beginning with Nebuchadnezzar and ending with Nabonidus and Belshazzar. This dynasty, referred to in Isa 14 verse 4 as the “king of Babylon,” exalted itself highly and shone brightly in the ancient world. Especially so did it desire to be superior to the line of kings that sat on the throne at Jerusalem. In Bible prophecy the kings of the royal line of David were likened to stars; and as these sat on the throne at Jerusalem called “Jehovah’s throne,” they had a brilliance, a royal glory. So, by desiring to make the Israelite kings mere vassals and by finally dethroning them and thus setting himself up above these royal “stars of God,” Babylon’s king was saying in his heart that his ambition was to go up to the heavens of Jehovah, lift his pagan throne up above the symbolic “stars of God” and seat himself on the northerly mountain where Israelites met with their God. In this way Babylon’s king would appear to put himself up above the God of Israel, whom he thus defied, challenged. When Nebuchadnezzar dethroned the “stars of God” at Jerusalem and over turned “Jehovah’s throne,” he may have appeared to himself and to the pagan world to have lifted himself heaven-high. (Compare Matthew 11:23.) So it was the “king of Babylon” who, by what he did to Zion or Jerusalem, had become the “shining one, son of the dawn.” But as ancient Babylon’s fall in 539 B.C.E. this ruling dynasty of Babylonian kings was dethroned, cut down. So rightly could Isaiah say of them: “How you have been cut down to the earth!”

However, the second application of Isaiah 14:12-14 is to Satan the Devil as the king of modern Babylon the Great, that world empire of false religion. Satan the Devil planned to exalt his throne above even the throne being given to God’s Son, Jesus Christ, in 1914. But in the conflict fought in the heavens from 1914 to 1918 the enthroned King Jesus Christ cast Satan out of the heavens down to the vicinity of the earth, debasing him. So of him Isaiah could prophetically state: “How you have been cut down to the earth!” Babylon the Great also had suffered a fall. This was proved by the fact that in 1919 the captive remnant of spiritual Israel was set free, no longer in bondage to religious Babylon the Great and her king, Satan the Devil.

So while the first application of Isaiah 14:12-14 was to the literal, visible king of ancient Babylon, the modern-day application is to the invisible king of modern Babylon the Great, Satan the Devil, as symbolized by the ancient king of Babylon.

Announcements

FIELD MINISTRY

Spiritually fortified as a result of Bible study, Jehovah’s witnesses will be active during January in helping others to acquire spiritual strength. This they will do by discussing with them Bible truths and by offering them a year’s subscription for this magazine, The Watchtower, along with three Scriptural booklets, on a contribution of $1.

1965 ASSEMBLIES

You will be glad to know that arrangements are being made by the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society to hold assemblies this year on the dates shown below and at the locations listed. The programs will vary from four to six days in length. Be sure to include at least one of these assemblies in your vacation plans.

Canada

July 1-4: Victoria, B.C. July 8-11: Vernon, B.C. July 15-18: Regina, Sask.; Sudbury, Ont. July 22-25: Peterborough, Ont. July 29-August 1: Brandon, Man. August 5-8: Kitchener, Ont. August 12-15: Quebec, Que. (French). August 19-22: Calgary, Alta.; Saint John, N.B. August 26-29: London, Ont.; Sydney, N.S.

Europe

June 9-13: Dublin, Eire; Edinburgh, Scotland. June 17-20: Oslo, Norway. June 23-27: Helsinki, Finland. June 30-July 4: Rotterdam, Netherlands. July 7-11: Charleroi, Belgium; Luxembourg, Luxembourg. July 14-18: Basel, Switzerland; Vienna, Austria. July 21-25: Berlin, Germany.

United States

July 15-18: Albuquerque, N. M. (tentative). July 29-August 1: Memphis, Tenn. August 12-15: Buffalo, N.Y.; Minneapolis, Minn. (tentative); Nashville, Tenn.; St. Petersburg, Fla. (tentative). August 24-29: New York, N.Y. In addition to these listed for the United States, efforts are being made to arrange for other assemblies on the West Coast, in the Southwest and in the Southeast. Further information will be published as soon as available.

WILL YOU MAKE THIS VITAL DECISION?

Every day we make decisions. Some may mean little in their final outcome, but occasionally we are called upon to decide something that may change the course of our entire lives. A decision you can make now that may bring you eternal benefits is to read every issue of this magazine you now hold. The Watchtower is printed to aid you and all other honest-hearted persons to find and to keep God’s goodwill and the everlasting peace that goes with it. Send today; enjoy its rich benefits for life. One year, $1. Send now and receive free the booklets When God Speaks Peace to All Nations, Healing of the Nations Has Drawn Near and When All Nations Unite Under God’s Kingdom.

“WATCHTOWER” STUDIES FOR THE WEEKS

February 21: Death and Hades to Give Up the Dead. Page 37.

February 28: Part Two. Page 44.