The Watchtower — April 15, 1967

Why Jehovah’s Witnesses Call at Your Home

MANY persons wonder why Jehovah’s witnesses keep calling at their homes. Perhaps you are one of those persons. Really, the answer is simple. Jehovah’s witnesses love God, and in his Word the Bible he has instructed those who serve him to talk to other people about him and his loving purposes. Furthermore, they love you as their neighbor. For that reason they want to share with you something that has brought them peace of mind, an understanding of the significance of world conditions and a reliable hope for a permanently peaceful world.

The Bible long ago foretold the turmoil and trouble that the nations have experienced since the outbreak of World War I as well as the outcome. (Luke 21:10, 11, 31) It also outlines the course that we must take as humans during this crucial time in order to have God’s approval and be preserved to live in his new system of things. (Zeph. 2:2, 3) It is urgent to act. Your life and the lives of your family are involved. That is one reason why Jehovah’s witnesses call at your home, knowing that, if your heart is righteously inclined, you will be grateful for their visit.

Of course, not everyone appreciates it when Jehovah’s witnesses call. There are persons who, as the Lord Jesus said, “have loved the darkness rather than the light, for their works were wicked.” (John 3:19) The message of the Bible disturbs them, and they push it away. Even some who are deeply religious react harshly when Jehovah’s witnesses call. As they hurriedly shut the door, they frequently remark that their priest or minister has told them to slam the door on Jehovah’s witnesses and not to listen. But why? Some of them begin to wonder. Is there something in the Bible that their clergymen do not want them to know?

Other persons are simply indifferent. They are so concerned with materialistic pursuits that they have no time for spiritual interests. They are like those people in the days of Noah concerning whom Jesus Christ said: They were “eating and drinking, men marrying and women being given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark; and they took no note until the flood came and swept them all away.” Jesus said that it would be the same in our day. (Matt. 24:38, 39) But while there is yet time, people have the opportunity to heed the message of warning about the impending destruction of this wicked system of things. With earnest concern for their welfare, Jehovah’s witnesses continue to call on them.

Jehovah’s witnesses do not force their message on anyone. If a person does not want to listen, they go on to the next door. But when they are back in the territory again, they do not show any hard feelings against those who were indifferent or unkind to them last time. They call at their doors again. Perhaps some of them will be willing to listen. Circumstances in life cause attitudes to change. Such has been the case in countless thousands of instances.

Apparently you are not a person who shoves away the Bible’s message as published by Jehovah’s witnesses; that is why you are reading this magazine. As shown on the inside cover of this issue, there are millions more like you, because 4,850,000 copies are regularly printed in seventy-one languages. If you enjoy this magazine, there is something else that we believe you will enjoy just as much, and it does not cost even as much as the small contribution that you gave for this copy of The Watchtower. In fact, it is a service that is absolutely free.

What we have in mind is a free home study of the Bible, an hour each week, at a time convenient to you. Just what could you expect to learn in the course of perhaps a year of such weekly Bible discussions? Well, in a carefully planned program currently being used by Jehovah’s witnesses world wide, these points are covered:

Evidence that God is indeed alive and that the Bible truly is his Word. This is followed by a condensed coverage of the entire Bible, highlighting the principal ideas and showing how it all ties together and how it makes clear the purpose of God. Having laid this fine foundation, they focus attention on specific Bible topics and questions that have perplexed people everywhere; for example, How did the universe and living creatures, both human and spirit, come into existence? What does the Bible show the soul to be? What happens to that soul at death? Why must man die? Will it always be this way? Does the Bible’s promise of a resurrection mean that you will actually be able to enjoy the companionship of your deceased loved ones again? Where will they be raised​—in heaven or on earth? What conditions will prevail then? How do the prophecies of the Hebrew Scriptures and accounts concerning such men as Abraham, Moses and David affect us today? Is God a person, or three persons in one God? Are you obligated to keep the Law given through Moses? What about the Ten Commandments? the sabbath day? Why has God permitted wickedness to continue for so long? Will unrighteousness come to an end? When? How can we be sure? This is only a sampling of the stimulating questions that are given satisfying answers.

It is to provide to all persons, whether they belong to a church or not, such fine instruction from their own copies of the Bible that Jehovah’s witnesses call at their homes. Jehovah’s witnesses in your community would count it a privilege to conduct such a free home Bible study with you. Next time they call at your door, ask them about it. It is with a desire to be of service to you in this way that they call.

Gaining such Bible knowledge is vital to you and to your family now. Jesus Christ and his apostles showed that it can open up the way to everlasting life in God’s righteous new system of things. But the time left in which to act is short. Avail yourself of the opportunity now. Jehovah’s witnesses will be glad to help you.​—John 17:3; 2 Pet. 3:13.

Mankind’s Millennium Under God’s Kingdom​—Why Literally So

1. To what is the word “millennium” applied, and what question arises as to it?

MILLENNIUM means a time period of a thousand years. This long word is made up from two Latin words that we find in the Latin version of the last book of the Holy Bible, in Revelation 20:2-7, namely, mille anni, meaning “a thousand years.” According to these Bible verses, Jesus Christ must reign for a thousand years over mankind. Because he resembles the first man on earth, namely, Adam, he is called “the last Adam.” However, the “first man Adam” sinned against God and lived less than a thousand years, or 930 years. (Gen. 5:1-5; 1 Cor. 15:45-49) As the book of Revelation is a prophetic book written largely in symbolic language, the question has been much discussed as to whether the thousand years of Christ’s rule as king are literal or figurative, symbolical.

2. What does Revelation 20:4-6 say about the millennium?

² In proceeding to get the answer to this important question, let us read the prophetic verses about Christ’s reign, in Revelation 20:4-6: “And I saw seats: and they sat upon them: and judgment was given unto them: and the souls of them that were beheaded for the testimony of Jesus and for the word of God, and who had not adored the beast nor his image, nor received his character on their foreheads or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years. The rest of the dead lived not, till the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection. In these the second death hath no power; but they shall be priests of God and of Christ; and shall reign with him a thousand years.”​—Roman Catholic Douay Version.

3, 4. (a) Why is the question raised as to whether the period of “a thousand years” is symbolic or not? (b) How long did John think the millennium would be, and to which early Christian do we go for reference?

³ In the Re 20 verses 4-6 just quoted the “beast” and “his image” are symbols of something else. So, are the “thousand years” also symbolic, meaning a longer period than just a thousand years? Well, how did the writer, the Christian apostle John, himself understand it? We have no straight comment from John himself, but there was a man of the second century, named Paʹpi·as, who knew associates of the apostle John; and about Paʹpi·as the eleventh volume of The Catholic Encyclopedia (edition of 1911), page 308, under the title “Millennium,” has this to say:

⁴ “Papias of Hierapolis, a disciple of St. John, appeared as an advocate of millenarianism. He claimed to have received his doctrine from contemporaries of the Apostles, and Irenæus narrates that other ‘Presbyteri’, who had seen and heard the disciple John, learned from him the belief in millenarianism as part of the Lord’s doctrine. According to Eusebius (Historia Ecclesiastica, III, 39) Papias in his book asserted that the resurrection of the dead would be followed by one thousand years of a visible, glorious earthly kingdom of Christ, . . .”a

5, 6. (a) To what did Paʹpi·as and other Christian elders look forward because of the apostle John’s vision? (b) Christ’s millennial reign does not begin before what “day”?

⁵ The apostle John, who received the prophetic vision of the millennial reign of Jesus Christ and of his congregation of 144,000 redeemed followers, accepted the vision as setting out the truth. John believed the millennium to be a time period literally one thousand years long. In proof we have the testimony of the martyred Paʹpi·as and of other Christian elders, “‘Presbyteri,’ who had seen and heard the disciple John.” They looked forward to the resurrection of the 144,000 members of his redeemed congregation, in order that they might live and reign and serve as priests during his reign of one thousand years.

⁶ They looked forward to the coming of the “last day” for this to occur, inasmuch as the apostle John wrote down Jesus’ own words to this effect: “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in yourselves. He that feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has everlasting life, and I shall resurrect him at the last day.” (John 6:53, 54) And Martha, the sister of Jesus’ beloved friend Lazarus, said to Jesus: “I know he will rise in the resurrection on the last day.” (John 11:24) So the millennial reign of Christ would not begin before that “last day.”

TIME FOR REIGNING

7. (a) How did Jesus show he was willing to wait till God’s due time for him to reign? (b) What question arose about his followers, and what attitude did Paul show toward this?

⁷ Jesus Christ was willing to wait till God’s appointed time for him to rule as king for a thousand years. When Satan the Devil tried to tempt him in the wilderness and offered him all the kingdoms of the world, he refused to bow down to Satan the Devil in an act of worship in order to gain those earthly kingdoms. (Luke 4:1-8; Matt. 4:8-11) But the question arose, Would Jesus’ footstep followers be willing to wait until God’s due time for them to reign with his Son Jesus Christ, in the meantime enduring all the persecution and suffering? The imprisoned apostle Paul wrote to a fellow Christian: “I go on enduring all things for the sake of the chosen ones, that they too may obtain the salvation that is in union with Christ Jesus along with everlasting glory. Faithful is the saying: Certainly if we died together, we shall also live together; if we go on enduring, we shall also rule together as kings.” (2 Tim. 2:10-12) Yes, Paul was willing to wait, but to certain ambitious Christians in Corinth he wrote:

8. As regards waiting, what did Paul write to certain ambitious Christians in Corinth?

⁸ “You men already have your fill, do you? You are rich already, are you? You have begun ruling as kings without us, have you? And I wish indeed that you had begun ruling as kings, that we also might rule with you as kings. For it seems to me that God has put us the apostles last on exhibition as men appointed to death, because we have become a theatrical spectacle to the world.”​—1 Cor. 4:8, 9.

9. What words of Paul show whether he was reigning when he died?

⁹ The apostle Paul did not die reigning as a king on earth, but from prison he wrote: “I have run the course to the finish, I have observed the faith. From this time on there is reserved for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will give me as a reward in that day, yet not only to me, but also to all those who have loved his manifestation.”​—2 Tim. 4:7, 8.

10. (a) What words of the apostle John show whether he was reigning at death? (b) What question arises, then, regarding certain religious leaders of Christendom?

¹⁰ Likewise the apostle John, who also loved the future manifestation of the Lord Jesus Christ, did not die ruling as an earthly king. Toward the end of his long earthly life, he wrote: “Do not be loving either the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him; because everything in the world​—the desire of the flesh and the desire of the eyes and the showy display of one’s means of life—​does not originate with the Father, but originates with the world.” (1 John 2:15-17) How is it, then, that religious popes and patriarchs, archbishops and bishops have been reigning in Christendom for many centuries, seated on gorgeous thrones and making a showy display of themselves in regalia fit for kings? How is this?

11. What have such men evidently imagined, and what question comes up about the pope of Rome?

¹¹ Have these religious officials of Christendom imagined that the millennial reign of Christ has already begun and that they are therefore entitled to reign with him on earth, although he is up in heaven? And has the invisible Christ been reigning on earth by means of a visible human representative, of whom the National Catholic Almanac says: “His Holiness the Pope is the Bishop of Rome, the Vicar of Jesus Christ, the successor of St. Peter, Prince of the Apostles, . . . the Archbishop and Primate of the Roman Province, the Sovereign of the State of Vatican City”?

12. How long have these religious officials of Christendom been reigning, and have they personally fulfilled Revelation 20:4-6?

¹² These religious officials have thus been reigning for more than a thousand literal years, ever since the days of the Roman Emperor Constantine the Great or shortly thereafter,b even Pope Leo I (440-461 C.E.) saying: “I will revive government once more upon this earth; not by bringing back the Caesars, but by declaring a new theocracy, by making myself the vicegerent of Christ, by virtue of the promise made to Peter, whose successor I am, . . . Not a diadem, but a tiara will I wear, a symbol of universal sovereignty, before which barbarism shall flee away, and happiness be restored once more.”c And yet not one of these reputed vicars of Christ or archbishops or bishops personally reigned on his episcopal throne for a thousand years, each one reigning as long as Jesus Christ himself will. Thus not one of them has fulfilled what Revelation 20:4-6 says about reigning with Christ.

RUNNING AHEAD OF THE TIME

13-15. (a) What questions, therefore, arise as to a change in understanding of Revelation 20:4-6? (b) How does what The Catholic Encyclopedia says about Augustine help to clear up these questions?

¹³ Well, then, when did this change in understanding of Revelation 20:4-6 take place, and how and why? When and why did religious leaders make a symbolical interpretation of the millennium and put it ahead of Christ’s return and make it a rule on earth, in the flesh, and on man-made material thrones? The Catholic Encyclopedia helps to clear up the question. Volume Ten, edition of 1911, page 309, has this to say under the heading “Millennium”:

¹⁴ “St. Augustine finally held to the conviction that there would be no millennium. The struggle between Christ and His saints on the one hand and the wicked world and Satan on the other, is waged in the Church on earth; so that great Doctor describes it in his work De Civitate Dei [Concerning the City of God]. In the same book he gives us an allegorical explanation of Chapter 20 of the Apocalypse. The first resurrection, of which this chapter treats, he tells us, refers to the spiritual rebirth in baptism; the sabbath of one thousand years after the six thousand years of history, is the whole of eternal life; or, in other words, the number one thousand is intended to express perfection, and the last space of one thousand years must be understood as referring to the end of the world; at all events, the kingdom of Christ, of which the Apocalypse speaks, can only be applied to the Church.d . . .

¹⁵ “This explanation of the illustrious Doctor was adopted by succeeding Western theologians, and millenarianism in its earlier shape no longer received support. . . . Moreover, the attitude of the Church towards the secular power had undergone a change with closer connexion between her and the Roman empire. There is no doubt that this turn of events did much towards weaning the Christians from the old millenarianism, which during the time of persecution had been the expression of their hopes that Christ would soon reappear and overthrow the foes of His elect. . . . The Middle Ages were never tainted with millenarianism; it was foreign both to the theology of that period and to the religious ideas of the people. . . . The Protestantism of the sixteenth century ushered in a new epoch of millenarian doctrines.”

16. Why did religious leaders come to feel no need for a future millennial reign of Christ, and how did they justify themselves in not following his example?

¹⁶ There we have it! When the religious leaders of the fourth century gained official recognition from the Roman Empire and accepted appointments to religious positions of power and authority and thus their religion became allied to the political state, what happened? The religious leaders felt no need for a future literal millennial reign of Jesus Christ with his glorified congregation in heaven. They were already reigning in prominent religious capacities with the backing of the Roman Empire. Furthermore, to justify themselves in not following Christ’s example but in accepting rulership before resurrection from the dead and while still in the flesh on earth with the politicians, they applied Revelation 20:4-6 as being fulfilled in themselves. They persuaded their religious flocks to give way to the same change of sentiment toward Christ’s thousand-year reign over mankind. This fact is supported by the religious Cyclopædia by M’Clintock and Strong, Volume 6, page 265, column 2, of which says:

17. In support of the above, what does the Cyclopædia by M’Clintock and Strong say?

¹⁷ “One great reason of this remarkable change of sentiment is to be found in the altered condition and prospects of the Church. Christians at first yearned for the reappearance of the Lord. Moreover, it was impossible for them to raise their faith and hopes so high as to expect the conquest of the Roman empire by the moral power of the cross, independently of the personal and supernatural interposition of Christ. But as the Gospel made progress, the possibility and probability of a peaceful victory of the Christian cause over all its adversaries, by the might of truth and of the Spirit, gained a lodgment in the convictions of good men. It is believed that Origen (born 180, died 254) is the first of the ancient ecclesiastical writers to affirm the practicableness of such a triumph of the Gospel through its own inherent efficacy.”

18, 19. (a) Due to its relations with the political state, where did the Church of Christendom think that it was living? (b) What Latin religious father helped along such thinking, and how?

¹⁸ As the religious organization of Christendom had the protection of the political government, and as the religious organization had such good relations, power and influence with the political state, even using its mailed fist for the forcible conversion of the pagans to Christendom’s religion, it was now claimed that Christendom’s Church was already in the millennium foretold by the apostle John. Doctor Augustine’s treatment of the subject of the millennium gave to men’s religious thinking a powerful push in that direction. Says the above Cyclopædia:

¹⁹ “Augustine’s treatment of the subject marks an epoch. He says (De Civitate Dei, XX, 7) that he had once held to a millenarian Sabbath; nor does he consider the doctrine objectionable, provided the joys of the righteous are figured as spiritual. But, proceeding to discuss the subject, he advocates the proposition that the earthly kingdom of Christ is the Church, which was even then in the millennial æera, and on the road to a glorious ascendancy over all its enemies. It would seem that this modified interpretation of prophecy, sustained as it was by the authority of the principal Latin father [Augustine], gave color to the mediæval speculations on this subject.”​—Volume 6, of 1890 edition, page 265.

20. (a) A literal millennium upon the Roman Catholic Papacy was thought to to fulfilled during what time? (b) How were the troubles that followed understood, but why could this not be right?

²⁰ This Latin religious father, Aurelius Augustine, who spread such an interpretation of Revelation 20:4-6, lived 354-430 C.E. In harmony with his view that the millennial reign of Christ was being fulfilled in the Roman Catholic Church on earth, it was later thought that the millennial reign of the Roman Catholic Papacy in a literal way was from the year 800 C.E., when Pope Leo II crowned Charlemagne in Rome as king of the Holy Roman Empire, to 1799 C.E., when Pope Pius VI, already deposed by Napoleon Bonaparte, was taken as a prisoner from the Vatican on February 20, and deported to Valence, France, where he died on August 29, 1799.e The trouble that followed upon the Roman Catholic Church was viewed as marking the “little time” during which Satan the Devil was to be loosed at the millennium’s end. (Rev. 20:1-3, 7, Dy) However, it is now 168 years since the year 1799. That is not a “little time” for the Devil to be loosed; and yet the troubles on the Roman Catholic Papacy are worsening. And now the destruction of Babylon the Great, of which the Papacy is the most powerful member, threatens that religious empire in the near future.

FIGURATIVE MILLENNIUM PROVED WRONG

21. How is Augustine today proved to be wrong as to a glorious ascendancy of the Church of Christendom over its enemies?

²¹ How wrong the Roman Catholic “Saint” Augustine was can now be clearly seen. The Church of Christendom has never been in any “millennial æera,” smashing to pieces the political kingdoms of her enemies. Today no one can rightly say that, in Augustine’s words, the Church of Christendom is “on the road to a glorious ascendancy over all its enemies.” The pagan world is growing at a faster rate than the Church system of Christendom. Also, atheistic Communism is spreading even in Roman Catholic territories. Augustine’s giving a figurative or allegorical meaning to Revelation 20:4-6 regarding the thousand-year reign of Christ has glaringly proved to be false. Under Christendom’s Church system mankind has never enjoyed the promised millennial blessings.

22, 23. (a) What about the hopes of those religious leaders about a peaceful victory of the Christian cause over its foes? (b) What objection of theirs to Christ’s pre-millennial return is now exposed as foundationless?

²² So what about those religious leaders who rejected the need of the reign of Christ’s heavenly kingdom for a literal thousand years? Dashed to pieces lie their hopes of “a peaceful victory of the Christian cause over all its adversaries, by the might of truth and of the Spirit.” Their idea was that the world could be peacefully converted by the missionaries of Christendom and that there was no need for the glorified Jesus Christ to intervene forcibly from heaven to bring in the millennium. This idea has proved to be a wrong interpretation of the Holy Bible. The objection that such religious leaders had raised against the need of Christ to return in Kingdom power before his literal millennial reign is now exposed as being without foundation. As to that objection, the Cyclopædia by M’Clintock and Strong (Volume 6, page 266) says:

²³ “The tendency of the millenarian theory to chill the hopes, and thus repress the missionary activity of Christians, by exhibiting the world as in a process of deterioration, and by representing the efforts of Christians to convert mankind as fruitless, until the coming of Christ, constitutes not the least serious objection to such opinions.”​—Edition of 1890 C.E.

24. (a) In view of events from 1914 on, what questions are asked regarding that religious objection? (b) How does the history of the Watch Tower Society show no repression of effort or chilling of hope?

²⁴ That last expression was published away back in 1890, or seventy-seven years ago; but what about the world since the year 1914? Is it “in a process of deterioration”? Have the efforts of Christendom to convert the whole world before the coming of Christ proved fruitless, in vain? The trend of world conditions answers Yes! But have the preaching and missionary activities of Christians who wait for a literal thousand-year reign of Christ for mankind’s blessing been repressed and their hopes been chilled? History for the past eighty-eight years thunders out No! The magazine Zion’s Watch Tower appeared in the year 1879; and in 1886 the Watch Tower Bible & Tract Society began to publish the series of volumes known as “Studies in the Scriptures,” which were at first called “Millennial Dawn,” volumes one to six. Today, in spite of being persecuted during two world wars, the Watch Tower Bible & Tract Society of Pennsylvania has ninety-five branches around the globe. It publishes the good news of Christ’s coming millennial reign in 164 languages. It has missionaries and publishers in 199 lands. Yearly the number of Kingdom publishers increases.

25. (a) How did Augustine once refer to the millennium? (b) What do modern chronologies indicate as to man’s existence on earth?

²⁵ Fifteen centuries ago the Roman Catholic “Saint” Augustine spoke of six thousand years of history and referred to the millennium as a “Sabbath,” the seventh-day rest period. But he did not hold to this. For centuries now the Bible chronology as worked out by Archbishop James Ussher has been followed by both Catholics and Protestants. This chronology reckons that the first man Adam was created in the year 4004 before Christ, and so six thousand years of human existence on earth will end before this twentieth century ends, or in 1996 C.E. According to a more recent calculation of the Bible timetable, six thousand years of man’s existence will end in the latter half of the year 1975, which is well within this century. The Bible millennium is ahead of us, and, according to the count of time and the events of world history, it is approaching. It is not ending, as Roman Catholic comments on the Bible would make us believe. In the Murphy edition of the English Douay Version of the Holy Bible, Apocalypse 20:1, 2 reads:

26, 27. (a) According to the footnotes of the Murphy edition of the Bible, when did Satan begin to be bound? (b) Also, when is the time of the millennium, and during it, what do the martyred saints do?

²⁶ “And I saw an angel coming down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit, and a great chain in his hand. And he laid hold on the dragon, the old serpent, which is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years.”

²⁷ The footnote on the expression “bound him, &c.” reads: “The power of Satan has been very much limited by the passion of Christ.” Then the footnote on the expression “for a thousand years” reads: “That is, for the whole time of the New Testament: but especially from the time of the destruction of Babylon or pagan Rome, till the new efforts of Gog and Magog against the church, towards the end of the world. During which time the souls of the martyrs and saints live and reign with Christ in heaven, in the first resurrection, which is that of the soul to the life of glory; as the second resurrection will be that of the body, at the day of the general judgment.”​—Baltimore (Md.) edition.

28. How long is it now since the passing away of “pagan Rome,” and what do facts of history indicate as to whether Satan is in the bottomless pit?

²⁸ However, it is now more than a thousand years since “pagan Rome” gave way to papal Rome in the fifth century. Today the facts of history belie that Satan the Devil has yet been bound and cast into the abyss, as foretold in Apocalypse (Revelation) 20:3 (Dy), saying: “And he [the angel from heaven] cast him into the bottomless pit and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should no more seduce the nations, till the thousand years be finished. And after that, he must be loosed a little time.”

29. Where does the Revelation locate the battle of Armageddon, and what, in that connection, proves whether the Dragon Satan the Devil is yet bound and in the bottomless pit?

²⁹ The Apocalypse or book of Revelation unmistakably lines up the battle of Armageddon as taking place before Satan is bound and cast into the bottomless pit or abyss. The Bible account describes Satan the Devil as having a direct part in gathering the nations to that battlefield, saying that out of the mouth of the Dragon Satan the Devil an unclean spirit comes forth and joins the unclean spirits out of the mouths of the beast and the false prophet in going to the kings of the whole earth and gathering them to the battle of the great day of God the Almighty, which is to be fought at Armageddon. Now is when those three spirits of devils from those three sources are going to the earthly rulers. Now is when those rulers and their armies are on the march to Armageddon, as we have so frequently been warned by prominent men. Logically, then, the Dragon Satan the Devil could not now be bound and be in the bottomless pit unable to seduce the nations any more, if the unclean spirit out of his mouth is joining in the gathering of the earthly rulers and their armies to Armageddon.​—Rev. 16:13-16, Dy.

30. (a) What respecting Satan’s earthly political tools argues that he is not yet sealed up in the pit? (b) What will happen to those political tools at Armageddon, and when will Satan join them there?

³⁰ No, Satan the Devil has not yet been bound and sealed up in the bottomless pit for a thousand years. The symbolic “beast” and the “false prophet” are yet on the earth. Likewise Satan the Devil is yet in the vicinity of our earth and using the “beast” and the “false prophet” as his tools to gather the earthly rulers and their armies to their destruction in the war of the great day of God the Almighty. The Apocalypse or Revelation, chapter nineteen, describes the battle of Armageddon on God’s great day, and the chapter locates it just before the binding of Satan and the casting of him into the bottomless pit or abyss. In that coming battle the “beast” and the “false prophet” are cast to their destruction in the symbolic lake of fire and brimstone; and Satan the Devil joins them there first after the thousand years of Christ’s reign over all mankind.​—Rev. 19:11 to 20:3, 7-10, Dy.

31. Why, then, must the millennial reign of Christ yet be future, and what grand fact about it is there today?

³¹ So, then, just as the battle of Armageddon is yet future, the binding and casting of Satan into the bottomless pit is future, for these acts follow the battle of Armageddon. In view of that, the thousand-year reign of Christ must yet be future, for it follows the casting of Satan into the bottomless pit and continues during the thousand years that Satan is imprisoned in that bottomless pit or abyss. Thus again the anti-millenarian teachings of Augustine and other religious leaders of Christendom are proved to be false. We must yet have a real millennial reign of Christ. The grand fact is that it is very near, for our relief.

[Footnotes]

Concerning the religious controversy over the millennium during the preceding century, the third century, see Mosheim’s Institutes of Ecclesiastical History, Chapter III, entitled “History of Theology,” Section 12, and footnote by James Seaton Reid, D.D., London edition of 1848.

[Picture on page 231]

“If we go on enduring, we shall also rule”

[Picture on page 232]

The pope of Rome​—already in regal splendor

[Picture on page 234]

Pope Leo III crowns Charlemagne as king of the Holy Roman Empire

The Benefits of Mankind’s Millennium

1. (a) What does the Bible indicate as to whether the battle of Armageddon will leave all earth without inhabitant? (b) Who will be the first subjects over whom Christ will reign during the millennium?

DOES the destruction of Babylon the Great and the battle of Armageddon mean wiping out the human race? Will those events leave all earth without inhabitant? Will not even the remnant of Christ’s faithful congregation of 144,000 be left on the earth in vindication of Almighty God’s protective power over them? In answer the Holy Bible strongly indicates that a remnant of these heavenly Kingdom heirs will be preserved through the war of Armageddon for earthly service before their earthly demise and their resurrection and glorification in the heavens. Also, a “great crowd” of dedicated, baptized Christian companions will survive Armageddon with them. These latter will be the first of the human subjects on earth over whom Christ will reign for mankind’s blessing. What is a kingdom without subjects?​—Prov. 14:28.

2. Who make up this “great crowd,” and what does Revelation 7:14 mean in saying that they come “out of the great tribulation”?

² The Apocalypse or book of Revelation itself shows that there will be human survivors of the war of Armageddon and the imprisoning of Satan in the abyss. Revelation, chapter seven, makes it plain that these survivors are different from the 144,000 spiritual Israelites, the associate kings of Jesus Christ. They are an international “great crowd” who acknowledge themselves as subjects of God and his Christ; and Revelation 7:14 states that “these are the ones that come out of the great tribulation.” This means more than that they have come out in favor of God and his Christ during the time of the “great tribulation” with which this worldly system of things ends. It means that they also survive that tribulation under God’s protection and live on into the new system of things that follows on earth. They worship and serve God at his spiritual temple and follow the Lamb Jesus Christ like a Shepherd, who leads them to life-giving waters.​—Rev. 7:9-17.

3. How did Jesus, at Matthew 24:21, 22, 37-39, strongly indicate that there would be survivors of the battle of Armageddon?

³ In his prophecy concerning the end of this system of things the “Fine Shepherd” Jesus Christ indicated that there would be survivors of the “great tribulation,” when he said: “Then there will be great tribulation such as has not occurred since the world’s beginning until now, no, nor will occur again. In fact, unless those days were cut short, no flesh would be saved; but on account of the chosen ones those days will be cut short.” And when Jesus added that, as it was in the days of Noah, so it would be in the days of his invisible second presence, he strongly suggested that there would be survivors of the great tribulation, inasmuch as both Noah and the seven members of his family survived the flood with which the ungodly world of his days was destroyed. (Matt. 24:21, 22, 37-39) After the flood, when Noah and his family came out of the ark into the cleansed earth, God told them what to do. (Gen. 9:1-17) No less so will the survivors of the great tribulation need new and suitable instructions.

4. What state of affairs will make it fitting that Christ step in and begin governing the survivors of Armageddon?

⁴ Certain prominent persons of today will not survive the destruction of Babylon the Great and the destruction of the earthly kings and their armies and supporters in the war of Armageddon. There will be no survival for the religious rulers of the Babylonish world empire of false religion or for the political and military rulers who war against the heavenly kingdom of God and his Christ. (Rev. 17:14; 19:19-21) Thereafter, by being imprisoned in the abyss, Satan “the ruler of this world,” “the god of this system of things,” will be removed from all touch with mankind. (John 12:31; 14:30; 2 Cor. 4:4) That state of affairs will make it most fitting that Jesus Christ step in and fill the need of those surviving on earth for a new, righteous, perfect government.

5. What does Revelation 20:4-6 say about this needed government?

⁵ Revelation, chapter twenty, after describing the casting of Satan into the bottomless pit for a thousand years, tells us of this needed government, as the apostle John says: “And I saw thrones, and there were those who sat down on them, and power of judging was given them. Yes, I saw the souls of those executed with the ax for the witness they bore to Jesus and for speaking about God, and those who had worshiped neither the wild beast nor its image and who had not received the mark upon their forehead and upon their hand. And they came to life and ruled as kings with the Christ for a thousand years. (The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were ended.) This is the first resurrection. Happy and holy is anyone having part in the first resurrection; over these the second death has no authority, but they will be priests of God and of the Christ, and will rule as kings with him for the thousand years.”​—Rev. 20:4-6.

6. What is this “first resurrection,” when does it take place, and why?

⁶ In those Re 20 verses 4-6 the “first resurrection” does not mean a symbolical resurrection, that is, the spiritual rebirth of Christians in water baptism, as the Roman Catholic father Augustine says in his book De Civitate Dei. (See page 232, paragraph 14.) It is a literal resurrection of those happy and holy ones. It takes place, as Jesus said, in “the last day,” at his second coming and presence in an invisible way. It is then, at the call of his voice, that these dead holy ones ‘come to life’ and begin ruling with Christ in his heavenly kingdom. (John 5:28, 29) Certainly it is not before water baptism that they are executed with the ax for bearing testimony about Jesus and speaking God’s Word. It was certainly not before water baptism that they had passed the test of not worshiping the “wild beast” and his “image” and of not receiving the characteristic mark of either beast or image in their forehead or in their hands. This testing came after baptism.

7. (a) Why is this resurrection called the “first”? (b) How do those participating prove worthy of such a resurrection?

⁷ This “first resurrection” is called such to differentiate it from the resurrection of the “rest of the dead,” who are said not to come to life “until the thousand years were ended.” So the resurrection of the happy and holy ones is “first” in point of time and in importance, for “over these the second death has no authority.” At their resurrection from the dead they are clothed upon with immortality, deathlessness, together with incorruptibility. This, in fact, is the resurrection described by the apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians, chapter fifteen, verses thirty-five through fifty-four. It is the resurrection of which Paul there says: “It is sown a physical body, it is raised up a spiritual body.” For such a first-ranking resurrection these happy and holy ones must be proved worthy by suffering martyrdom by being executed with the ax and by refusing to worship the “wild beast” and its “image” and to receive the mark of such things in their foreheads or their hands. Till their death in the flesh they must faithfully give their testimony about Jesus Christ and speak the Word of God as set out in the Holy Bible.​—Rev. 2:10.

A HEAVENLY GOVERNMENT

8. Will they reign in earthly Jerusalem, and where will their subjects be found during the thousand years?

⁸ Being resurrected with spiritual bodies, they will be able to reign with the King Jesus Christ in the heavens, unseen to their human subjects on earth. Jesus Christ sits at the right hand of God the heavenly Father in His throne. Concerning the location of His throne Jehovah God says: “The heavens are my throne, and the earth is my footstool.” (Isa. 66:1; Acts 7:48, 49; Ps. 110:1; Acts 2:34-36; 1 Pet. 3:22) Where, then, will Jesus Christ reign with his resurrected happy and holy followers for a thousand years? In the thronelike heavens, and not on earth, not in earthly Jerusalem which today is held by Mohammedan Jordanians. These Christians have approached “a Mount Zion and a city of the living God, heavenly Jerusalem.” (Heb. 12:22) The earth will be as a footstool to them, and here on the footstool is where their human subjects will be found during the thousand years.

9. Religiously, what kind of kingdom will that be?

⁹ That will be truly a Christian kingdom, and not a kingdom of Christendom such as has oppressed the people and stained the earth with wanton bloodshed, even in the name of religion.

10, 11. (a) Who has ruled mankind invisibly for millenniums, and through what visible agency? (b) Despite what political worship have peace and security failed to come, but when will they come?

¹⁰ For thousands of years mankind has suffered from the rule of the invisible Satan the Devil, “the ruler of this world,” together with his “wicked spirit forces in the heavenly places.” (John 12:31; 14:30; Eph. 6:11, 12) His visible political system through which he has ruled mankind is likened to a wild beast. The “image” of that symbolic wild beast has been and is another political organization to turn away worship and service from Jehovah God to the political “wild beast.”

¹¹ After World War I that “image” was set up in the form of the political League of Nations, and after World War II in the form of the League’s successor, the United Nations. But, even though the peoples of earth now worship the political “wild beast” through its political “image,” the United Nations, world peace and security do not come to the earth. So the people’s worship of the political state proves vain. Only after the war of Armageddon destroys the “wild beast” and its political “image” will peace and security be ushered in, and that for a thousand years. Then Jesus Christ as King of kings and Lord of lords will prove worthy of his foretold title, “Prince of Peace.”​—Isa. 9:6, 7; Rev. 19:16-21.

12, 13. (a) Amid this militarized system, what prophecy concerning the “final part of the days” are followers of the Prince of Peace fulfilling? (b) Their displaying the peaceful Christian spirit instead of beastliness was prefigured in what Messianic prophecy?

¹² Even now, before the end of this militarized system of things controlled by the diabolical “ruler of this world,” the truly dedicated, baptized followers of the “Prince of Peace” are fulfilling the prophecy concerning this “final part of the days,” namely: “Out of Zion law will go forth, and the word of Jehovah out of Jerusalem. And he will certainly render judgment among the nations and set matters straight respecting many peoples. And they will have to beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning shears. Nation will not lift up sword against nation, neither will they learn war any more.” (Isa. 2:2-4) Already among themselves, in their God-ruled congregations around the earth, these formerly divided peoples cultivate and display the peaceful Christian spirit toward one another, instead of beastliness. This was prefigured in the following Messianic prophecy:

¹³ “The wolf will actually reside for a while with the male lamb, and with the kid the leopard itself will lie down, and the calf and the maned young lion and the well-fed animal all together; and a mere little boy will be leader over them. And the cow and the bear themselves will feed; together their young ones will lie down. And even the lion will eat straw just like the bull. And the sucking child will certainly play upon the hole of the cobra; and upon the light aperture of a poisonous snake will a weaned child actually put his own hand. They will not do any harm or cause any ruin in all my holy mountain; because the earth will certainly be filled with the knowledge of Jehovah as the waters are covering the very sea.”​—Isa. 11:6-9.

14. (a) With what condition will survivors of Armageddon and Satan’s abyssing start out, and how long will this continue? (b) What work will take the lead in all human activities, and with what result?

¹⁴ If now, during these war-torn years of this “conclusion of the system of things,” such an ideal condition can obtain among Christ’s true followers, how much more will this peaceful condition prevail without interference among the survivors after the battle of Armageddon removes the earthly rulers and their armies and after Satan and his demons are sealed up in the abyss! Those who survive the battle of Armageddon and the abyssing of Satan will start out with absolute peace, and the heavenly kingdom of Christ and his glorified congregation will preserve that peace on earth for a thousand years. What a time that will be for men to examine the Holy Bible to ascertain more accurately how its prophecies have been faithfully fulfilled! Education concerning the living and true God Jehovah will take the lead in all human activities. The entire earth will literally “be filled with the knowledge of Jehovah as the waters are covering the very sea.”

15. (a) How did Jesus in prayer emphasize the vital importance of such education? (b) Such education is really a work of whom, and who will be provided for it?

¹⁵ The vital importance of such education can be appreciated from Jesus’ words of prayer to his heavenly Father: “You have given him authority over all flesh, that, as regards the whole number whom you have given him, he may give them everlasting life. This means everlasting life, their taking in knowledge of you, the only true God, and of the one whom you sent forth, Jesus Christ.” (John 17:2, 3) The educating of his subjects on earth in the knowledge of the only true God and his provision for everlasting salvation through Jesus Christ​—this is really a priestly work. Education of the people in God’s law was part of the duties of the priesthood of Israel till the first coming of Christ. Such work fits the fact that the glorified Jesus Christ will be not only a king but also a priest, in fact, God’s High Priest. His resurrected congregation in heaven will be his underpriests. That is why it is prophesied that “they will be priests of God and of the Christ, and will rule as kings with him for the thousand years.” (Rev. 20:6) Education by such priests will lead the earthly subjects of the Kingdom to everlasting life on a paradise earth.

16. What priestly work in behalf of sins will be carried on, and toward what condition will this help the grateful, obedient ones?

¹⁶ The priests of Christendom have misrepresented God’s High Priest, Jesus Christ. They will disappear from the earth when Babylon the Great is destroyed just prior to Armageddon. Afterward Christ’s resurrected congregation in heaven will do lifesaving priestly work with him. During the thousand years they will apply the benefits of his perfect ransom sacrifice to mankind. (Matt. 20:28; 1 Tim. 2:5, 6) Their sins that they commit due to weakness traceable to their first human father Adam and of which they repent will be forgiven them. The condemnation of sin will be removed from them through Christ’s ransom merit. As illustrated by Jesus’ healing work when he was on earth, physical and mental benefits will result from the forgiveness of sins. The Kingdom will maintain righteous conditions on earth and direct the people in the way of righteousness. Also, the priestly work will bring spiritual and physical healing. This will help the grateful, obedient ones back to human perfection such as Adam had when he was created in the paradise garden of Eden.​—Matt. 8:14-17; 9:1-12.

HA’DES AND DEATH WIPED OUT

17. How will this priestly work affect the human dead, and what does Revelation 20:5 indicate concerning the “rest of the dead”?

¹⁷ Such priestly service will reach down and benefit even the billions of dead humanity. Jesus Christ, God’s High Priest, was himself resurrected from the dead in order to render priestly service for all those for whom he died. His congregation of underpriests are also raised from the dead in the “first resurrection” to share in Christ’s millennial priestly work for mankind. Their resurrection is a guarantee that the rest of the human dead in Haʹdes or Sheol will be raised to life under the Kingdom, during the course of the thousand years. (Acts 17:31; 1 Cor. 15:20-26) This explains why Revelation 20:5 says that “the rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were ended.”

18, 19. (a) By the end of the thousand years, in what condition will the obedient subjects find themselves? (b) What action will Christ take at the end of mankind’s millennial sabbath under his kingdom?

¹⁸ By that time both those who survive the battle of Armageddon and who need no resurrection and those who will be resurrected to life on earth will, if obedient, be lifted to the fullness of perfect human life. No condemnation to death for imperfection will rest upon them then. (Heb. 7:22-27; 5:5-10) With that end in view, Revelation 20:11-14 describes the resurrection of the dead from Haʹdes and the sea. This resurrection marks the beginning of the priestly work in behalf of those who are dead in Haʹdes and the sea.

¹⁹ At the end of his priestly work of a thousand years Jesus Christ will turn over the completely healed, purified, perfected subjects of his kingdom to Jehovah God, the final Judge of all. (1 Cor. 15:24-28) There mankind’s millennial sabbath under God’s kingdom by Christ will end. What relief that sabbath has brought!

20. Why must all these perfected humans be then put to the test, and why will Satan the Devil be loosed for a little while?

²⁰ Yet, what immediately follows is important for all mankind. True, they are in human perfection then in a paradise earth. But the right to everlasting life has not yet been bestowed upon all mankind who now stand in perfection and righteousness before the Supreme Judge, Jehovah God. They will all have to prove worthy of being granted that right, just as the perfect Adam and Eve in the paradise of Eden had to prove whether they deserved the right to everlasting perfect human life in an earthly paradise. Just as Adam and Eve were tested out by Satan the Devil, just so all their earthly descendants must be put to the test at the hands of the same Tempter at the close of the thousand years. This is the reason for the loosing of Satan the Devil out of his abysmal prison for a little while after the millennium ends.

21. What question now arises concerning Adam’s perfected descendants, and how does prophecy answer?

²¹ By then all the wicked work of Satan during the past six thousand years will have been undone. But will the loosed Satan and his demons now be able to turn all perfected mankind away from God as Universal Sovereign just as he turned away mankind’s first human parents in the paradise garden of Eden? Prophecy answers No! There will be those who, under this final crucial test, will stay loyal to Jehovah God and Jesus Christ. These will vindicate God. He will judge them worthy of everlasting life and bestow that right to it upon them, writing their names in his “book of life.”

22. What will be the outcome for those failing under the test, and also for the Tempter, and what will be the result to all heaven and earth?

²² There will be others who will fall under the test. They will make up the unpredicted number of the hosts of Gog and Magog and will be destroyed in the “second death,” from which there is no resurrection. Then Satan the Devil, having now lost in his long controversy with God, will be forever destroyed along with his demons. (Rev. 20:7-10, 15; Matt. 25:41, 46) At last all heaven and earth will be found cleansed of all wickedness and its disastrous consequences. In perfect righteousness, Jehovah God, then fully triumphant, will reign over all forever and ever!

23. What kind of provision is that for the thousand-year reign of Christ, and why should we spread the good news?

²³ Viewed from this completed picture of things, O how loving and marvelous is God’s provision for the thousand-year reign of his Priest-King Jesus Christ! O spread the good news that all who love righteousness may rejoice and may prepare themselves for it, because that millennium of deliverance and blessing is near!

[Picture on page 241]

The Millennium, a time for education concerning the true God, Jehovah

The Most Urgent Warning Ever Given

NO MATTER how well you like what you are doing, no matter how satisfied you are with your situation and no matter what your plans are, you will immediately leave all these and run to a place of safety if you are convinced that the danger of sudden death is staring you in the face.

Of course, the warning of such a thing, to be strong enough to motivate you to flight, would have to be from a reliable source and attended by other circumstances that would convince you that the warning was a true one. That is exactly the case with the warning that we speak of here, and there are reasons why it can truly be said to be the most urgent warning ever given. First, it is from God, who has given reliable warnings in the past; who, as man’s Creator, has a genuine interest in the people’s welfare. He himself considers it the most important warning ever sounded. Second, it is not confined to a locality or even to a nation, but it is worldwide. There is no means of escape aside from the one God provides. Third, it takes time to extricate yourself from the dangerous situation and to get to the place of safety, even if you heed the warning immediately, and, fourth, the peril of which it warns is so very near! Bible chronology and prophecy with the events piling up that demonstrate its nearness show that the warning must be given with the greatest urgency and acted on with all possible speed. It is to come within the generation that has already seen two world wars and it is only a few short years ahead of us.

The warning is found in the last book of the Bible. The apostle John had just been shown a vision of a harlot with the name of “Babylon the Great.” In recent articles in this magazine we have shown that this harlot represents an organization claiming to be divine and to represent true religion. She has been shown to represent the world empire of false religion, which has prostituted herself by having political aims and ambitions for power and has meddled in politics and governments of the world for centuries. Now here in the vision to John she is represented by a city. John writes:

THE ONE IN CHARGE OF THE PROCLAMATION

“After these things I saw another angel descending from heaven, with great authority; and the earth was lighted up from his glory. And he cried out with a strong voice, saying: ‘She has fallen! Babylon the great has fallen, and she has become a dwelling place of demons and a lurking place of every unclean exhalation and a lurking place of every unclean and hated bird! For because of the passion-arousing wine of her fornication all the nations have fallen victim, and the kings of the earth committed fornication with her, and the traveling merchants of the earth became rich due to the power of her shameless luxury.’”​—Rev. 18:1-3.

The urgency of the warning is emphasized by the fact that the angelic announcer of Babylon’s fall and destruction has great authority and is used as the chief publicity agent for getting this warning declared. To identify him personally, he is actually none other than Jehovah’s archangel, the glorified Lord Jesus Christ. He occupies a position pictured by King Cyrus the Persian, who conquered ancient Babylon in 539 B.C.E., after which the city gradually declined until her complete destruction and desolation. Now for about forty-eight years, since as long ago as 1919 C.E., people have been fleeing from Babylonish false religion, for at that time she lost her power to maintain control over those in her who were deceived and held in a slavelike position by her false doctrines. Just as Cyrus conquered Babylon and she later went into decay, so the Greater Cyrus will see to it that Babylon the Great will be completely destroyed. As the archangel of God, his name in heaven is Michael, which means “Who Is like God?” This points him out as the vindicator of God’s name, the one to remove the reproach that has been brought by this great false religious empire upon God and upon true worship and those practicing true worship. “The earth was lighted up from his glory.” (Rev. 18:1) The destruction of Babylon the Great would immeasurably brighten the earthly situation for Jehovah’s people, his Christian witnesses, for they have been misrepresented, defamed and persecuted by the world empire of Babylonish religion.​—Dan. 10:21; 12:1; Rev. 12:7; 1 Thess. 4:16, 17.

YOU MAY BE IN DANGER

If you are affiliated with a religious system of Christendom it would be a deliberate denial of your profession of Christianity to ignore the warning and fail to contemplate the ruin of worldly religion described here by Jehovah’s chief angel. It is not something to turn aside lightheartedly. Jehovah is serious and means to do what he says and kindly gives us an opportunity to escape what the great religious organization of this world is facing. He describes her as becoming like a ruined city without human inhabitant or domestic animal, a haunted ruin in whose desolation only wild animals, reminding one of demons, would make their dwelling place. He actually brought the ancient city of Babylon to this debased state. How closely Revelation’s language follows what Jehovah said to ancient Babylon and which came literally true in her case:

“And Babylon, the decoration of kingdoms, the beauty of the pride of the Chaldeans, must become as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. 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. 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 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.

THE REASON FOR FALSE RELIGION’S CALAMITY

Why is it that God so thoroughly ruins the world religious system? He answers: “For because of the passion-arousing wine of her fornication all the nations have fallen victim.” There is no question but that she has reveled in “shameless luxury,” keeping the people in awe. Luxuriously she hobnobs with the rulers to promote political power and monetary gain, at the same time keeping the people in ignorance. Look at the rich cathedrals ornamented with the finest of materials and precious things, while around many of them the people are in abject poverty and illiteracy. Her clergymen have lorded it over their parishioners like owners of the flock. They have demanded titles such as Reverend, Father, Right Reverend, Holy Father and All-Holiness. When Catholic and Protestant sects have gone into places where the people observe Babylonish religion of the pagan type, these so-called Christian organizations have been willing to let the people keep many of their pagan customs, ceremonies and moral standards in order to get them to become members of their churches. Actually, Babylon the Great has been carrying on a religious racket and has confused honest people, thereby bearing a great share of the responsibility for the wars, misery and suffering of the peoples of earth.

As proof that the vision of desolation here does apply to the false religious organization of the world, the angel specifies kings of the earth and merchants of the earth with whom Babylon has committed fornication and whom she has made rich. Notice, however, that no priests are mentioned, for Babylon the Great herself stands for the world empire of false religion with its priests, clergymen, monks, nuns, astrologers, spiritists and sorcerers. These are the ones that have prostituted their organizations to the kings and merchants of the earth. These are the ones who have advocated the union of religion and state and have encouraged the people to support the scarlet-colored beast, the man-made peace-and-security organization, the horns of which will turn on her and strip her naked.​—Rev. 17:3-5, 16.

THE WISE THING TO DO

If you are connected with the religious organizations of this world and you see these things, what can you do? Does it mean that you must forsake all religion and be godless? Not at all. But if you see your religion doing the things Revelation describes, then act on the warning:

“And I heard another voice out of heaven say: ‘Get out of her, my people, if you do not want to share with her in her sins, and if you do not want to receive part of her plagues. For her sins have massed together clear up to heaven, and God has called her acts of injustice to mind. Render to her even as she herself rendered, and do to her twice as much, yes, twice the number of the things she did; in the cup in which she put a mixture put twice as much of the mixture for her. To the extent that she glorified herself and lived in shameless luxury, to that extent give her torment and mourning. For in her heart she keeps saying, “I sit a queen, and I am no widow, and I shall never see mourning.” That is why in one day her plagues will come, death and mourning and famine, and she will be completely burned with fire, because Jehovah God, who judged her, is strong.’”​—Rev. 18:4-8.

You can do just as the Israelites did back at ancient Babylon’s fall when they were warned: “Take your flight out of the midst of Babylon [to Mount Zion in Judah], and go forth even out of the land of the Chaldeans, and become like the leading animals before the flock. For here I am arousing and bringing up against Babylon a congregation of great nations from the land of the north, and they will certainly array themselves against her. From there she will be captured. One’s arrows are like those of a mighty man causing bereavement of children, who does not come back without results.” (Jer. 50:8, 9) Yes, God’s people in ancient Babylon were warned not to look longingly at any of the advantages that Babylon offered or let love of her ways hold them back, nor should they trust in her apparent strength. Some Jews enjoyed Babylon’s material things so much that they did not want to leave. But to stay with Babylon was dangerous. Of what benefit was material gain in view of the prophecy which proved true: “Flee out of the midst of Babylon, and provide escape each one for his own soul. Do not be rendered inanimate through her error. For it is the time of vengeance belonging to Jehovah. There is treatment that he is paying back to her.”​—Jer. 51:6.

Thousands are obeying the warning to flee out of Babylon the Great today. Many of Jehovah’s witnesses were formerly members of these organizations. Especially since the year 1919 they have seen her doom coming upon her and have been obeying the divine command to get out of her. The reason for this is that Jesus Christ is invisibly present and is reigning from his throne in heaven. By the enlightenment that he has brought through revelation of Bible understanding and by angelic action, he has forced the gates of Babylon the Great open to release those who want to get out of her.

In other words, Babylon the Great fell in 1919, as far as being able to hold on to her captives is concerned. Her unclean doctrines and wicked practices are exposed so that she cannot continue to hold any honest members. Since that time Christ’s anointed followers on earth, known in the Bible as the remnant (remaining ones on earth) of the 144,000 Kingdom heirs, have vigorously carried out the command to preach everywhere the good news of God’s victorious kingdom. (Matt. 24:14) They are free people and have continued to maintain this freedom of speech regardless of the opposition that has been brought against them in every land. (John 8:31, 32) They have seen that God is now executing on the earth the symbolic seven last plagues described at Revelation 15:1 to 16:21, before the literal destructive plagues or blows to come, and they do not wish to receive part of these plagues by staying in Babylon the Great and sharing in her sins, for these plagues will culminate in her complete destruction.

God says that her sins have massed together clear up to heaven. These sins have been committed in the name of religion, which makes them immeasurably worse, for it is against Jehovah God that she has heaped up this mountain of sin and he cannot ignore it. (Jer. 50:14; 51:9) As the God of justice he cannot let her injustice continue or go on unpunished. One of the primary injustices that she has committed is her persecution of God’s people who have composed his spiritual temple and his spiritual Zion from the days of the apostles right down to our present day. So just as God executed vengeance in ancient times against Babylon for his temple in Jerusalem and vengeance for his city Zion, so he does in our day.​—Jer. 50:28; 51:11, 35, 36.

DOUBLE RETRIBUTION

Since Babylon has built up such a tremendous criminal record, the angel commands: “Render to her even as she herself rendered, and do to her twice as much, yes, twice the number of the things she did; in the cup in which she put a mixture put twice as much of the mixture for her.” (Rev. 18:6) He pays her back in his allotted short period of “one day” for all her sins against him and his witnesses over a four-thousand-year period. Therefore, his vengeance against her has to be greatly concentrated. That explains why he commands his executional forces to give her twice as much as she rendered to his people and make her drink a doubly intoxicating cup full of dazing, stupefying troubles, sorrows, miseries, pains and insults from the effects of which she will never regain consciousness.

Now, it may seem to some that Jehovah’s witnesses are unduly harsh in making this proclamation, but they have suffered much at Babylon’s hands. More than that, they are under divine command to declare in advance Jehovah’s coming vengeance upon her, helping many escape ruin with her, otherwise they would be bloodguilty. Consequently, they must do their warning work despite all her protests, objections and opposition to their proclaiming God’s day of vengeance.​—Ezek. 33:2-6; Isa. 61:1, 2.

We should not feel that Jehovah’s vengeance is unrighteous or too much for Babylon the Great, neither should we be surprised at what God does to her nor feel sympathy for this heartless world empire of Babylonish religion. Remember as far as she is concerned, she would sit forever as a queen on her throne, continuing to oppress the people. But God, who is strong, judges her. She has despised and defied the God of Jehovah’s witnesses, thinking especially that such things could not come from him upon her. So God orders:

“To the extent that she glorified herself and lived in shameless luxury, to that extent give her torment and mourning. For in her heart she keeps saying, ‘I sit a queen, and I am no widow, and I shall never see mourning.’ That is why in one day her plagues will come, death and mourning and famine, and she will be completely burned with fire, because Jehovah God, who judged her, is strong.”​—Rev. 18:7, 8.

She has been revered and worshiped and has received the abject servitude of her subjects as a queen or mistress, an empress over a religious empire. But her prostitution and filthiness have made her completely unfit for such a position. She will become a widow, a person bereaved of her millions of religious subjects, especially her priests, clergy and other religious leaders. For all these she will have reason to mourn. Besides death and mourning, she will at last know famine herself, being deprived of all her means by which she lived in shameless luxury. Finally, that nothing of her may remain, she will be completely burned with fire in all-consuming destruction, “for our God is also a consuming fire.”​—Heb. 12:29.

MOURNERS

In spite of the fact that great Babylon has been such a sinner against God, she will have her mourners at the time of her fall into destruction. Who? They are some of those with whom she committed prostitution and who were able to make great gain out of her. Who they are is pointed out by the angel. He tells us: “And the kings of the earth who committed fornication with her and lived in shameless luxury will weep and beat themselves in grief over her, when they look at the smoke from the burning of her, while they stand at a distance because of their fear of her torment and say, ‘Too bad, too bad, you great city, Babylon you strong city, because in one hour your judgment has arrived!’”​—Rev. 18:9, 10.

Since the “ten kings” represented by the ten horns on the scarlet-colored beast turn upon the harlot and strip her naked and eat her flesh and burn her with fire, the mourning kings could hardly be identical in personality with the “ten kings” (ten horns) of the scarlet-colored wild beast. No, these are kings or political rulers who fornicated and enjoyed shameless luxury with her during her popularity and who have been taken by surprise at the sudden turn of events, because as they themselves mournfully say: ‘Jehovah’s execution of judgment upon her arrived in one hour.’ What fun they used to have with her, but when judgment comes like a thief they cannot help or preserve her for their further unclean pleasure. Afraid to interfere, they stand off in fear of sharing the fiery torment with her. Therefore, their time of mourning for her will be very brief. They too share responsibility for her crimes; so, next in order, they will inescapably suffer pain when God executes judgment upon them.

The archangel Michael, the glorified Jesus Christ, is in charge of the announcement of warning and he is giving the greatest possible publicity to great Babylon’s coming destruction. By the mouth of more than a million earthly proclaimers, the announcement is being made. It has been declared in 199 countries and 164 languages. It is not through the channels of the world’s news agencies but by earnest Bible students, Jehovah’s witnesses, who themselves have taken advantage of the warning to flee from Babylon the Great. However, only a minority will hear, that is, hear with belief enough to act on the warning. There was a similar situation in the days of Jesus and the apostles. They gave warning of the complete destruction of Jerusalem and, though this work was opposed by the entire Jewish organization, the people got to hear and be forewarned if they desired to take advantage of it. The majority scoffed at and ridiculed the proclaimers of the warning; but even when Cestus Gallus and his Roman legions withdrew from a siege of the city in 66 C.E., only the Christians residing there took advantage of Jesus’ warning: “When you see Jerusalem surrounded by encamped armies, then know that the desolating of her has drawn near. Then let those in Judea begin fleeing to the mountains, and let those in the midst of her withdraw, and let those in the country places not enter into her; because these are days for meting out justice, that all the things written may be fulfilled.” (Luke 21:20-22) Suddenly, shortly thereafter, the armies of General Titus, son of Emperor Vespasian, closed in on Jerusalem. During the siege those who had felt so safe in Jerusalem’s walls endured starvation and fear of destruction. Finally, the walls of Jerusalem were breached in the summer of 70 C.E. and the Roman armies poured in and slaughtered 1,100,000 and carried away 97,000 miserable captives to be sold in the slave markets throughout the Roman Empire.

Therefore, no matter what you may be doing, no matter how well you may like what you are doing or no matter how secure you may feel in your situation, do not fail to give attention to this worldwide warning from the Creator of the universe. Listen to it. Learn what steps to take to flee from Great Babylon and act at once, for her destruction is alarmingly imminent. It is not just a matter of escape, but release from religious bondage to a future of life in perfection in a new order under God’s kingdom. Jehovah’s witnesses will freely help you to get Bible understanding so that you can act quickly, with wisdom from God.

“A Theatrical Spectacle to the World, Both to Angels and to Men”

As told by Maxwell G. Friend

“COME, listen, all you who fear God, and I will relate what he has done for my soul.” (Ps. 66:16) This is what I want to do now.

My forefather was Abraham. Like him, my most ardent desire has been to have Jehovah as my eternal Friend and to remain forever close to him.

I was born in Austria in 1890 to devoted Jewish parents of nine children, was brought up in the Jewish orthodox religion and learned to read Hebrew before I became of school age. I was drawn to God by my devout parents at an early age, not by my strict religious teachers. All that those teachers taught me were formalistic and mechanical Hebrew prayers and nonsensical rituals.

In 1897 my family moved to Zurich, Switzerland. There, during my first school year, I heard for the first time the story of the birth of Jesus. I was fascinated by it. I had hardly learned to read German, when a mutilated religious book, written and illustrated for children, found its way into our home. It was printed in large letters and told fascinating Bible stories from the Hebrew and Greek Scriptures. With intense interest I laboriously read and reread them. Both the familiar Hebrew Bible accounts as well as the new ones about the Messiah and his early disciples became alive and absorbing to me. I believed them with all my little heart. Later I was attracted to books on popular science, chiefly on biology and cosmology. This widened my horizon, and at the age of fourteen years I abandoned formalistic religion.

MY ADULTHOOD

The so-called higher education of my college years along with more insight into the repelling formalism, nonsensical creeds and disgusting hypocrisy of the religions I saw about me robbed me of the heartfelt faith of my childhood. I became an unhappy skeptic, agnostic and evolutionist. But not for long. From childhood on, I had an intense love for the beauties of God’s creation. Admiration of his creation led me back to him. In 1912, after more than three years of intense dramatic training at the renowned City Theater in Zurich, Switzerland, I sat meditating on the shore of the beautiful lake close to the theater. It was here that my eyes were opened again to the manifest fact that all the marvelous things of creation were brought forth by an infinitely more wonderful Creator.

Soon afterward the mother of one of my close friends, noticing my faith in God, gave me a modern translation of the Christian Greek Scriptures. While I was reading these Scriptures with mounting delight, my sweet childhood faith in Christ revived. That was in 1912. Now I believed with maturer understanding that Jesus of Nazareth is my Savior and that he is the promised Messiah and King of his Father’s kingdom.

MY DEDICATION

After counting all foreseeable and unforeseeable costs, I decided from then on to follow faithfully in the footsteps of my great Master who had bought me at the cost of his precious earthly life. I decided to dedicate my life to God and to his Kingdom service at any cost.

There were still so many more things in the Scriptures that I desired to understand. I felt like the Ethiopian eunuch who said to Philip: “Really, how could I ever do so, unless someone guided me?” (Acts 8:31) To whom should I turn? I had no confidence in imitation Christians and much less in their religious teachers. The Master had said: “By their fruits you will recognize them” as being a rotten tree that produces “worthless fruit.” (Matt. 7:15-20) Their shameful, bloody history and their heartless massacres of the Jewish people during the entire history of Christendom testified against them and condemned them.

Where should I turn? Whom should I ask for further enlightenment? From the Scriptures I already understood that in the midst of the spiritual weeds in the world there must also be some genuine spiritual wheat. (Matt. 13:24-30) But how would I find it? I cried to God for help, and he answered me.

In 1912 there were about a dozen earnest Christians in Zurich who were proclaiming the kingdom of God without my knowing of it. They were then called “Bible Students.” Today the group with which they were affiliated is known as Jehovah’s witnesses. When visiting some friends I saw in their music room a tract entitled “The Three Worlds.” Their maid had just brought it in from the letter box. It was published in Germany by the International Association of Earnest Bible Students. It attracted my interest, and I asked for permission to take it home. When I finished a careful reading of it late that night, I knew it was the truth. I knew it was published by the true followers of Jesus Christ. I intended to read it again the next day and then to write to the publishers in Germany for more literature. But when I came home the next afternoon, the precious pamphlet was no longer on my desk. Our maid had mistaken it for part of the previous day’s newspaper and had burned it. I felt as if I had lost a priceless treasure. Try as I did, I could not remember the name or the address of the publishers of the tract. Again I turned to my Friend in heaven, and again he answered my prayer.

CHARLES T. RUSSELL COMES TO ZURICH

Soon afterward large placards appeared all over Zurich announcing a public lecture by an American Bible teacher and world traveler, Charles T. Russell. He was going to speak on the subject “Beyond the Grave.” The placards exhibited a large and striking picture of a Bible in chains out of which came the spirit of Christ pointing an accusing finger at a long and solemn procession of all kinds of clergymen. It indicted them by saying: “Woe to you . . . for ye have taken away the key of knowledge.” (Luke 11:52, AV) “How very true that is!” I thought. I could hardly wait for evening when the public lecture would be given in the Tonhalle, the finest concert hall in Zurich.

When I arrived at the Tonhalle, I found a large crowd at the entrance waiting for admittance. To my bitter disappointment, I discovered that the hall was already packed out and the doors had been shut. Then it was announced that the lecture would be repeated a week later by Russell’s interpreter. The waiting crowd then dispersed.

This time I arrived at the Concert Hall ahead of all the others. I waited until the doors were opened, and when I entered the lobby I immediately obtained the book The Divine Plan of the Ages. This was the first volume of Russell’s several books. I immediately plunged into the reading of it and found it to be fascinating. I did not close the book until the chairman introduced the speaker. I was convinced that I had finally found what I had been seeking with all my heart.

I drank in every word that I heard. The hour of the talk seemed very short. When I returned home I continued reading for hours the book I bought. I am not ashamed to confess that what I read in the book overwhelmed me at times and caused tears of joy to well up in my eyes. I just could not lay the book aside until a new day had begun to dawn, because it was unlocking to me understanding of the Bible. Then I had to get a little sleep for the day’s work before me.

The rehearsal that morning was of Shakespeare’s famous tragedy “Hamlet.” I just could not put my heart into it this time. I asked myself how I could, contrary to God’s Word, publicly express belief that my murdered king-father lived on as a haunting ghost? How could I swear bloody vengeance? How could I dialogue with the “immortal soul” of the dead king, speak of purgatory and hellfire as being realities? How could I repeat the lines: “In that deep sleep of death what dreams may come?” How could I say “the dread of something after death” or “the undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveler returns” when I knew that such statements were unscriptural? I suddenly realized that similar conflicts of conscience would face me in nearly every drama I might participate in. I knew I could never again enact an ungodly lie. I felt like a child that had gleefully rushed after a beautiful, glittering soap bubble, and after his catching it the bubble burst.

MY FIRST ASSOCIATION WITH A CONGREGATION

I finally discovered where the Bible Students held their meetings and when. It was in a Zurich hotel room. The dozen or so persons assembled there received me with genuine and disarming cordiality. Their absorbing Bible study made me, for the first time in my life, acquainted with the features and prophetic significance of my forefathers’ tabernacle in the wilderness. I saw the gates of a new and true life opening to me, and I felt drawn irresistibly to that loving and lovable group of God’s people. I felt right at home with them. I still experience this warm feeling when in the meetings of Jehovah’s witnesses wherever I go in the world.

As to the good news of God’s kingdom, I felt like Jeremiah when he said: “In my heart it proved to be like a burning fire.” (Jer. 20:9) I just could not hold it back. I simply had to tell it out. My dear father was quite versed in the Hebrew Scriptures and listened to my message with an open mind but without saying much. My mother was likewise a God-fearing soul and was rather pleased with what I told her. With regard to Jesus both had to admit, “It may be true that he is the Messiah.” Years later on her deathbed my beloved mother devotedly read the Bible and our book The Harp of God. How I am longing for the promised resurrection when my parents will receive full enlightenment and I will be able to see them rewarded with endless life!

As for my four brothers and four sisters, none of them adhered to any religion. Liberal-minded as they were, they just tolerated my new belief and rarely argued against it. As for my intimate friends, none of them were religious, but they desperately tried to talk me out of what they called “idealistic phantasies.” To my deepest sorrow, I lost their friendship, but God has since replaced them “a hundredfold,” as promised at Mark 10:29, 30.

From the Zurich congregation I received literature for free distribution. At first I dropped a large Yiddish tract into the letter boxes of numerous Jewish homes. Then I obtained German tracts for Gentiles. In this manner, and by word of mouth, I shared in spreading the good news of God’s kingdom as well as in giving emphatic warning that the year 1914 would see the beginning of the world-shaking “time of the end” of the present evil disorder of things.​—Dan. 12:4.

FULL-TIME SERVICE

Now that I discovered what the Bible calls a precious “treasure hidden in the field,” which is Jehovah’s kingdom, it became clear to me that in order to ‘buy that field,’ I had to give up all my materialistic desires as well as my worldly aspirations of being an actor. (Matt. 13:44) I was eager to play instead a humble supporting role in being what the apostle Paul calls a “theatrical spectacle to the world, both to angels and to men.” (1 Cor. 4:9) This would be to Jehovah’s glory and fame, not my own. When I disclosed my intentions and reasons to my atheistic director, he was visibly shocked. He tried to talk me out of it, but failed. Until he died years later he continued to hope that, as he expressed it, “time and realities” would awaken me out of my “idealistic dreams.”

In the following year, 1913, early in the spring, I was baptized in symbol of my dedication to Jehovah and to his eternal service. That baptism took place close to the City Theater in the chilling water of the lovely Lake of Zurich. Then I applied to the Watch Tower Branch in Germany for any kind of service I could do, and I was invited to come to the branch, called Bethel, and to work there. My parents felt crushed. Nonetheless, they unselfishly wanted me to do what would make me happy.

At the fine German Bethel at Barmen I found a warm and happifying atmosphere. I made myself useful by various humble services. At that time the Bethel family was still small, consisting of about fifteen adults and two lovable little girls of the branch servant. The younger of them, Phoebe Koetitz, is still alive and has, for many years, been devotedly serving as a pioneer, which is a full-time publisher of the good news, in the United States. Another person in Bethel at that time and who has survived until today is Heinrich Dwenger. He is still faithfully serving at our Swiss branch at Berne. Because the first year of my new life was full of activity and learning, it passed quickly.

When J. F. Rutherford, who later became the Watch Tower Society’s president visited us, he asked me if I would like to be sent to Austria-Hungary so as to spread the good news of the Messianic kingdom among the many Jews there. (Most of these Jews, as well as three of my fleshly brothers and a sister-in-law who lived in France, were later massacred by the Nazis.) I gladly accepted the invitation, and early in 1914 I traveled first to Prague, Czechoslovakia. There I distributed Yiddish tracts from house to house in the large Jewish sections of that ancient city. I then went to Vienna, Austria, where I did the same work. I was still working by myself at the time. There were only four subscribers for The Watchtower in Vienna, and I visited them repeatedly, increasing their interest in God’s Word. I started a weekly home Bible study with two of them. Then the Society sent me a helper. Two were certainly better than only one in this work. (Eccl. 4:9-12) The two of us were able to accomplish much more than I was able to do by myself.

Jews hardly ever responded to the good news, because they confused us with missionaries of Christendom. They had no love for Christendom due to the many centuries that she had driven them from country to country and mercilessly killed them with fire and sword. Even in their day there were inhuman, clergy-led pogroms or massacres of Jews in Czarist Russia. After covering the Jewish sections in Vienna we traveled to Poszony (Pressburg) in Slovakia. There, while we were distributing tracts in Jewish streets, a mob of outraged, fanatical Jews formed against us. Mistaking us for missionaries of Christendom, they mobbed us out of town, but with God’s help we came out alive. Not so those poor, blinded people. More than twenty years later practically the entire Jewish population of Poszony was annihilated by the demon-possessed Nazis. After Poszony, we covered Jewish territory in Budapest, Hungary.

We were approaching the fall of 1914 with growing expectancy because we were anticipating the end of the appointed times of the nations, mentioned in Bible prophecy. Looking back, we can see today how that year was a turning point in human history. We returned to Vienna, and while we were there World War I erupted. Our hearts ached because of the human suffering this brought upon the people. Nonetheless, we were indescribably jubilant because of the long-awaited fulfillment of Bible prophecy regarding the ending of the appointed times of the nations.

Then followed the sad three and a half years of humiliation for the remnant of Christ’s anointed body members on earth. It was a time when they were symbolically dressed in sackcloth. (Rev. 11:2, 3, 7-11) In 1919, when Jehovah began to liberate his captive people from their “Babylonian” bondage, the “spirit of life from God entered into them, and they stood upon their feet.” Together with them I too was revived to renewed full-time theocratic work in the “glorious freedom of the children of God.” (Rom. 8:21) I had returned to Switzerland, and there, because of my uncompromising integrity, I suffered heartrending and heart-searching trials.

It was in the Zurich congregation of Jehovah’s people that I found Irma, who became my helpful and faithful marriage companion. We served together first in the Society’s Central-European Office in Zurich and later in the Swiss Bethel in Berne. Those were very busy and fruitful years, overshadowing the severe trials caused by unfaithful men who held authoritative positions in the Society. To test my humility, Jehovah permitted them to ride over my head, to make me go through “fire and through water,” but afterward he brought me out to great relief.​—Ps. 66:12.

SERVING AT HEADQUARTERS

In the spring of 1926 Brother Rutherford invited us to move to the Society’s world headquarters in Brooklyn. There my privilege of serving as translator was continued and enlarged. My good wife helped as a housekeeper, making good use of her gift of a typical Swiss sense for cleanliness, neatness and coziness. Between translations of books I enjoyed the privilege of visiting German-speaking congregations as a pilgrim, which was a traveling representative and public lecturer of the Society, in widely separated parts of the United States. Sometimes I went to Canada. Occasionally I had opportunities to broadcast the good news of the Messianic kingdom in German and in Yiddish over radio stations.

Then Jehovah favored me with an unexpected privilege of service. This was to produce and direct stirring Biblical dramas and realistic reproductions of outrageous court trials of Jehovah’s witnesses by clergy-influenced, prejudiced judges and prosecutors in America. The dramas exposed them to public shame and exonerated the work of Jehovah’s servants. The trained radio performers and musicians in these dramas were known as “The King’s Theater.” Their plays were performed for years over the Society’s own radio station, WBBR, and over other stations in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

GILEAD

In 1943 the Society established the Watchtower Bible School of Gilead, a ministerial school for providing advanced training to missionaries and ministerial representatives for specialized service in foreign fields. This school has had a significant share in the great increase of Kingdom publishers that has been seen since 1943. Jehovah showed me his unmerited favor by having me included in the faculty to teach courses on Bible research and public speaking. This I did wholeheartedly and with heavenly support and guidance for more than seventeen years, teaching thirty-four missionary classes and ten Kingdom Ministry courses.

Upon reaching the age of seventy, I necessarily had to lighten my work load. Considerately the Society’s president, N. H. Knorr, relieved me of my school duties and brought Irma and me back to Bethel in Brooklyn. There he assigned us to easier work. It hurt to leave our beautiful Kingdom Farm where Gilead School was located. The place and its inhabitants had endeared themselves to us so very much. But we have found Bethel, even more than before, a place that is truly, as some persons have said, “simply out of this world.” One must live and work here to appreciate fully the astoundingly smooth efficiency and the fine cooperative Christian spirit of its organization. No one is driven, overseers are inconspicuous and yet the place is humming with great activity and is amazingly productive.

Thus far in all my many and varied service assignments since 1913 every change has been gratefully seen, in time, as one for the better. Never before did we have it as good as now in our dear Bethel home. Another change for the better, we think, could only be heaven itself.

I am in my seventy-seventh year now and, understandably, I tire easily, but I do not feel at all like retiring now or ever. My spirit has retained freshness and enthusiasm for everything that is true, good, lovable and beautiful. As it is written: “The righteous . . . will blossom forth as a palm tree does . . . They will still keep on thriving during gray-headedness . . . to tell that Jehovah is upright.” (Ps. 92:12-15) I cannot do great things, but I can keep on doing small things devotedly. I am fully aware that I have been merely a “good-for-nothing” slave and that all I have done in the Master’s service is what I ought to have done.​—Luke 17:10.

When surveying my Kingdom service over the years, I realize that it has had its ups and downs, its joys and sorrows, all for my testing and refinement. At times the thrilling ascent on God’s Mountain has been very steep and hazardous. True, I stumbled at times and got hurt, but with the strong help of our merciful Mountain Guide I always got up again, and with renewed courage and carefulness resumed to climb upward. I can truly testify that not one of God’s gracious promises to me has failed. They have all come true. (Josh. 23:14) To play a humble supporting part in the grand universal drama of Jehovah’s vindication, I esteem an inestimable and unspeakable privilege. I realize that, before I began to behold God’s light of truth, I was groping in the darkness of the valley of death and merely existed. Since the time I dedicated my life to our great heavenly Father, through the merit of my Savior and King, I have truly lived a full and joyful life, one worth living. My most ardent desire and my highest hope is not to be great in the kingdom of heaven, but to see God and to be forever close to him and to my Savior. That is why I have given up all I had, which was O so little, in order to gain the crown of life and, above all, Jehovah as my eternal Friend.

Questions From Readers

● Can 2 Corinthians 5:16 be used to establish that Jesus would not return in the flesh?​—C. N., England.

The text in question reads: “Consequently from now on we know no man according to the flesh. Even if we have known Christ according to the flesh, certainly we now know him so no more.” The primary meaning of these words can best be understood if we first determine what the apostle Paul was proving in the context.

At 2 Corinthians 5:14 the apostle indicated that Christ had died as a ransom sacrifice for all. His sacrifice did not cover just the Jews or benefit only Gentiles. No, but all who would accept him and exercise faith might live because of him. (Gal. 3:8, 11) Since Jesus died for all, it would be improper for Christians to view persons on a human or fleshly basis, looking down on some because they were Gentiles or had a low station in life, or looking up to others because they were Jews or held some prominent position. This attitude based on external, fleshly appearances was a thing of the past for those who became Christians.

Then Paul concluded in 2 Co 5 verse 16 that anointed Christians would now know no man according to the flesh. The important spiritual relationship they could have with their brothers was the important thing. Jesus showed the same view at Matthew 12:47-50. He emphasized the spiritual relationship he had with those who accepted him as the Messiah.

Finally, Paul spoke about those who knew Jesus according to the flesh. He did not necessarily mean just persons who had personally seen Jesus with their physical eyes, since some, many or all the members of the Corinthian congregation, never saw Jesus as a human. Rather, he meant that even if individuals, such as Jews who hoped in the Messiah to restore an earthly kingdom, at one time had looked at Christ only on the basis of his flesh, Christians no longer would do so. All this was changed by the fact that Christ not merely “died for them” but was also “raised up.”​—2 Cor. 5:14, 15.

While this is the primary point the writer was establishing in 2 Corinthians 5:16, it is also proof that Jesus would not return again in the flesh, because we cannot separate the change of knowing Christ and his followers from Christ’s resurrection, his being “raised up” from death. If he had been raised up flesh and blood, unable to go to heaven and sit at God’s right hand, he would not have been the Christ or Messiah. (1 Cor. 15:50; Ps. 110:1; Acts 2:32-36) In that case he would still have to be known according to the flesh.

Well, how was he raised from the dead? The apostle knew, for in his first letter to the same Corinthian congregation he told them that Jesus was resurrected a life-giving spirit. (1 Cor. 15:45) And in this second letter he said that anointed Christians would have to give up their fleshly bodies in order to receive immortality. (2 Cor. 5:1-4) Also, he appreciated that Jesus had given his fleshly body as a ransom and could not take it back in resurrection without nullifying the ransom. (Heb. 9:28; 10:10) Yes, without question, the apostle Paul realized that no human would see Christ in the flesh again. So in a double sense Paul could state that humans would know Jesus according to the flesh no longer. And for this reason this text can be used to establish that Christ’s return would not be visible and fleshly.

Announcements

FIELD MINISTRY

Before his ascension to heaven, the Lord Jesus instructed his followers: “Go therefore and make disciples of people . . . teaching them.” (Matt. 28:19, 20) It is in obedience to that command that Jehovah’s witnesses call at your door. Yes, they are teachers of the things that are recorded in the Bible, and they offer their personal services free of charge. As a further aid to interested persons, during April they will be offering a year’s subscription for this fine Bible-study aid, The Watchtower, with three booklets, for just $1. Avail yourself of the opportunity to obtain it.

HOW STRONG IS YOUR FAITH?

In the crucial days ahead the faith of all Christians will be tried to the limit. How strong is your faith? If it is to be an unwavering faith you must be fed the pure Word of God regularly. No magazine is so dedicated to this lofty purpose as is The Watchtower. This is proved each year as thousands of its newer readers dedicate their lives to God, relying in faith on God’s promise to direct their steps in security. You can share this joy this coming year by subscribing now. One year, one dollar. Order now and obtain three free booklets on Bible topics.

“WATCHTOWER” STUDIES FOR THE WEEKS

May 14: Mankind’s Millennium Under God’s Kingdom​—Why Literally So, ¶1-24. Page 229. Songs to Be Used: 61, 117.

May 21: Mankind’s Millennium Under God’s Kingdom​—Why Literally So, ¶25-31; and The Benefits of Mankind’s Millennium, ¶1-23. Page 235. Songs to Be Used: 92, 78.