NO. 429B: RETROSPECT AND PROSPECT - PART TWO

No. 429B

THE JEWS

“The desert shall bloom: ‘Israel is the only nation in the world today where the desert is diminishing. In every other place on Earth the deserts are enlarging. Jerusalem Centre, April 1991’

“‘The wilderness and the wasteland shall be glad for them and the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose.’ (Isa. 35:1)” (Christian Action for Israel Newsletter, Third Quarter 1991)

“Status Of Jerusalem: Non-Negotiable: The Israeli Government says ‘no negotiation’ at peace talks. The PLO want to negotiate. There’s an interesting Scripture which may refer to this time: ‘On that day when all nations of the earth are gathered against her, I will make Jerusalem an immovable rock for all nations. All who try to move it will injure themselves.’ (Zech. 12:3)” (Christian Action for Israel Newsletter, Third Quarter 1991)

“Israel Outnumbered – But God!: Who is on the side of Israel? It is easier to add up those who rather wish that she would ‘go away.’ This includes the Moslems, the Vatican, most all the cults, all of the communist countries and the majority of traditional Christians. Probably 3600M people or more.

“Who supports Israel? Fundamentalist evangelical Christians in the West; Zionist Jews and precious few others. Perhaps 60M. Odds 60:1 BUT GOD! The Bible is on the side of the minority!

“‘And they will dwell safely there, build houses, and plant vineyards; yea, they shall dwell with confidence, when I have executed judgments upon all those that despise them round about them;  and they shall know that I am the Lord their God.’ (Ezek. 28:26)

“‘He will swallow up death in victory; and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces; and the rebuke of his people shall he take away from off all the earth; for the Lord God hath spoken it.’ (Isa. 25:8) Numbers mean nothing with God. Remember Gideon’s 300!” (Christian Action for Israel Newsletter, Third Quarter 1991)

“Marvel At The Jews: If the statistics are right, the Jews constitute but one percent of the human race. It suggests a nebulous dim puff of star dust lost in the blaze of the milky way. Properly, the Jew ought hardly to be heard of; but he is heard of ­has always been heard of. He is as prominent on the planet as any other people, and his commercial importance is extravagantly out of proportion to the smallness of his bulk.

“His contribution to the world’s list of great names in literature, science, art, music, finance, medicine and abstruse learning, are also out of proportion to the weakness of his numbers. He has made a marvelous fight in this world, in all ages; and he has done it with his hands tied behind him. He could be vain of himself and be excused for it.

“The Egyptian, the Babylonian and the Persian rose – filled the planet with sound and splendour then faded to dream-stuff and passed away: The Greek and the Roman followed, and made a vast noise and they were gone. The Jew saw them all, beat them and is now what he always was – exhibiting no decadence, no infirmities of age, no weakening of his parts, no slowing of his energies, no dulling of his alert and aggressive mind. All things are mortal but the Jew: all other forces pass, but he remains. Mark Twain. Circa 1885.

“‘It is no accident – God ordained it! (Ed)’” (Christian Action for Israel Newsletter, Third Quarter 1991)

“Israel’s Loss – The World’s Gain: In some strange and mysterious way the very existence of Israel reminds the people of God... People throughout the world even those who know nothing about the Bible, are vaguely aware that the Jews claim to be the people of God. Those who have even the slightest knowledge of the Bible are aware, sometimes uncomfortably aware that God has made promises to Israel that are everlasting... But there is the strange thing – the very rejection of Jesus by His own brothers, the nation of Israel, sent the good news of God’s amazing love into the world. If Jesus had been accepted by the Jews as their Messiah they would no doubt have kept Him to themselves as part of their own exclusive religion. God’s promise that all peoples on earth would be blessed through the Jews has already been fulfilled for a thousand million believers today. Prophecy Today, Volume 7, No. 3.” (Christian Action for Israel Newsletter, Third Quarter 1991)

“Quotable Quotes: I know men; and I tell you that Jesus Christ is no mere man. Between Him and every other person in the world, there is no possible term of comparison. Alexander, Caesar, Charlemagne and I have founded empires. But on what did we rest the creations of our genius? Upon force. Jesus Christ founded His empire upon love; and at this hour millions of men would die for Him. By Napoleon Bonaparte.” (Christian Action for Israel Newsletter, First Quarter 1991)

“A True Zionist: The letter titled ‘Zionist only as a ploy’ (July 19-25), which criticizes David Gross’ fine piece of July 5-11 on the late Pastor Charles Taze Russell, shows a lack of knowledge of the pastor’s teachings about the Jewish people and Israel.

“As I have proved in my book on the Pastor, as a faithful Zionist he urged the Jews not to convert but to remain faithful to the Torah faith.

“Second, he was not the founder of the Jehovah’s Witnesses. He did establish an International Bible and Tract Society that published millions of pamphlets espousing the Jewish cause and Israel.

“The name, ‘Jehovah’s Witnesses’ came into being only after Pastor Russell died, and his successors, especially a certain ‘judge’ Rutherford, betrayed Pastor Russell and became anti-Jewish and anti-Zionist.

“Pastor Russell not only was a true Zionist – he was a true friend of the Jews.” (David Horowitz, New York, NY - The Jewish Week, Inc., August 16-22, 1991)

The main reason Pastor Russell did not advocate conversion to the Nominal Christian Church, is because of their trinitarian belief. The Jews believe in one God, and so do Bible Students. They believe the Jewish people will recognize their Messiah in Jacob’s last trouble, if not before. Then the Jewish people will call on the Lord to deliver them, and He will fight for them “as in the day of battle.” (Zech. 14:1-3)

United Nations (WUP): It never fails, the opening of the annual UN Assemblies usually coincides with the beginning of our High Holy Days, and this year is no exception: The 46th session is faced with a multiple of agenda items including a great many on the Middle East. During their debate, the PLO, the Arabs and their Third World supporters plan to launch their perennial attacks against Israel. Opening day was Yom Kippur, Tuesday, the 17th of September, a date which also marks the 30th anniversary of the death of former UN secretary-general Dag Hammarskjold.

What makes this session’s items on the Middle East more newsworthy and eagerly awaited, is the unexpected controversy President Bush sparked by his sharp September 12th statement angrily and bitterly challenging the Likud Government, the American-Jewish Leadership and Lobby and the Congress over the ten billion dollar loan guarantee sought by Prime Minister Shamir which Mr. Bush, during the Gulf war, had asked Israel to delay until now, as he had asked Jerusalem to hold back on the Scud missiles.

Mr. Bush wants 120 days before even the loan can be discussed. Nothing can be more ridiculous. He fears that a debate on the loan now will jeopardize the chance for an October peace conference. On the contrary, by his very request, he has already spoiled the chances for a successful peace conference.

Moreover, his constant stress on Jewish settlements as being “an obstruction to peace” and linking settlements – in any part of historic Israel – with the political issue of the conference, is a betrayal of an earlier pledge to facilitate emigration and settlement of both Soviet and Ethiopian Jews who alone are to benefit from the loan guarantee which Mr. Bush is ignominiously fighting. Shame!

In reply to the following query put to the President during his press conference, namely: “Mr. President, you said that a contentious debate could now actually keep some parties away from the peace table, yet the Israelis claim that those Arabs who have indicated a willingness to participate in the peace process have not made the settlement issue a precondition. They say that’s your precondition. As one columnist said this week, it’s your obsession. Is that fair?”

He gave this incriminating answer: “Well, I would simply say that I read some charges coming out of a source in Israel that we’d made a deal with the Arabs that we would fight this. That’s not true. That is factually incorrect, simply not true. No, it is my judgment, and Jim’s, and everybody else’s working this problem, and has been for months, that this is the approach we ought to take. Because we don’t want a contentious debate on settlements or anything else over there at this juncture. We want to get these parties to the table. And I don’t think it’s too much to have a 120-day delay. I think Congress should listen carefully to what I am asking for, and I hope they will go along with this...”

Regarding his arguments against Jewish settlements in land biblically decreed for Israel, President Bush might reflect on what one of his main Gulf war generals stated recently after a visit to Israel. Declared General Thomas Kelly, former director for operations of the Joint Chiefs of Staff:

“The West Bank mountains, and especially their approaches, are critical terrain if an enemy secures these passes, Jerusalem and all Israel become uncovered. Without the West Bank, Israel is only eight miles wide at its narrowest point. That makes it indefensible.”

The President has acted unwisely. He would have been more American and more in the spirit of his predecessors had he not been tempted by the evil spirit in him to turn away from the more important issues such as a firmer stand against Saddam Hussein who is now rearming his country with lethal weapons. Also he should have dealt more rigorously with the Zionism is racism Resolution.

In a statement released here last week, the Washington-based Heritage Foundation issued a 13-page document entitled “Removing the Stain of the United Nations – Zionism Is Racism Resolution,” written by Christopher Cacek, the important document opens thus:

“0ne of the worst stains on the reputation of the UN is the General Assembly’s 1975 vote to adopt Resolution 3379 condemning Zionism as a form of racism. While championing so-called national liberation movements throughout the Third World, the UN not only singled out the Jewish nationalist movement for criticism, but in perversion of history, falsely accused Israel of inflicting on others the same kind of injustice – racism – from which the Jews have suffered for centuries...”

This historic document, which this writer would advise every delegate here at the UN to study carefully, cites three basic reasons why the UN is duty-bound to repeal this vicious anti-Semitic Resolution 3379. [Rescission of the 1975 UN resolution declaring Zionism a form of racism was passed by the UN General Assembly December 17, 1991.]

Dear President Bush, this is the season of repentance and atonement. It is never too late even for a President to admit his error, confess his sins and sincerely change his ways! The Founding Fathers of this Republic demand it of you! (Behind The Scenes at the United Nations, 26 September 1991, by David Horowitz)

“Iraq Reveals ‘Supergun’: Iraq has shown its long-feared ‘supergun’ – assembled but not operational – to UN inspectors, it was reported Monday.

“The barrel is 172 feet long – eight times longer than a conventional U.S. howitzer. Estimated range: up to 465 miles carrying conventional nuclear or chemical payloads up to 114 pounds.

“Iraq also admits trying to assemble a ‘doomsday gun’ to reach 200 miles into Israel with 39-inch-diameter shells.

“UN inspectors photographed the gun in the mountains north of Baghdad. They eventually will destroy it under terms of the Persian Gulf war cease-fire.

“The gun long was suspected to exist. ‘It just fits the pattern of the huge and varied arsenal’ of Saddam Hussein, says Tel Aviv University analyst Joseph Alpher.

UN officials revealed Monday that a U.S. U-2 spy plane flew over Iraq last weekend and photographed suspected weapons sites.” (USA Today, August 13, 1991)

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LETTER OF GENERAL INTEREST

 Dear Brethren: Grace and peace in the Name of our Beloved Savior!

Although you no doubt know many of the happenings of the takeover by “judge” Rutherford after the demise of our dear Pastor Russell, I am giving you the details as I know them. It was not long after the demise of Brother Russell, that “judge” Rutherford succeeded our Pastor as president of the Society.

In 1920 Rutherford published the booklet Millions Now Living Will Never Die. The booklet stated: “Therefore we may confidently expect that 1925 will mark the return of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and the faithful prophets of old.” Needless to say that 1925 came and went without so much as a glimpse of those “faithful prophets.”

In 1929/30 a house was constructed in San Diego, California. It was named “Beth­Sarim,” meaning “House of the Princes.” According to the deed it was for the “faithful men who were named with approval in the Bible at Hebrews the eleventh chapter.” The deed was also to have been made out in the name of King David, but for legal purposes this was not permissible. The only known resident was “judge” Rutherford himself. The faithful prophets never showed up.

Years later the truth about “Beth-Sarim” would try to be buried in the past by the very ones who promoted it. The 1975 Yearbook of the Jehovah’s Witnesses made mention that the house was built from donations for Rutherford’s failing health. The Society to prove the house was built for Rutherford’s failing health quoted the book Salvation which mentions Beth-Sarim having been built- in California in 1929/30. Since Jehovah’s Witnesses are forbidden to read old literature they cannot know the truth. What exactly did the book Salvation have to say in regard to Beth-Sarim? Exactly the purpose it was originally intended for, the return of the faithful prophets of old.

In the 1920s all Watchtower adherents went advertising the year 1925. Needless to say until this day, seventy years later, none of the faithful prophets of old returned or occupied Beth-Sarim. Most Jehovah’s Witness have no idea of a Beth-Sarim. The few who do know prefer to forget. In 1942 Rutherford died. In 1948, Beth-Sarim was quietly and secretly sold. Rutherford had wanted to be buried on the property of Beth-Sarim that he had long used and enjoyed while it awaited the return of the ancient prophets. It never happened! The area was not zoned for the creation of private cemeteries. The neighbors complained that to bury the “judge” where he had requested would lower their property value. It was also felt that Rutherford’s prospective tomb would become a monument, visited by Jehovah’s Witnesses from far and near. Hence, local officials refused to issue a burial permit. Watch Tower publications asserted bitterly that this was simply a last act of spite by the Devil’s organization against Jehovah’s faithful departed spokesman. The local Witnesses carried on a three-months battle to honor Rutherford’s last wish.

According to the Watchtower when San Diego County officials finally refused to honor Rutherford’s request, his remains were laid to rest in Rossville, New York, and were quickly forgotten by all but a few close friends. Beth-Sarim was also forgotten.

Years later it was to be divulged that all of Beth-Sarim was not sold. According to its new owners a small plot of land was still owned and held by the Society. A plot of land which would later be revealed as a grave. In a private conversation with Frederick Franz, current president of the Society, he was questioned about this “grave,” he bluntly stated: “Brother Rutherford is buried there!” Joseph Franklin Rutherford is buried there in an unmarked grave. He got his dying wish and so all the towns people and officials of San Diego, California, and all Jehovah’s Witnesses were deceived into believing Rutherford was buried in Rossville, New York – lied to by the ‘Faithful and Discreet Slave’ class, God’s channel of communication.

The Witnesses claim to be God’s organization on earth since 1914. God’s organization (?) has made gross errors and false predictions during their reign, and are still doing so. When God’s organization is on earth during His thousand-year reign, there will be no mistakes, no errors, for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord. As Zeph. 3:9 assures us, He will then turn over a “pure language” to the people – a language all will understand.

God bless you as you seek to serve Him in sincerity and in truth.

Yours in His service, -------------- – (NEW YORK)

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Our heartfelt thanks and appreciation for the many beautiful Christmas cards expressing love and prayers. Be assured that our warm Christian love and prayers are ever with you. We wish all our readers a blessed and prosperous New Year. “Be of good courage, and He shall strengthen your heart, all ye that hope in the Lord.” (Psa. 31:24)

ANNOUNCEMENT: The Memorial for 1991 is April 15 after six p.m.

NO. 429A: RETROSPECT AND PROSPECT - PART ONE

No. 429A

In the beginning of the New Year, we give thanks and praise to our Lord for His overruling providence in the past year. “Praise ye the Lord. 0 give thanks unto the Lord; for he is good: for his mercy endureth for ever.” (Psa. 106:1) “Oh that men would praise the Lord for his goodness, and for his wonderful works to the children of men.” (Psa. 107:31)

“A new partnership of nations has begun...A new world order... stronger in the pursuit of justice and more secure in the quest for peace... A hundred generations have searched for this elusive path of peace... where the rule of law supplants the rule of the jungle. A world in which nations recognize the shared responsibility... and... the strong respect for the rights of the weak.” (President Bush, Orlando Sentinel, November 9, 1990)

It has been over a year since the President made the above statement. Since that time the “strong” have oppressed the weak, and we are no nearer peace with all countries than we were a year ago. Even if the President had accomplished unity and peace with all nations, we would still have no peace with crime continuing to escalate. Great efforts have been made to stop crime such as murder, rape, burglary, etc., but crime continues. Diseases are rampant also. Medical science hasn’t found a cure for ALZHEIMERS, AIDS and other dread diseases. So ailments of all kinds plague the people. We are grateful for the good doctors who can cure some diseases and alleviate the pain of other diseases. of course, it is impossible for man to cure all these ills, or accomplish peace with all nations.

So we continue to pray the prayer our Lord gave us: “Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth as it is done in heaven.” (Matt. 6:10) Man is not able to bring peace on earth, altho it is commendable for him to try. At present “Men’s hearts are failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven [ecclesiastical order] shall be shaken.” (Luke 21:26) But we have the comfort of the sure promise that our Lord will bring justice, peace, health and happiness to the human family in the Kingdom. (Acts 17:31) “And I shall shake all nations, and the desire of all nations shall come: and I will fill this house with glory, saith the Lord.” (Hag. 2:7) We see that shaking going on all around us. “The earth shall reel to and fro like a drunkard, and shall be removed like a cottage; and the transgression thereof shall be heavy upon it; and it shall fall, and not rise again.” (Is. 24:20) “Hear ye, 0 mountains [kingdoms], the Lord’s controversy, and ye strong foundations of the earth: for the Lord has a controversy with his people, and he will plead with Israel.” (Mic. 6:2)

We are in the Time of Trouble described in Dan. 12:1 and Matt. 24:21. Our Lord prophesied of this trouble: “For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be.” (Matt. 24:21) We thank God for the last phrase. After the Time of Trouble the Lord will inaugurate His Kingdom, and there will be a peace on earth as was never known before.

IN FINANCE

If you were asked, “Are you better off financially today than you were one year ago?” most people would answer “No.” Daniel foretold that there would be a Time of Trouble such as never was since there was a nation. And the Lord stated further that “then there would be great tribulation.” (Matt. 24:21)

There is trouble in our country and in all the countries in the world – in all phases of society, financial, political, religious, military, social, moral, ethical, legal, etc. But we will now confine our remarks to finances.

Our country is financially indebted to the degree that many financiers say that the debt will never be paid. When we borrow money to pay the interest on debt, conditions are serious. It has been well stated that “debts are not all paid but all are liquidated.” The signs of the time are so self-evident that in spite of some politicians forecasting “better times are just ahead,” it seems that our present recession, or “double dip,” or depression, may be with us for some time – maybe until our economy goes bankrupt, in the further phases of the Time of Trouble.

Layoffs in the thousands continue ‘ (often in the large organizations. Jobless claims continue to surge. In October, 1991, the unemployment rate rose to 6.8%. One newspaper article stated, “The double dose of bleak news led analysts to suggest the midyear rebound had been a false start – a blip on an underlying trend of a sick economy.”

From the Associated Press we read, “Mass layoffs pushed jobless claims to a six-month high this month (November) as 454,000 Americans sought unemployment help in a one week period, the Labor Department said recently. The number of people filing first-time claims surged by 33,000 during the week of November 2.”

U.S. News and World Report states, “Even more ominous, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation predicted that additional bank failures could triple the amount of money needed to rescue the nations troubled financial institutions.” At the present writing the rate of interest on credit card debts is being debated. Some feel that 20% is much too high. Many banks state that if the rate were lowered, it would slash an important source of income.

The London Financial Times reports, “There is no clearer symbol of the Soviet Unions determination to move to a market economy than its achievement of associate membership of the International Monetary Fund. In fact, there is no clearer symbol that little is going to change economically, especially under the advice of the IMF. The Soviets will get their aid, enough to survive temporarily, and the U.S. has sold out by agreeing to make the Soviets full members of the IMF. That gives them direct access to the wallets of American citizens.”

Inflation in Russia is already at 100% a year - going stratospheric. Some at the world bank estimate it will reach 1000% in 1992. This year alone the government will print an estimated 150 billion rubles more than all of the rubles in circulation at the beginning of the year, rendering the currency practically worthless. (A recent newspaper article states that civil war is a definite possibility in Russia in 1992.)

A leading economist writes regarding “Cashlessness.” “To erect a cashless society, the Federal Reserve is preparing for more financial record keeping.” The Dallas Federal Reserve alone will build a brand new headquarters – 15 stories and 750,000 square feet. Despite the recession, government building is not slowing. Researchers at the University of California have invented a tiny laser-based device to store up to 6.5 trillion bits of information. This is the equivalent of a million novels in a memory chip the size of a sugar cube. This great technology will be used by the Federal government to control and monitor our every transaction.

In the U.S. an astounding 80% of all corporate net after-tax profit, now goes to service debt. A weakening economy, higher inflation, steeper interest rates, burgeoning oil costs are causing the sinking of heavily indebted U.S. companies. In 1990, corporate bankruptcies jumped 64% in the Middle Atlantic region alone. In the 24 months ahead, heavy leverage will open the floodgates and force many more companies to travel the sorrowful road of defaults and restructuring.

It is not just the government and the greedy corporations, individual Americans, too, are in debt up to their eyeballs. For every dollar we have to spend, we have 80 cents in debt. And the worst part is we can’t pay. Personal bankruptcies are already double what they were in the depths of the ‘82-’83 recession. In New England bankruptcies were up 45% in the past 12 months alone. Fully half of all FHA mortgages are now on the delinquent list. And the collapse of ‘91-’92 is just getting started.

Germany is having a major problem economically and socially absorbing East Germany. One day the world will wake up and all the markets will panic when it’s realized that debt-ridden economies cannot be bailed out with government monetary and fiscal stimuli.

The 12-nation European Community (EC) has been in development for several years. Together the EC, scheduled to be completed by the end of 1992, will preside over 340 million consumers. A central bank and a single currency is proposed, as well as a political union. A unified foreign policy under EC would give the U.S. serious trade competition.

As we move further into the Time of Trouble we realize conditions must get worse before it can get better - before the long sought peace is a reality when Christ’s Kingdom is established on earth. From the Scriptures we know that the conditions prior to the birth of the Kingdom are likened to travail before a natural birth when the pangs come more frequently and more severely until the birth. We expect world-wide revolution to increase in magnitude leading to Anarchy until the final phase of Jacob’s last trouble is upon us.

As Brother Hoefle has often said of these troublous times, “If the Lord doesn’t hold us by the hand, we are in serious trouble.” Zeph. 2:3 tells us to “Seek ye the Lord, all ye meek of the earth, which have wrought his judgment; seek righteousness, seek meekness: it may be ye shall be hid in the day of the Lord’s anger.” (Contributed)

IN RELIGION

Billy Graham: Someone asked Billy Graham, “Do you think the world is going to get better and better in the future?” His answer: “The Bible doesn’t promise that the world is going to get better and better. in fact, it indicates that ‘there will be terrible times in the last days.! (2 Tim. 3:1)

“Yes, we may see (for example) more scientific or medical progress as time goes on, or even periods of relative peace, and we should be thankful for this. But at the same time we may devise more ways of killing each other. Jesus warned ‘You will hear of wars and rumors of war... Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom... Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of many will grow cold’ (Matt. 24:6,7,12)

“Our greatest need is to turn to Christ and allow him to change our hearts – for only Christ can replace our hate and selfishness with love and compassion. And yes – some day our world will know peace, when Christ comes again to establish his kingdom of righteousness and peace.” (Orlando Sentinel, December 7, 1991)

We commend Dr. Graham for giving the comforting message that the world will have peace in Christ’s Kingdom. Even though, as he truly says any period of peace before the end of this Time of Trouble will be temporary because man cannot accomplish permanent peace to the world. So we continue to pray the prayer the Lord gave us: “Thy Kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth as it is done in heaven.”

God loves the world and He knows that the Adversary, who is the prince of this world, is blinding the minds of the people (2 Cor. 4:4). “Darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people.” (Isa. 60:2) It will be different in that glorious Kingdom. “For the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.” (Hab. 2:14) “He shall minister judgment to the people in uprightness.” (Psa. 9:8)

“Because He hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead.” (Acts 17:31) God’s promises are sure. He is faithful that promised (Heb. 10:23).

That day will not come until after this Time of Trouble is over. God has a controversy with the powers that be. “And I will shake all nations, and the desire [for peace] of all nations will come: and I will fill this house with glory, saith the Lord.” (Hag. 2:7) The earth is God’s footstool and He will make His footstool glorious.

In the Faith Age the way is “narrow” and difficult, and “few there be that find it.” (Matt. 7:14)  Our Lord is selecting a people for His Name (Acts 15:14) to bless the world in the Kingdom. God has prepared an easier way for the world – a Highway of Holiness that all can walk who learn to love righteousness and hate iniquity.

“And an highway shall be there, and a way [the Messiah], and it shall be called The way of holiness: the unclean shall not pass over it: but it shall be for those the way­faring men, though fools [the atheists – Psa. 14:1], shall not err therein.” (Isa. 35:8) Those who will not obey that prophet will be cut off from among the people (Acts 3:23).

Jehovah’s Witnesses – In the Watchtower of May 1, 1991, the Witnesses give their version of the “pure language” of Zeph. 3:9 as follows: “The pure language is the truth of God found in his own Word, the Holy Scriptures. It is the particular truth regarding God’s Kingdom which will bring peace and other blessings to mankind.” (pp. 12,13)

Of course, the truth is “pure language” in any Age. But the truth given when due for the Household of Faith is not the whole truth. Enough truth is given in each Age for the Household of Faith to make their calling and election sure. But the “pure language” of Zeph. 3:9 is the entire truth as described in Rev. 20:12 to be given in the Kingdom. Many of the Lord’s faithful people in the Dark Ages knew very little truth. But they were given enough truth to be faithful in their standing before God. They will know all the truth in the First Resurrection. The Lord’s people in the end of the Age were given much more truth ‘ enough for them to be faithful. They were given the truth on the two salvations and other important truths to witness to the world the Plan of Salvation for all mankind. They, too, will be given all truth in the First Resurrection so they will be capable ministers for the world under the New Covenant.

All truth is a matter of the future in the Kingdom. The faithful Restitutionists will know more truth then than we now know. Brother Russell said the whole Bible will not be understood by the faithful now – but enough for them to make their calling and election sure. “And I saw the dead [world], small and great, stand before God; and the books [the Bible] were opened (understood]: and another book was opened, which is the book of life [for Restitutionists]: and the dead [world] were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works.” (Rev. 20:12)

All Bible Students know that the dead are the world which includes those who have gone into the grave and those living. Some of the dead world will survive the Time of Trouble into the Kingdom when it is inaugurated. The Bible clearly says that the violent phase will be cut short, otherwise there would be no flesh saved (Matt. 24:22). Just nothing says that only Jehovah’s Witnesses Great Crowd will be saved, but there may be some of the Witnesses who will live through along with others of the surviving dead world.

The Witnesses say the “pure language” is the particular truth regarding God’s Kingdom which will bring peace and other blessings to mankind. It is that “particular truth” regarding God’s Kingdom that they have grossly perverted. They tell us they are God’s organization, but God’s organization does not present error. He has no organization in this “evil day” (Eph. 6:13) to separate the sheep and the goats – the good and the evil of this present generation. In that day (Acts 17:31) he will “judge the world in righteousness” – when righteousness shall prevail. Today unrighteousness prevails. There are so many systems of error, the Witnesses included, which keep the people confused. And not many are able to “endure sound doctrine” (2 Tim. 4:3). But in His Kingdom there will be no error taught. “For the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord.” (Isa. 11:9) “When thy judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness.” (Isa. 26:9)

In the Faith Age it is a narrow way, but in the Kingdom there will be a Highway of Holiness. (Isa. 35:8 – Isaiah Chapter 35 is a beautiful picture of the Kingdom.) The Scriptures clearly teach that there will be a Time of Trouble before God turns over a “pure language” to the people.

“Therefore wait ye upon me, saith the Lord, until the day that I rise up to the prey: for my determination is to gather the nations, that I may assemble the kingdoms, to pour upon them my indignation, even all my fierce anger: for all the earth shall be devoured with the fire of my jealousy. For then will I turn to the people a pure language, that they may all call upon the name of the Lord, to serve him with one consent” (Zeph. 3: 8, 9)

There are many more Scriptures we could quote, but these are enough to refute this gross error of the Witnesses. They are now teaching the “pure language” of Zeph. 3:9, according to their claim. They are saying by their acts and teaching that “The Lord Delayeth,” and they have set up a kingdom of their own - a counterfeit kingdom. The Witnesses blaspheme the Name of the Lord when they teach that all who do not join them before Armageddon will be annihilated in Armageddon – never to receive a resurrection.

 Dear Sister Hoefle: Warmest greetings in the bonds of Christ!

Heartily we join with David’s expression of praise in Psalm 145! By this note we send you “Thanks” for the book, Pastor Charles Taze Russell, An Early American Christian Zionist.   Chapter 2 deals with a resume of Pastor Russell and his approach to the Scriptures. If I remember correctly the book says, “God’s return to earth.” [The book does say that.] It is not clear to me whether this is a direct quote from the Herzl Yearbook or was an interpolation from the source used by Mr. Horowitz. Either way it is an unfortunate and misleading statement. Of course, we are not alone to recognize the implication of the Trinity in this statement. This foolish doctrine cripples everyone who espouses it... We commend the Jewish people for their belief that God is one – “HEAR, 0 ISRAEL THE LORD OUR GOD IS ONE.” I know, dear Sister, you will agree with me in this. I know, too, that you can’t get the Herzl Yearbook changed! But perhaps with Mr. Horowitz’s permission, an “addendum of correction” might be inserted in subsequent distributions of the book. It would honor the character of our dear Pastor whose pursuit was “The Truth”; it would emphasize his and our separateness from Nominal Christendom; and it might suggest to the Jewish reader a basis of fraternal unity which we as Bible Students surely feel.

[To our readers who have the Pastor Russell book, please make the correction on p. 25, last line of par. 1, “God’s return to earth.” Instead of God, you may put our Lord or our Redeemer. “God’s return to earth” is not our Pastor’s teaching and is a dishonor to his name.]

An American family came to visit Tel Arad yesterday. At the conclusion of their visit the father began discussing the methods of dating antiquities, on the “days” of creation, the flood and finally expounded on the Valian Theory. I then made bold to ask him what was his faith? “I’m a Jehovah’s Witness,” he responded. I showed him the Pastor Russell book. Excitedly he called his family. The Young girl told me there were two families of Russellites in our town. I asked her if she would like to take the book to read. She seemed appreciative and eager to read it. Why is it, when I talk to J.W.’s I get the feeling they have studied to be super-salesmen – trained to foist on a gullible public a product neither useful nor desirable?

When you wrote that the Pastor Russell book had been the means of helping many J.W.’s, did you think I would put it to immediate usefulness? I would not have thought So!

Israel today, its infrastructure, its industries, its agriculture, are the result of toil and sweat – not on the part of the haredim but of secular and believing Jews. The last are trinitarians of a different sort: God, the Jews and the land of Israel. They pray, they labor, and they defend the country. Israelites indeed! It is not hard for me to imagine them seeing “Joseph” as their brother long before the fore-mentioned Rabbis are even willing to open their eyes.

There was a third point, but mercifully, dear Sister, I’ve forgotten what it was! Perhaps I will recall it for a later writing.

By Grace, Fervently in Christ, Brother Jack Campbell (ARAD, ISRAEL)

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Dear Brother Miles,

I feel I can call you Brother for after reading your book “Don’t Call me Brother,” I’m part of the family.

I was a Jehovah’s Witness for 21 and a half years. And though I never witnessed the sexual discrepancies you did, I’ve suffered the gossip and shunning you have. I was disfellowshipped after serving the Watchtower for all those years.

I truly believed it was God’s organization. My husband used to beg me to stop studying with these people, but I believed he was a “tool of Satan.” The reason I was disfellowshipped? Because I could not preach 1974 Armageddon. I can sympathize with you. But maybe Rose Marie will read the book. My husband is dead, so he will never know how sorry I was, and am. [Her husband will know in the Kingdom.] I was “chucked out” a year after he died. My daughter and grandchildren are told not to talk to me. They are still in “Bondage.”

I am afraid to trust any religion now. I believe in the Lord Jesus Christ but I am too tired at 62 years old to study and learn. All I know is “He died for me,” and I don’t care where I go. If He wants to use me I’ve told Him, I’m willing. But how, when and where, is His decision. As long as He gives me strength and wisdom to do His will – not Man! Sincerely, I remain, Grace Gough.

 PS - I’m thinking about writing a book entitled YOU USED TO CALL ME SISTER.

 (SETTING THE CAPTIVES FREE, pp. 90,91, by Austin Miles)

Remarks by Austin Miles: “This is why, even after a severe burning and an earnest attempt to leave the church, the devotees will still try to hang onto religion, any religion. Church brainwashing is difficult to counteract. It takes real strength, and sometimes outside help, to break away.”

“Episcopal Church Fears Schism By Traditionalists: New York – A tradi­tionalist group has cast aside entreaties of head bishop in the Episcopal Church, vowing to proceed with a plan that has raised fears of schism. Leaders of the traditional group, the Episcopal Synod of America, say they will go ahead with plans to challenge structures of authority. The traditionalists are angry that liberal bishops have ordained women and practicing homosexuals in violation of church resolutions. In a statement released by Episcopal Church headquarters, Bishop Edmond Browning, top bishop of the Episcopal Church, did not say what disciplinary action, if any, might be taken against Episcopalians who form a new ?missionary diocese.’” (Orlando Sentinel, November 21, 1991)

‘The Word Of God: CAI has distributed 7000 free New Testaments in Southern Africa. These have been sent out in the mail over 10 years following advertisements in newspapers. Additionally 5000 Bibles were sponsored by a member through the Israel Bible Society. SA BIBLE DISTRIBUTION: In a nation-wide campaign R7.5M ($2.7M) was collected to buy 900,000 Bibles to be distributed free by the SA Bible Society. Many lives are bound to be transformed by having God’s Word to study.” (Christian Action for Israel, P.O. Box 5242, Cape Town 8000, SOUTH AFRICA – “Our Newsletter is free to all upon request.”)

“Ailing Pravda Sees The Light – It’ll Print The Bible: Moscow – After more than 70 years of opposition, Pravda, the giant and very official Communist party publishing house, has decided to give the masses their opiate. It plans to print the Bible. All in the name of capitalism, of course. “Business, “ explained Mikhail M. Troschin, Pravda’s deputy director, “is business.”

“Right now, business is bad. Pravda, the big party newspaper, dropped in circulation last year to 5 million from 10 million. Magazines such as Party Life and Political Self­-Education also have stumbled.

“With the cost of paper rising daily, Pravda knew it needed a best-seller. Providentially, the patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church, Alexis II, told Pravda that he was interested in placing an order for Bibles. ‘Demand for the Bible is very great,’ Troschin said Thursday. He acknowledged that the desire for the Bible might always have been there, ‘but for some political purposes, it wasn’t published.’

“One of the political purposes just might have involved Lenin, who called religion a ‘deception, a fraud, which clogs the brains of the workers and peasants in the interest of the landlords and capitalists.’ Marx had called it the opiate of the masses.

“Today, the Communists are the landlords and are trying mightily to catch on to capitalism. The printing house wants to keep its 2 billion-ruble-a-year empire intact. The Bible looks like the answer to Pravda’s prayer.

“‘We could do 5 to 10 million and it would sell easily,’ Troschin said. ‘The demand is really great.’

“The officially set price, if prices are still officially set when the Bible comes out, will be about 15 rubles, or around $27. But, Troschin predicted, ‘it will immediately appear in the black market for 70 to 150 rubles.’” (Baltimore Sun)

“How interesting. I refer to Myriam Marquez’s comment in her column ‘Separation of church and state is simple – except to zealots.’

“To wit: ‘If atheists don’t believe in God, then you would think they would simply view the Bible as a collection of fairy tales written by men whose diet of wild desert berries caused all sorts of hallucinations. Indeed, how could the mere presence of the Bible – it’s not required university reading, after all – ‘insult’ anyone?’

“This is a very logical, secular observation. What makes it interesting to a student of Scripture is the knowledge that the Bible ‘ its words, its ‘presence,’ its very existence, from Genesis to Revelation – does indeed insult someone. That ‘someone’ is Satan.” (Karen Hanson, Orlando Sentinel, April 12, 1991)

The Man Who Dares To Doubt Darwin: Imagine what sort doubts Charles Darwin’s magisterial theory of evolution and what do you come up with? Hillbilly Bible-pounders in bare feet. Talks in tongues and handles rattlesnakes.

Yet here stands the polished and erudite Phillip Johnson, 50, who went to Harvard and clerked for Chief Justice Warren before joining the law faculty at the University of California at Berkeley. He’s the author of a small, elegant book that asks the question: Is evolutionary theory really a screwball idea promoted by fanatics?

The Scopes trial in Tennessee in 1925, when Clarence Darrow made aged Bible literalist and windbag William Jennings Bryan look like a dope, formalized the status of “The Origin of the Species” as one of the intellectual pillars of the modern world view.

Darwinian theory holds that life started as a microbe, maybe in the primordial sea billions of years ago when a bolt of lightning made the water sizzle and started a chemical reaction producing something that looked like a germ.

All living things – bottom-feeding scum to finger-steepling Nobel Prize winner ­trace lineage back to that. Once emerged from the ooze, our ancestors survived by being fittest. They scaled evolutionary ladders, rung by slow rung, over so many millennia it makes the bead ache to think about it. Species branched off, which is why some living things are brain surgeons driving Mercedes today and others are dung beetles.

As a way of explaining things – God having gotten the hook in favor of a random chance by most lab guys in white coats – this theory seemed pretty good. In the nation’s school textbooks Darwin and his theory had, well, very nearly scriptural authority.

Those who questioned the orthodoxy generally got the horse laugh when they appeared before school boards and curriculum committees to enter their demurs. The California State Board of Education, though hard-pressed by creationist elements pushing the hand-of-­God line, defined evolution theory as “an accepted scientific explanation and therefore no more controversial in scientific circles than the theories of gravitation and electron flow.”

Among learned classes, questioning Darwinian dogma is an invitation to professional suicide.   Oxford zoologist Richard Dawkins, one of the most influential modern new ­Darwinists, laid down the law: “It is absolutely safe to say that if you meet somebody who claims not to believe in evolution, that person is ignorant, stupid or insane (or wicked, but I’d rather not consider that).”

“I’m not easily intimidated,” says Johnson, author of “Darwin on Trial” (Regenery, $19.95).  A book for laymen, it illumines what he describes as the grave doubts about Darwinism long entertained in scientific circles but not talked about in front of outsiders for fear of giving aid and comfort to religious zealots.

Johnson, a churchgoing Presbyterian and an expert in rhetoric and the techniques of argument, said he was struck by the way Darwinists defend their theory. For all the outer imperturbability, they seemed to him to have a nervousness of people who have something to hide.

When Darwin’s theory was published a century ago, there was one class even more hostile to it than the clergy. These were fossil experts, who pointed out there was no sign of the links connecting primitive with more advanced species that Darwin said would be in evidence of gradual evolution. His expectation, in fact, was that most fossils would fall into this transitional category.

Despite the passage of 100 years, Johnson says this still hasn’t happened. Johnson says neo-Darwinist paleontoligist Stephen Jay Gould concedes “the trade secret of paleontology” is “the extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record.”

Rather than obliging Darwinian theory, the fossil record shows the sudden appearances of species, such as at the start of the Cambrian Age when complex life forms appeared during a relative wink of time. Further confounding the theory, Johnson says, life remained unchanged for millions of years rather than evolving. As tellingly, the rocks suggest species extinction was caused by catastrophes such as falling asteroids rather than by gradual obsolescence, as Darwinists expected.

“Plenty of fossils of intermediate forms have been found,” including a whale with what appears to be legs, says Thomas Jukes, a Berkeley professor of biophysics who has tangled with Johnson in the past and expects to give his book a good thumping in a forthcoming review for an alumni publication.

“Intermediate forms are also studied today by molecular evolution, which shows that all organisms may be “intermediate forms,” Juke says... “I think he hasn’t done his homework.”

Johnson has dug up some interesting tidbits. One is a lecture given in 1981 by British paleontologist Colin Patterson at the American Museum of Natural History:

Stepping From the Ranks: “Can you tell me anything that you know about evolution, any one thing... that is true? I tried that question on the geology staff at the Field Museum of Natural History and the only thing I got was silence. I tried it on the members of the Evolutionary Morphology seminar at the University of Chicago, a very prestigious body of evolutionists, and all I got there was silence for a long time and eventually one person said, ‘I do know one thing – it ought not to be taught in high school.,”

The furious storm that followed the lecture caused Patterson later to recant, which Johnson said shows how dangerous it is to step from the ranks.

“One of the things I’ve learned from experience is that to establish an intellectual orthodoxy and keep it beyond criticism, you don’t need concentration camps and secret police. All you have to do is say that people will laugh at you and you’ll lose your prestige. This has an enormous effect in academic life, where prestige and the respect of other professionals is the coin of the realm.”

One major university, Johnson said, retracted an invitation to sponsor a debate of his views when no one could be found to take him on... Says Johnson, “I regard the cosmos and the living world as the product of a pre-existent, purposeful intelligence. This provides what I would call the metaphysical space for the proposition that life has a purpose outside what we might invent for ourselves and that value and aesthetic questions have right and wrong answers, so there can be an objective quality to statements about morality and ethics.”

Retorts Jukes: “Bring on the flying saucers, astrology and extrasensory perception. How sad that a professor of law should argue on behalf of a degradation of the intellect.” (By Jerry Carroll, Staff Writer, San Francisco Chronicle, June 14, 1991)

“For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, He taketh the wise in their own craftiness.” (1 Cor. 3:19) “O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and opposition of science falsely so called.” (1 Tim. 6:20)

The creation of six days is a period of time and not 24-hour days. “For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night.” (Psa. 90:4) “But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.” (2 Peter 3:8)

We have papers on Evolution and the Creative Days which we will be glad to send anyone, copies free, upon request.

NO. 428: BLESSED IS THE KING

No. 428

“And they that went before, and they that followed, cried, saying, Hosanna; Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord: Blessed be the Kingdom of our father David, that cometh in the name of the Lord: Hosanna in the highest.” (Mark 11: 9, 10) The multi­tude hailed Him King, but a few days later they cried, Crucify Him! “And Pilate answered and said again unto them, What will ye then that I shall do unto Him whom ye call the King of the Jews? And they cried out again, Crucify Him.” (Mark 15:12,13)

The message of John the Baptist was, “The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.” This same message Jesus instructed His disciples to carry from village to village throughout Palestine. This same message was the burden of His preaching and the theme of His parables. Finally, at the close of His ministry, the Kingdom came to the Jewish nation in the sense that it was offered to them – it was theirs for the accepting. Thus “He came unto His own, and His own received Him not” – except a few. His own nation rejected Him, and four days later crucified Him. A little later, at Pentecost, a few who received Him were begotten of the Holy Spirit and became the nucleus of Spiritual Israel, in preparation for the glorious Kingdom and the work which is to be accomplished at His Second Advent.

On the second evening preceding the story of this lesson, Jesus and His disciples were at Bethany, the guests of Lazarus, Martha and Mary, who had prepared a special feast for Jesus, whom they loved so dearly. This was the Lazarus whom He had awakened from the sleep of death but a short time before. The feast took place at the close of the Jewish Sabbath day. The next morning corresponded to our Sunday, the first day of the week, and on Monday Jesus made His triumphal entry into Jerusalem.

In preparation for presenting Himself as King, Jesus sent two of His disciples for an ass’s colt, telling them where they would find it, and instructing them to say that it would be returned after the Master had used it. By the time the colt arrived, a considerable multitude had gathered – people of the village of Bethany and others who had come out from Jerusalem, about two miles distant, to see Jesus and to see Lazarus, upon whom the notable miracle had been wrought. It had long been the custom of the kings of Israel to ride to their coronation upon an ass; and the multitude seemed to enter into the spirit of this occasion and to realize what it meant that Jesus was about to ride into Jerusalem on this colt. It signified that finally He was ready to assume the office of King.

For some time the disciples had recognized Him as the Messiah, the glories of whose Reign they were to share; and the multitude in general had learned so to regard Him, saying, “When Messiah cometh, will He do greater works than this man?” – could we expect anything more of Messiah than we see being accomplished by this man Jesus? But this was the first time Jesus had formally put Himself forward. On previous occasions, when they had sought to take Him by force to make Him a king, He had withdrawn Himself, realizing that the time was not yet come. Now, so far from withdrawing, He was taking the active part, sending for the colt, preparing for the triumphal ride to the capital of the 14/15/2014nation as its King.

We may be sure that the hearts of the Apostles thrilled with excitement as they thought of the nearness of their Master’s glory and of their own share in it; for as yet they did not realize the full import of His words to the effect that He must be crucified and must depart to a “far country,” even Heaven itself, and be invested with authority, and later return to establish the Kingdom which would bless the world. Jesus, however, was fully aware that the presentation of Himself as King was a formal matter, fulfilling the prophecy and leaving the nation of Israel without excuse. If, when He entered the city, the people should rise en masse, acknowledge Him and acclaim Him, then indeed they would be in line with the Divine requirements which would bring them the greatest of all blessings. But Jesus knew that prophecy had already declared that He would be despised and rejected, and that His own people would hide their faces from Him in shame. (Isa. 5) The journey and the preparation for it, therefore, meant something very different to Jesus from what it signified to the disciples and the multitudes.

ENTERING JERUSALEM

When the ass arrived, some of the people put their garments upon it in lieu of a saddle; Jesus mounted and the procession began. Some went before Him, and some followed after. The people were familiar with the prophecy relating to Messiah’s coming, which declared, “Shout, 0 daughter of Jerusalem! behold, thy King cometh unto thee: He is just and having salvation; Lowly, and riding upon an ass.” (Zech. 9:9) They were familiar also with the “shout” the prophets had foretold and the responses – one party crying, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is the King of Israel, that cometh in the name of the Lord!” Then the response, “Hosanna in the highest!” These different expressions are recorded by the different evangelists.

But not all were enthusiastic acclaimers of Jesus; a discordant note was heard. Some of those who had come from the city through curiosity criticized the shouting, and wondered why Jesus did not rebuke the people for ascribing so great honor to Him. They sent word to this effect to Jesus through His disciples. Jesus made answer that a great prophecy was being fulfilled. The Prophet Zechariah had by inspiration said, “Shout, 0 daughter of Jerusalem!” and such a shout must be made.  Jesus declared that if the multi­tudes had failed to shout, the prophecy would still have been fulfilled – the very stones would have cried out. The record tells that on the journey many of the people strewed their garments in the way, as a mark of respect and honor, waiting until the little animal had passed over them, and then running on before and placing them again. Others brought ferns, flowers and grasses, and strewed them on the way. Still others, John’s Gospel tells us, brought palm tree branches.

It was a jubilant procession, fulfilling the prophecy of Zechariah. Yet to Jesus it had the sad feature, as indicated by the account. When they had reached the turn of the Mount of Olives, which brought Jerusalem into view, the Master halted the procession while He looked over the city and wept, saying “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, which killest the Prophets, and stonest them that are sent unto thee; how often would I have gathered thy children together, as a hen doth gather her brood under her wings, and ye would not! Behold, your House is left unto you desolate: and verily I say unto you, Ye shall see me no more, until that Day [over nineteen centuries later] when ye shall say, Blessed is He that cometh in the name of Jehovah!” (Luke 13:34,35) Jesus realized that day was a turning point with the Jewish nation – that their rejection of Him meant their rejection by the Heavenly Father for a long time. It meant that during those long centuries the highly favored people of Abraham’s natural seed would be in distress.  It meant that the favor of God, which had been with them for centuries, would instead be extended to the Gentiles, to gather out of the Gentiles a company of faithful, saintly ones to be associ­ates and joint-heirs with Jesus and the faithful ones of the Jews in the Heavenly Kingdom. It meant that not until this elect, Heavenly, spiritual Kingdom class should be received to glory would the Jewish people be again received into fellowship with God. St. Paul markedly calls our attention to this fact that the rejection of Israel is not permanent, but only for a time – only until the complete number of faithful Saints be gathered out from amongst the Gentiles. Then God’s favor will go to Israel, and all earth’s families. (Rom. 11:25–32)

THE KINGS OF THIS WORLD

How different was this entry of Jesus, the Prince of Peace, from the triumphal marches of earthly conquerors and kings! In the excitement of human passion and the prejudice of human minds a special halo of glory has surrounded the world’s conquerors. Heroic deeds, valiant conquests, as pictured by historians have a charm. The rising generation reads with thrilling interest of the prowess of Alexander the Great, of the Spartans of Greece, of the Caesars of Rome, and in more modern times of Robert Bruce, of Napoleon and Wellington, of Generals Grant and Lee, Sherman and Johnson, Sheridan and Steward. The homecomings of all of these were triumphal marches, in many cases rendering honor to whom honor was due.

Nevertheless, in every instance the mind’s eye necessarily closes against scenes which led up to such triumphs. We try to forget the millions of slain and wounded, and other millions of mourning widows and orphans. We try to forget the smoking ruins of homes behind those victorious armies.  However necessary war at times may seem to be for the maintenance of justice, nevertheless all must concede that the blessings purchased by the sword are procured at a terrible cost. From this viewpoint Jesus, the Prince of Peace, followed by an army of saints who are walking in His footsteps, presents a beautiful picture – even to the worldly. These victors – Leader and followers – conquer by dying.  Thus Jesus said to His followers, “Whosoever will save his life shall lose it; and whosoever shall lose his life for My sake and the Gospel’s shall find it.” (Mark 8:35) Thus viewed, all the followers of the Lamb are self-sacrificers, as the Bible declares: “I beseech you, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.” (Rom. 12:1) Such a victory – victory through death – is difficult for the majority of people to understand! What is the philosophy of it? Where is the victory?

VICTOR–KINGS THROUGH DYING

Well may it be asked, Wherein is the victory of Christ and His followers in laying down their lives for the brethren and in support of truth and righteousness? Only the Bible answers the question, and only those who exercise faith can understand the Bible answer. The Bible declares that the real victory of Christ and the Church is over self. Their crowning day is future – their triumph will be then.  The triumphal entry of Jesus on the ass was only typical. The antitype will be glorious – beyond the veil. As Jesus after His resurrection was “received up into glory,” so also He has promised His Church that their resurrection shall change them from imperfect human beings to perfect spirit beings, joint–heirs with their Master, their Redeemer, in the glorious Millennial Kingdom which is to bless the world.

After Jesus had risen from the dead, He explained to His perplexed disciples what His death signified, saying, “Ought not Christ to have suffered these things (death], and to enter into His glory?” (Luke 24:26) So St. Paul has declared in respect to all who will be Jesus’ associates in the Kingdom – they must suffer with Him if they would reign with Him; they must be dead with Him if they would live with Him. (2 Tim. 2:12) Christ and His Church die to human hopes and interests, present and everlasting – laying down their lives, suffering for righteousness’ sake. Their reward is two-fold: (1) Their own personal exaltation to a Heavenly, spirit glory, like unto the angels, and yet more glorious – “far above angels, principalities and powers and every name that is named.” (2) The Kingdom glory – the joy of being the Divine agents for human restoration.

From this, the Bible viewpoint, the Christian warfare is different from every other warfare known to the world. It is a fight against sin, a fight against self-will, a full submission to the Divine will, a victory through death. “Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life.” (Rev. 2:10) “To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with Me in My Throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with My Father in His Throne.” (Rev. 3:21) No wonder that a proposition of this kind is but imperfectly understood by the world! “The world knoweth us not, even as it knew Him not.” (1 John 3:1) And this is one of the requirements of the Gospel, that Jesus and His followers shall submit themselves to be misunderstood by the world. We are counted fools for Christ’s sake. (1 Cor. 4:10)

It requires some stamina to be a loyal follower in the footsteps of Jesus, mis­understood as He was misunderstood by those of His day, reviled as He was reviled. “They shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for My sake.” (Matt. 5:11) It is only when we understand through God’s promises that in these trying experiences of Christ and His followers there is a glorious purpose, that we are able to endure them with any measure of rejoicing. Only these are granted glory, honor and immortality, and the Kingdom which the Lord has promised to His faithful followers. Since Jesus is the Prince of Peace, how shall we understand the various passages of Scripture which refer to Him as a mighty Conqueror in blood–stained garments, taking vengeance on His foes? But especially, how shall we understand the declaration that, at His coming in the clouds of heaven, all the tribes of the earth shall wail because of Him?

Of this Prince of Peace it may be said that He will wound to heal, that whatever disasters He may bring or permit to come upon the world will be so overruled as to make of them blessings in disguise. Undoubtedly much that is said respecting our Lord is highly symbolic. For instance, He is to smite the nations with the Sword that proceedeth out of His mouth – the Word, or Message, of Truth.  Such a smiting is in full conformity with the declaration that when St. Peter preached the Gospel at Pentecost, some of his hearers were “cut to the heart” – not with St. Peter’s literal sword, but with “the Sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God.” Eventually, that Sword will smite all opponents of righteousness for their good. Only the willfully wicked will eventually be destroyed in the Second Death. We are not to forget, however, that the inauguration of the Messianic Kingdom is to be in the midst of the Time of Trouble, and that Christ will have to do with the bringing, or at least the permitting, of that Trouble. Apparently mankind will be permitted to bring the great trouble at the end of this Age upon themselves. There are forces of evil, Satan and His angels, ready to do us harm and, through human forces, sin-forces entrenched in human nature, ready to do harm to the social fabric.

The New Covenant is the Scriptural name for the new arrangement between God and man which will be instituted at the beginning of the Age to follow this, and by which God purposes to receive the world of mankind again into favor with Himself. The covenant relationship which Adam originally enjoyed with his Maker, and its resultant harmony with Him, was contingent upon obedience to the expressed will of God, and was forfeited by disobedience. This covenant relationship with God was renewed typically at Mount Sinai, with Israel (Ex. 19:1-9; 24:3-8). Through Moses as      mediator, God promised that if Israel would keep His Law they should have everlasting life. The inauguration of that Law Covenant was effected by their mediator, within six months after Israel left Egypt, through the sacrifices of bulls and of goats, the children of Israel solemnly agreeing to their part of the covenant. Later the Atonement Day sacrifices were repeated year by year continually; “for the blood of bulls and goats could never take away sin.” (Heb. 10:1-9) Israel failed to gain the blessing promised in their Law Covenant. God foreknew that Israel would fail; but through their endeavors He was giving an object lesson which in the future would be a lasting blessing to Israel and to the whole world.

God will introduce this new Law Covenant through the Mediator of the New Covenant, Christ Jesus, in whom the entire arrangement centers, and through whom it will be carried out. He will be assisted in this work by the Church. This New Covenant will succeed, because of its better Mediator.  And He will be not only Mediator, but Priest, Prophet, King and Judge. As Priest, He will uplift and bless humanity and receive their offerings. As King, He will rule mankind in righteousness; as Prophet He will teach them; as Judge, He will test them, decide and pass sentence, favorable or unfavorable. It will require the full thousand years to bring the people out of their condition of death and degrada­tion, to restore whosoever will of all mankind to the image and likeness of God, lost by Adam in Eden.

The Scriptures tell us that “out of Zion shall go forth the Law, and the Word of the Lord from Jerusalem.” (Isa. 2:3; Micah 4:2) So Jerusalem will then be the capital of the world, and the Ancient and Youthful Worthies will be made “princes in all the earth. (Psa. 45:16) This arrangement will appeal first and primarily to the Jew, who would naturally be the first to come under the new regulations, because a nucleus of these Jews who were faithful to the Law Covenant, will be in Jerusalem when the Kingdom is inaugurat­ed. The Scriptures tell us they will be humbled by the last phase of Jacob’s trouble in Jerusalem, and they will “cry unto the Lord in their trouble, and he saveth them out of their distresses. He sent his word, and healed them, and delivered them from their destructions.” (Psa. 107:19,20) They will then recognize their Messiah, and will become the most active and zealous missionaries of the Kingdom. They will receive their instruc­tions first-hand from the Worthies in Jerusalem, and will then appreciate the Lord’s promise to them: “Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake. I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts: and will be their God, and they shall be my people.” (Jer. 31:31-34)

We may not say that all the Jews will do so, but that this will be true of at least a considerable number of them. Quite a few have become infidels – unbelievers of God’s promises: “For he is not a Jew, which is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh.” (Rom. 2:28) There are many well-meaning people among the Gentiles who have not taken the vow of consecration to the Lord. They have accepted Jesus as their Savior, and have practiced righteousness to the best of their ability; but have not taken the second step of full consecration to the Lord, because the narrow way was too difficult for them: “Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it” (Matt. 7:14) during the reign and ascendancy of sin and evil These Gentiles will be the first to join with the Jews and become Israelites – and like the Jews, they will become faithful and zealous missionaries of the Kingdom. We refer to these Gentiles as the quasi-elect, just as the Jews who were faithful to the Law Covenant are quasi-elect Jews.

In that day “The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them; and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose. It shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice even with joy and singing; the glory of Lebanon shall be given unto it, the excellency of Carmel and Sharon, they shall see the glory of the Lord, and the excellency of our God. And an highway shall be there, and a way, and it shall be called The way of Holiness; the unclean shall not pass over it; but it shall be for those: the wayfaring men, though fools, shall not err therein.” (Isa. 35:1,2,8) This Highway of Holiness will be an easy way for all who love righteousness, and we believe there will be many who find it – which is in contrast with a “narrow way” under the reign of sin and evil.

By the close of the Mediatorial Reign those who have responded and made earnest effort to advance will be brought to a condition of human perfection, as was Adam at the beginning. Then they must be subjected to the same loyalty as was Adam, with no Mediator between them and God’s justice. How many will maintain their loyalty under the test, and how many will lose out and suffer destruction, we cannot know because there will be some who have obeyed outwardly during the thousand years, but not inwardly – were not in heart-­harmony with righteousness.

Covenant relationship with God means perfection, either reckoned or actual. During the thousand years of Messiah’s Kingdom, mankind will be approaching actual perfection. The New Covenant, with all that goes with it, is the blessing which The Christ gives to mankind. It is God’s Covenant, and He has arranged that it shall go to the world through the Christ class, Head and Body.  These glorious things are clearly set forth in various types in the Old Testament, as well as plainly stated in the New Testament.

For instance, St. Paul explains that Isaac, the heir of Abraham, was a type of The Christ, Head and Body. Isaac did not receive his inheritance by a new covenant, but by the original Covenant with Abraham, as does the Church. (Gal. 3:8,16,29; 4:22–31) In Micah 4:1-4, we read: “In the last days... that Mountain [Kingdom] of the House of the Lord shall be established in the top of the mountains [kingdoms of earth]... and people shall flow unto it. And many nations shall come, and say, Come, and let us go up to the Mountain of the Lord, and to the House of the God of Jacob;  and He will teach us of His ways, and we will walk in His paths.” The succeeding verses of the chapter depict the influence that will be exerted. The blessings and prosperity will then be with those who will be in harmony with God. Now it is different, “All that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.” (2 Tim. 3:12) The world thinks that Christians, true followers of Jesus, are making their lives miserable. But the world is greatly mistaken on this matter. On the contrary, we are enjoying ourselves greatly, we are having a good time. We have much advantage every way, in spite of our afflictions; for we know that in a very little while our trials and afflictions will be over. We know that the glorious Kingdom of Messiah, in which, if faithful, we are to share, is about to be set up on the earth.

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OUR BLESSED HOPE

When’er the storms come down on thee,

And days of peace all seem to flee,

This thought thy peace again shall bring,

Why should I fear? – the Lord is King.

E’en when the tempest rages high,

And darkest clouds are drawing nigh,

With hands of faith to this, oh, cling,

Why should I fear? – the Lord is King.

Amid the stormy waves of life,

Above the tumult and the strife,

The chimes of hope still sweetly ring,

Be not afraid – the Lord is King.

Thy ship is toss’d by wind and wave,

But there is One whose power can save;

Across the sea He hastes to bring

Both rest and peace – the Lord is King.

Yes, Jesus walks upon the sea,

And in the storm He comes to thee;

Then trust in Him, rejoice and sing;

He calms the waves – the Lord is King.

He stretches out His hand to thee,

And from thy fears He sets thee free;

Beneath the shadow of His wing

He keeps thee safe – the Lord is King.

In the future Dispensation, God tells us, the tables will be turned. None of the wicked shall prosper. THEN whoever is unrighteous shall suffer, and whoever does righteously shall receive a blessing. (Psa. 37:1,2,7-17,22) NOW the wicked very often prosper, and the poor and needy and the good of earth are oppressed. When the Times of Restitution come to the world, all will be changed.  The result will be a clean universe in which everyone in heaven and on earth, and such as have been in the sea, the rebellious race, will glorify and praise the God of perfect wisdom, justice, love and power, and the Lamb that sitteth with Him on His throne forever and ever, saying, “Blessing, and honor, and glory, and power, be unto Him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb forever and ever.” (Rev. 5:13)

The basic concepts of the foregoing are from the “faith once delivered unto the saints” – and much of it is verbatim of their writings. As much of the beauty and harmony of the Truth has been distorted, set aside, and revolutionized against, since the demise of That Servant, it is our hope that what is presented herein will commend itself to all our readers and better enable them to appreciate the “Good Tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.” (Luke 2:10) “May that peace of God which surpasses all concep­tion, guard your hearts and your minds by Christ Jesus.” (Phil. 4:7, Dia.)

Our cordial good wishes to all for a Blessed Holiday Season – and “The blessing of the Lord, it maketh rich, and He addeth no sorrow with it.” (Prov. 10:22) (Brother Hoefle, Reprint 222, December 1973)

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LETTERS OF GENERAL INTEREST

Dear Brethren,

Wilbur has returned to Canada as of August 8. He enjoyed his visiting with you. He may be too caught up in his historical studies to show much interest in certain spiritual matters at this time, however.

Pastor Russell was certainly a fascinating man. I have a copy of his Photo-Drama of Creation on videotape. I appreciate the way he tied secular history with prophecy on the film.

I have a set of Watch Tower reprints from 1879-1916 that I purchased from the Chicago Bible Students. As to the Heavenly Calling, I am not dogmatic as to doctrine. The Lord knows those called to be with Him, and their reward will be self-evident in time. And rather than condemning the world of mankind who are not Jehovah’s Witnesses, I am striving as a Christian to love my neighbor as myself – not desiring anyone to be destroyed if at all possible.

Our greatest reward, I feel, is friendship with God. And what a wonderful Father and friend He is! And the greatest truth is that “God is love,” and that nothing can separate us from His love except ourselves. God bless you!

Christian love, ------- (NEW YORK)

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Dear Sister Hoefle: Christian greetings in the Name of our Blessed Lord and Savior!

Your letter was received with appreciation. I am not sure whether I have replied before now. If not, I apologize for not doing so.

I must now express my appreciation and gratitude for receipt of the fourth volume and for the thirty copies of The Divine Plan of the Ages. They were received in good order a few days ago. I shall reimburse you shortly. I am aware of the expense of books at this time.

I know you are hard-pressed in His service but the Lord has promised to give strength to His people. We thank God that the brethren here are in good spirit. Regarding Armageddon, I have always seen it as the Day of Vengeance, covering a span of time by three separate destructions – War, Revolution (Armageddon) and Anarchy. The editor’s preface gives a clear description of the time in which we are.

May the good Lord bless and keep you as you continue to serve Him. This is my daily prayer for you.

Yours by His Grace, ------- (JAMAICA)

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Dear Sister Hoefle,

I received our copies of the July/August on Zionism today and am enjoying them very much.  This is to let you know my correct address and tell you that Ora C. Lockwood has finished her course this side of the veil. She enjoyed your magazines for many years as did I also. I will leave you with Ruth 2:12.

Warm Christian love, ------- (MICHIGAN)

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Dear Friends: Greetings in the Name of our Risen Lord, Jesus Christ, and peace!

Clearing my study I came across  Numbers 419–A, 421, 422, 423, and 424 from Epiphany Bible Students Ass’n. I do appreciate the material but I must confess I do not remember how I came by it. I did read through them.

My request is simple, do you have any other publications besides the monthly letters? I’ve been away for one month and my desk was getting piled up before I left. I went to Holland, Michigan for the general Convention, and then to the class in Greenfield, Ohio. We (my family) then went to Wilmington, NC.

We (our class) here in Middleton, NY are eleven in number and are meeting on Sundays. We are almost through our Tabernacle Shadows study (about 1 and 1/2 years) and our Bible Study is currently in the eleventh Chapter of Hebrews.

Please convey our love to the brethren there and may He who has gone before us continue to direct all of our affairs.

Yours in His Service, ------- (NEW   YORK)

PS – We have the Pastor Russell book and have distributed quite a number of them in our area.

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Dear Sister Emily Hoefle and the Brethren:

We were very happy to receive the letter of July 16, 1991, and we heard with joy that the brethren in America made serious engagement and efforts for more understanding of Israel; that the Bush government should stop the godless endeavor to force the State of Israel to give up central parts of the Promised Land to the Arabs, a land that Israel received by Divine oath for eternal possession.

Already in the year 1918 when I was 18 years old, I had the great privilege to study the six Studies in the Scriptures of our honoured Pastor Russell. Already when I was 20 years old, I was invited by the Elders to serve as a Pilgrim Evangelist to serve the Holy Community assemblies in all the big German cities till the years 1933, when the Bible studies circle was forbidden by the Nazis.

Afterward I continued to serve the community in Austria till the year 1938. From 1938 till the year 1945 we hid in a mountain farm in Styria, Austria.

But during those years in war and cruel persecutions of Jews it became clear to me, that the time of Restitution of all Things had come and we were allowed to acquire a stony land in Israel, which we changed during 25 years into a Paradise, and which was often praised by the Israeli Press.  So that during many years some 300 thousand people have visited us to hear the lectures. It was raised to State Domain and I – age 90 – together with my devoted Brother Josef Schmidt, were declared Honorary Freemen (citizens) of Israel.

But more important for me, is that due to our work, especially also with Ministers, who are visiting us now, there was created a full understanding of God’s Plan, that Israel will be the first nation in the Restitution of All Things in God’s Kingdom, as our honoured Brother Russell predicted already in the first volume of the Studies in the Scriptures.

We greet all the brethren in America and remain connected in Christ’s love. Your brethren from Israel for Emek ha Shalom,

Brother Hermann Bezner (ISRAEL)

PS – We accept with pleasure your offer and kindly ask you to send us the video of Israel.

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NO. 427: THE GLORY OF GOD

No. 427

Most of our readers are familiar with the attributes of God – Justice, Wisdom, Love and Power. In 2 Tim. 1:7 we are told that “God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind”; but this is not God’s power in the full sense of that word. For us, it is not physical strength, as we recognize that many of the Lord’s people are very weak physically; but we are given will power. St. Paul is an outstanding example of this truth. The name his parents had given him was Saul, probably after Israel’s first king, who was a handsome physical specimen. “There was not one among the children of Israel a goodlier person than he: from his shoulders and upward he was higher than any of the people.” (1 Sam. 9:2) When he was anointed with the Holy Spirit Saul adopted the name of Paul which was more in keeping with his physique – ‘Paul’ meaning ‘little one.’ But in will power he was one of the strongest of whom we have any record, so he could well say the Lord has given us “the spirit of power.”

In 1 Tim. 1:5 Paul says, “The end of the commandment [the entire Bible] is love out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned.” This text thus treats of the four great attributes of God – not in all ways, but to inform us of his intention in making the statement. And he is telling us that the great purpose of God in all His dealings with His people through His spirit, Word and Providence is to develop in them Agape love – flowing out of, based upon and acting in harmony with power, justice and wisdom. These exact words are not used in the text; but he refers to them by calling attention to each one’s main ingredient or ingredients. By the expression “unfeigned faith” he is giving us in sufficiency two of the ingredients of wisdom – trust and truth. By “good conscience” the duty feature of justice is meant. By the expression “pure heart” the Apostle means a will fixed in good principles and executing them. Thus will be seen the relation of all three of these characteristics to agape love and its sources, bases and modifiers.

Therefore, agape love permeates and expresses itself in the various graces, as is succinctly shown in 1 Cor. 13:4-8: “Charity [agape “love) suffereth long [is very tolerant], and is kind [shows kindness wherever possible]; charity envieth not [is generously disposed – no covetousness]; charity vaunteth not itself [refrains from self-­praise – the Germans have a proverb, ‘Self–praise has a bad odor’], is not puffed up [displays a proper humility], behaveth not itself unseemly [always polite], seeketh not her own [selflessness – always striving to give to others a little more than we receive from them], is not easily provoked [literally, is not enraged or infuriated, forbearance – “a merry heart doeth good like a medicine: but a broken spirit drieth the bones” ­Prov. 17:22], thinketh no evil [without guile]; rejoiceth not in iniquity [abhors sin, never glad to see others indulging in evil], but rejoiceth in the truth [appreciates and delights in the Truth and its Spirit – always happy to see others prosper]; beareth [literally covereth] all things [ever ready to forgive], believeth all things [trustful­ness, always ready to give others the benefit of the doubt], hopeth all things [hopefulness, optimistic], endureth all things [patience, perseverance – stick–to-­itiveness]. Charity never faileth [permanency – something no one can take from us].”

Thus charity sourced, based and modified in wisdom, power and justice, enfolds in its ample embrace all of these graces, as well as every lower primary, secondary and tertiary grace.

It is probably in order here to consider how these four dominating graces ­especially love – carry on their domination over all our other affections, virtues and graces. They do this first by detaching our affections from lower and earthly things and attaching them to higher and heavenly things; secondly, by using our other affections, virtues and graces as servants of truth, righteousness and holiness. Thus, these – ­especially love – make our lower affections: love of self–esteem, of approbativeness, of rest, ofsecretiveness, of safety, of possessions, of self–defense, of aggressiveness, of nourishment, of health, of life, of friends, of home and country, of the opposite sex, of wife, of husband, of children, of parents, of brethren, serve truth, righteousness and holiness. Accordingly, if justice and love are the rulers, they develop respectively the lower primary virtues and graces of self-esteem, approbativeness, restfulness, secretiveness, cautiousness, providence, combativeness, aggressiveness, alimentiveness, vitativeness, sexliness, husbandliness, wifeliness, parentliness, filiality, brethren­liness, friendship, domesticity and patriotism.

Thirdly, they use our lower sentiments, especially humor as safety valves – vents. Fourthly, they, especially love, carry on this domination by suppressing the efforts that our lower affections and lower primary graces make to control us, and by such suppression develop the secondary virtues and graces.

It is written in Psa. 89:14 that “justice and judgment are the habitation of thy throne: mercy and truth shall go before thy face.” And, while the Divine attribute of Justice is prominently discussed in the Bible, it was not the first attribute that operated in the creation of the universe and the creation of man. St. Paul says in 1 Cor. 1:24: “Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God.” First of all God had to plan (wisdom) the universe: then His power was applied to carry out that plan. For man justice was the next attribute to appear when He expelled him from the Garden of Eden for disobedience; then came “the kindness and love of God.” (Titus 3:4)

In Reprints 4917 (Nov. 15, 1911) appears an excellent article on A Practical Self-examination Of Love, from which we quote a few paragraphs:

“Nothing in this signifies that one should neglect the caring for and providing in every way for those dependent upon him by the ties of nature, in order that he may do good to others. In every sense, ‘love begins at home.’ The proper thought, as we gather it, is that men and women, possessed of the spirit of perfect love, would not think exclusively of their own interest in any of the affairs of life. Put into exercise, this element of Love would have a great influence upon all the affairs of life, inside as well as outside the home and family.

“Have I the love which is good tempered, ‘not easily provoked’ to anger – love that enables me to see both sides of a question, that gives me the spirit of a sound mind, which enables me to perceive that exasperation and violent anger are not only unbecoming but, worse than that, injurious to those toward whom they may be directed, and also injurious in their effect upon my own heart and body?

“There may be times when love will need to be firm, almost to sternness and inflexibility, where principles are involved, where valuable lessons are to be inculcated; and this might come under the head of anger, using that word in a proper sense, in regard to a righteous indignation, exercised for a loving purpose, for doing good; but it should be exercised then only for a time. If justly angry we should see to it that we sin not either with our lips, or in our hearts, in which, at no time may we entertain any but loving and generous sentiments toward those who are our enemies, or toward those of our friends whom we would assist or instruct or correct.”

THE GREATEST OF THESE

In 1 Cor. 13:13, Dia., St. Paul tells us “these three remain – faith, hope, love – but the greatest of these is love.” Love in this text is from the Greek agape, which means good will motivated from unselfishness. It means doing good for the love of doing good; and such love is a refreshing and uplifting thing for all who come into contact with it.

In Rom. 5:3-5, Dia., we have this: “We triumph also in afflictions, knowing that afflictions works out endurance; and endurance approval; and approval hope; and this hope is not put to shame, because the love [agape] of God has been diffused in our hearts, through that Holy Spirit which has been given to us.” That spirit in the new spiritual will lays hold on our organs of veneration, benevolence and appreciation and exercises them toward God, Christ, the brethren, the world of mankind and enemies, and thereby cultivates all the graces mentioned in 1 Cor. 13:4–8.

This is the thought of Gal. 5:22, where the Apostle tells us that “the fruit of the spirit, the product of the new will, exercising our new spiritual capacities and affections is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith [fullness]. Thus, the full complete result of the Holy Spirit is a Godlike and Christlike character, disposition, mind, heart and will. Isa. 11:2-4 also tells us that the Holy Spirit gives us God’s disposition: “And the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord; and shall make him of quick understanding in the fear of the Lord: and he shall not judge after the sight of his eyes, neither reprove after the hearing of his ears: but with righteousness shall he judge the poor, and reprove with equity for the meek of the earth: and he shall smite the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips shall he slay the wicked.”

It would seem that the following from Reprints 5668 (April 15, 1915) is quite appropriate here.

THE SUM OF ALL GRACES

“‘And now abideth faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.’ (1 Cor. 13: 13) The Apostle Paul has just been referring to the various miraculous gifts of the Spirit then granted to all begotten of the Spirit to the new nature. Anyone lacking some such special gift at that time would thus manifest to all believers that he had not become a member of the Church of Christ. These supernatural gifts also served to assist the primitive Church in spiritual growth. They did not have the Bible in those days [the New Testament], and if they had possessed it, very few could have read it; hence, they needed special assistance which the Church afterward did not need and was later taken away.

“In this letter to the Church at Corinth, the Apostle, after discussing these various gifts, says, ‘And yet I show unto you a more excellent way.’ Then he proceeds to point out the super-excellence of the fruit of love. Whoever has the Holy Spirit must have a measure at least of this fruitage, whether it be the little flower that contains the fruit-bud or whether it be the partly developed fruit, the fully developed fruit or the ripened fruit. God our Father, who looks upon the heart, knows how His Holy Spirit in the heart is seeking to control the flesh, to guide the mind and all the words and actions. We are not able to judge one another’s hearts. The Apostle said that he did not feel able properly to judge even himself, but left judgment to the Lord. He knew that his heart was loyal and that he was endeavoring to be all that the Lord would have him be. Though he was conscious of his inability always to ‘do the things that he would,’ he knew that the Master would accept his loyalty of heart; so he would do his best and leave the remainder with God.

“Our faith and our hope in the Lord lead us to earnest endeavor to develop the fruitage of love in all its varied and beautiful phases. Gentleness is a part of love; meekness is a part of love; so also are humility and brotherly-kindness. The question at issue with each child of God is not, How tall and well-built am I? or, How fine-­looking or well-educated or well-connected am I according to the flesh? or, How many or how fine sermons have I preached? or even, How many have I brought to a knowledge of the Truth? But the vital question is, How much of the quality of love have I developed? How great is the likeness of my character to that of Christ?

LOVE IS THE PRINCIPAL THING

“Why is this quality of love made so prominent in the Word of God? We answer, Because it is the first thing, the most important thing, the principal thing. It is the fulfilling of God’s Law; and, indeed, the sacrificial love enjoined upon God’s Saints of this Age goes even beyond the requirements of the perfect law. But why is love put first? It is not because God arbitrarily so placed it, not because He exercised His power of fiat and declared that it should be first. No, it is because no other quality of character is so lovely, so beautiful, so productive of happiness and joy, so great a blessing to all upon whom it operates. It is the very essence of God’s character, ‘GOD IS LOVE.’ This quality particularly represents His personality. While God is all-just and all-powerful, we do not say that God is justice or that God is power, but that God is Love. He uses His great power only as love dictates and approves. He uses His justice only in fullest harmony with His glorious attribute of Love. Love is the mainspring of all His doings.

“Whoever, therefore, would be God-like must be loving, must have love as the dominating quality of his character and his life. Love and righteousness are inseparable. Love is to continue to all eternity; and only those who become the active embodiment of this gracious quality of character will live eternally. Hence we see the paramount importance of its development in every life.”

THE SPIRIT OF A SOUND MIND

“EVIDENCES OF A SOUND MIND: The fall of Adam has worked ruin to mankind, so that from the crown of the head to the sole of the foot there are none sound. (Isa. 1:5,6) None are sound of mind or body. All are out of the way. ‘There is none righteous; no, not one.’ (Rom. 3:10) But in proportion as we receive the spirit of the Lord, and in proportion as that spirit of the Lord works in us and develops us and influences all the conduct of life, in that same proportion we receive the spirit of a sound mind.

“This soundness of mind will teach us how better to use our bodies. A person of unsound mind may either eat too much or eat what does not agree with him. In proportion as we have a sound mind, it influences what we eat, what we drink, and everything we do; it helps to regulate and control everything in life for us. It gives us broad views of all the affairs of life. It gives us more generous views of mankind. We recognize that mankind are under the curse, and we have a feeling of compassion for them. We have much advantage every way, because God has opened the eyes of our understanding.

“This spirit of a sound mind makes us more helpful. ‘We know better how to deal with each other as brethren. We know better how to deal with our children, with our neighbors, with the butcher and with every one else. The truth does not come to many of those who are naturally soundest of mind, and it takes time for the truth to bring in a measure of soundness. But we notice that when one receives the truth in the love of it, it has a healing effect on his mind. He will begin to think more correctly and to act more wisely.” (Reprints 5977, bottom and 5978, top)

The Wise Man tells us in Prov. 4:7 that “Wisdom [the wisdom that is from above ­James 3:17] is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding.” But how do we come by this wisdom? In 1 Cor. 1:30 we are told that Christ Jesus is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness [justification by faith], and sanctification [He sets us apart for His own good purposes], and deliverance.”

In 2 Tim. 1:7, Dia., we are given a very meaningful synonym of wisdom – a sound mind – which means a proper mental and religious disposition that is based upon the Truth and views matters according to reality in the light of the applicable Truth, and thinks, feels, speaks and acts accordingly tactful. A sound mind, therefore, is a proper mental and religious attitude. This Scripture also tells us that love and a sound mind are closely linked together. “God did not give us a cowardly spirit, but one of power, and of [agape] love, and of a sound mind.”

The proper application of the Holy Spirit in a “Sound Mind” will little by little and more and more give its possessor an ever increasing sound mind, which will by and by “make such a person of quick understanding in the fear of the Lord” (Isa. 11: 2,3) – that is, in the application of duty and disinterested (agape) love in accordance with the Divine will. Thus, in cultivating wisdom (love and the spirit of a sound mind), we constantly improve ourselves in every good word and work. In this there is a part that God, by Christ, does and a part that we do. Thus we become “co-workers with God,” as we constantly improve our intellectual and providential circumstances.

The spirit of a sound mind is one of the dominating graces of the Holy Spirit, and sometimes operates negatively in keeping us from doing unwise things, but operates positively in helping us to do the wise things. This is true in both our secular and religious relations. We need the spirit of a sound mind in our dealings with the Father and with Jesus, the latter being the Agent as our Creator, Provider, Redeemer, Teacher, Justifier, Sanctifier and Deliverer.

Inasmuch as our own righteousness is as “filthy rags,” we cannot approach Him through works and merits of our own. Therefore, the spirit of a sound mind forbids us to present ourselves – who are children of wrath – to God in any alleged merit or righteousness of our own. On the contrary, the Divine wisdom prompts us to seek for ourselves an Advocate before God, which we recognize to be Jesus. He has told us Himself that “whatsoever ye ask in my name it shall be given unto you.” (John 15:16) Thus, by the Divine wisdom wrought in us by Jesus’ ministry, we are prompted to ask forgiveness for our sins and a righteous standing before God through Him. Thus, sufficient of the spirit of a sound mind, which we receive from Him as natural men, enables us to see the proper approach to God, and tends to keep us in a righteous condition, and prompts us to present ourselves to God in harmony with Rom. 12:1: “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.” Upon so doing in harmony with God’s will, He then gives us that sanctification that is necessary to do His “good and acceptable and perfect will.” This prevents us from engaging in works not motivated by God and Christ. On all sides today we see thousands zealously devoted to various reform and uplift works, which have no real standing in Heaven. “Many will say to me in that day, Master, Master, have we not taught in Thy name, and in Thy name expelled demons, and in Thy name performed many wonders? And then I will plainly declare to them, I never approved of you. Depart from Me, you who practice iniquity.” (Matt. 7:22,23, Dia.) Such will be the reward of all rabid sectarians.

 The spirit of a sound mind teaches us what to do, and what to avoid doing in spirit, manner and method as to our works toward the world in religious aspects, and also in secular relations. But a sound mind will give us increasingly the spirit of wisdom in our religious and secular actions. While we are “not of the world,” yet we are in the world, and have secular relations toward the world.

Our secular relations toward the world may at times give us some consternation, especially with those of lower tendencies. Yet these are vastly in the majority and if we are inclined to avoid such, we may find it difficult to make a livelihood. St. Paul treats of this in 1 Cor. 5:9,10: “I wrote unto you in an epistle not to company with fornicators; yet not altogether with the fornicators of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or with idolaters; for then must ye need go out of the world.” That is, if we would refuse to have any dealings with persons of disreputable leanings, we might find ourselves out of business. This does not mean, of course, that we become partners with them. St. Paul’s advice applies here, too – and positively so: “Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers; for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness?” (2 Cor. 6:14) Our own experience in the business world over the past fifty years is that many put on quite a respectable appearance, but are ready enough to cut corners as opportunity may present itself. A well-meaning businessman once said to Brother Russell, “Pastor Russell, you have set the standard entirely too high.” His answer was, “I did not put it there; the Lord did.” Of course, having a “high calling,” it necessarily follows there would also be a “high” standard.   And the more of a sound mind we have, the more apparent this becomes to us. Also, the more of Divine wisdom we have the more of a sound mind will be apparent in us.

LOVE – HOW ACQUIRED

In any undertaking the “know-how” is fundamental to success. And this is certainly true in the acquisition of Agape love. We have pointed out that love and a sound mind are closely linked together. All who have developed any degree of Agape love will readily testify that it has put soundness into their thinking. Among the last words of Jesus to His Disciples are those to be found in Luke 21:12-15, Dia.: “They will drag you before kings and governors... And it will turn out to you for a testimony. Settle it in your hearts, therefore, not to premeditate on your defense; for I will give you eloquence and wisdom, which all your opponents will not be able to gainsay, or resist.” “Our sufficiency is of God; who also hath made us able ministers of the New Testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit... the spirit giveth life.” (2 Cor. 3:5,6)

FAITH COMETH BEFORE LOVE

Although, as 1 Cor. 13:13 tells us Love is the greatest of all the graces, for the Faith Age, faith must come first: “Without faith it is impossible to please God.” (Heb. 11:6) Nor can we develop perfect (agape) love unless we continue to believe He is a God of Love, Wisdom Justice and Power, and also, to have faith in His Word that we have received. Those who are faithful to the truth they have will be ready to “learn more of Him,” and as they do they will develop more and more of the “end of the commandment [the purpose of the commandment] is charity.” (1 Tim. 1:5) All New Creatures will have to develop perfect love in their hearts during this Faith Age – their trial time for eternal life. No others are on trial for life, although, it behooves all classes of the Household of Faith to constantly seek to develop perfect love, as they must eventually do if they remain in the Elect classes. However, some of the unbegotten consecrators are not able to develop perfect love. In the 11th chapter of Hebrews we are told that it was by faith that the Ancient Worthies were able to do what they did. Abraham had faith and it was counted to him for righteousness. He didn’t have Agape love, but he will have it in the Kingdom, or he won’t remain one of the Elect.

In the Millennium when the New Covenant is inaugurated, there will be no crucial experiences – no suffering for righteousness sake – that will develop perfect love. But Restitutionists will have to develop perfect Duty Love toward God and man – love the Lord with all their heart and their neighbor as themselves. This will be a much easier requirement for them, for instead of suffering for righteousness, they will be rewarded for righteousness, and if their righteousness comes from the heart, they will be rewarded with eternal life. There was no sacrifice required of Adam – just obedience and faith in God. So Restitutionists will have to have a faith in God, but not a faith where He cannot be traced. Each step of obedience will bring the reward for tracing Him.

From Reprint 5095, top: “The spirit of a sound mind is a most wonderful manifesta­tion of the Holy Spirit in the Lord’s people. It gives them much advantage every way over the remainder of mankind. It sees in the present life opportunities for the attainment of character. It broadens and deepens the mind along all good lines. It makes one less touchy in respect to his own rights, privileges and preferences, and more considerate of the rights and feelings of others.

“The spirit of a sound mind makes one’s judgment clearer, truer, more trustworthy than before, for it impels him to accept the instructions of the Word of God in respect to what he should and should not do, and to reject his own faulty judgment. The meek will He guide in judgment. Whatever may be the imperfection of mind and body resulting from the fall, those who receive the spirit of a sound mind are thereby made purer, kinder, gentler, less selfish and more thoughtful in regard to others. Those who are thus rightly exercised will develop the spirit of love increasingly until that which is perfect shall have come and that which is in part shall have been done away. (1 Cor. 13:10)”

GOD’S GLORY

In Ex. 33: 18 Moses asked God to show him His glory; and in Psa. 104:31 we are told, “The glory of the Lord shall endure forever.” In Isa. 42:8 it is written: “I am the Lord: that is my name:  and my glory will I not give to another.” From these and other Scriptures we conclude that God’s glory is synonymous with His character attributes of Justice, Wisdom, Power and Love. All of God’s faithful people of the past have had some of these character qualities; but none of them, not even Jesus, have had them in the same magnificent and grandiose quantity and quality as they are in our Almighty God. The word translated ‘glory’ in Isa. 42:8 is from the Hebrew ‘kabod’ and one of its meanings is ‘splendor’; and the more we see and learn of His character and works, the more His splendor becomes apparent. Thus, we enthusiastically join with David in his exclamation, “O come, let us worship and bow down: let us kneel before the Lord our maker. For he is our God; and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand.” (Psa. 95:6,7)

(Written by Brother Hoefle July and August 1978)

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LETTERS OF GENERAL INTEREST

Dear Sister,

Thanks for the books! I haven’t stopped reading until way late in the night! They are wonderful. I am learning as I have never learned before. Pastor Russell sure was blessed and filled with the Holy Spirit. His work will live forever.

I have read all the Bulletins that you have sent – three times. I am now on the third reading of The Divine Plan of the Ages. I am getting the feel of the writer and trying to hear him speak in the language on the printed pages. The truth is there and stands out above all else, as it should.

Sister Florence tells me every time I express my happiness in finding Pastor Russell’s writings, “I knew you would take to his works like a duck to water!” She knows me well. I am always searching for more truth. I have found it.

Florence is in Oregon visiting her son, Melvin. She will be gone for about three weeks. She tried to call you several times, but was unable to reach you.

I would like to have No. 1 Where are the dead? and No. 2, What Is the Soul? Eventually I would like to have all of your literature that is available, but right now, with what I am studying, I think this will be enough.

I will order Pastor Russell’s second book in a little while. Thanks again for your continued prayers put forth to all those who are seeking and searching for the truth.

Your sister in Christ, ------- (CALIFORNIA)

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Dear Sister Hoefle:

My kindest regards and God’s blessings to you and all with you with Psalm 23! With great joy I have received your two air mail letters. I am sending you three names for your mailing list. God bless you. Your brother in Christ, ------- (AUSTRIA)

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Dear Brethren: Greetings of love through our Beloved Lord and Savior! It is a privilege and pleasure to tell you of the special meeting we had on Sunday, July 7. We had a baptismal service in which there were six who symbolized their consecration by immersion. The candidates were four brothers and two sisters all of the same family. There were fourteen in attendance.

Five of the candidates are fourth and fifth generation descendants of a faithful sister who came into the truth during Brother Russell’s ministry. Her works do follow her (Rev. 14:13) was manifested by this occasion. She has left a wonderful legacy for which we can say with appreciation and thankfulness, “God bless her memory.”

The service was brief but meaningful and all present were spiritually enriched by the solemnity of the occasion. All the candidates seemed to have a full understanding of the import of their consecration and its symbol by water immersion. We ask your prayers for all that they will be faithful.

We praise God from whom all blessings flow for the privilege of knowing His truth, and witnessing this momentous event as an evidence of His loving care and overruling providence. With Christian love to all from all here. By His Grace, Brother and Sister ------- (NORTH CAROLINA)

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Epiphany Bible Students:

Greetings in the Name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ! Thanks for sending me the papers on Zionism, Part One and Part Two. I was blessed by reading both. It always enhances my concept of the Grandeur of our God to be informed as to how He uses His creation to show forth His message to those who are drawn to Him.

On page 3 of Part One, last paragraph, second line quote: “and Bezetha the Youthful Worthies.” Would you explain the term Youthful Worthies and give Scriptural support for the term?

May our loving Heavenly Father bless your efforts to serve Him. By His Grace, ------- (TEXAS)

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Dear Brethren: Christian greetings in our dear Lord and Master Jesus’ Name!

Thank you for sending me your newsletter. Some time ago my wife bought a book from Mr. Horowitz about our dear Pastor Russell. In the meantime, our address has changed. We enclose the old address and ask that you send your newsletter to the address above.

Please give us some information about the difference between the LHMM and your Ass’n. Do you have any further literature?

Thanks again. With Christian greetings. Sincerely yours, ------- (GERMANY)

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Dear Sister Hoefle: Grace and peace through our Lord Jesus!

Much thanks and appreciation for your reply. Trusting by His Grace you are enjoying good health. We are keeping fairly well, all thanks to Him. Unfortunately Sister Nora lost her husband a few months ago. We all share her bereavement. Brother Luther McKenzie is still ailing but taking his infirmities in good spirit trusting in the Lord.

Brother Wycliffe Mahoney is fine both in spirit and in body. The time he stood up for Brother Hoefle to speak [at Crofts Hill when Brother Jolly spoke for four hours], I had not made my consecration and wasn’t present. However, I was told of the incident.

We continue getting our periodicals. They are so informative. Thanks much for same. I am making a request on behalf of the ecclesia. We would like to get a few tracts of Permission of Evil, Two Salvations, What is the Soul?, etc. The Lord grant you strength as you continue in His service. Our warmest Christian love and God’s blessings. Your brother by His Grace, ------- (JAMAICA)

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Dear Madam:

I shall be grateful if you would send me a copy of your book on Pastor Russell. Also, I wish to read about the errors of Judge Rutherford and Jehovah’s Witnesses.

If it is not given free, kindly let me know how much it costs. Yours sincerely, ------- (AFRICA)

NO. 426: IN MEMORIAM

No. 426

Once more we find it a privilege and pleasure to present a treatise on That Wise and Faithful Servant, whom the Lord made “ruler over all His goods.” (Matt. 24:45-47) The Scriptures give more on Brother Russell than of any other individual, except our Lord, in type and direct Scripture. It behooves all who have benefited from his faith­ful ministry to honor him, and more particularly to abide in the beautiful system of truth that he left us – and to study, spread and practice the Truth all the more as the “evil day” progresses. All who abide in “present truth” do not accept the many errors of our day – errors that set aside the fundamental truth in which we have been estab­lished.

THESE SEVENTY–FIVE YEARS

That Servant entered into his reward October 31, 1916, and since that time the Ad­versary has done all in his power to distort the Truth in every way possible – by set­ting it aside for “new light” (?), by perverting the Truth, by revolutionizing against the Truth. All those who have “continued in the Truth” once delivered unto the faithful are much saddened to witness such distortions, etc. Some have gone from one group to another, hoping to find the pure faith – and some have come to the conclusion that they would separate themselves from all groups. We believe that is a mistake, because there are yet others of like mind who seek to “abide in His Word,” and who are keeping up the “good fight,” in upholding and defending the faith. Such a course is the only way we can “be faithful to the Lord, the Truth and the brethren.” We are to “lay down our lives for the brethren,” and we cannot do that if we isolate ourselves and refuse to hold up the standard because we do not want to “stand the heat of the day.”

The Truth received into “good and honest hearts” makes us “good soldiers” – it does not make cowards of us. If we have a cowardly spirit, the Lord did not give it to us. “For God did not give to us a Cowardly Spirit, but one of Power, and of Love, and of a sound mind.” (2 Tim. 1:7, Dia.) And the Apostle Paul tells us: “Retain an outline of Wholesome Words, which thou didst hear from me, in That Faith and Love which are in Christ Jesus. Guard the Good Entrusted charge, through that holy Spirit which dwells in US. Thou knowest this, That all those in Asia turned away from me: of whom are Phygel­lus and Hermogenes.” (2 Tim. 1:13–15, Dia.)

ANTITYPICAL JEREMIAH

While we consider ourselves duty–bound to make the statements aforegoing, yet we are also most happy to note that none of the groups that have arisen from the Parousia Truth Movement have resorted to any slander of That Servant – nor have they attacked his character. However, in his day Babylon was grossly guilty of slander when they could not meet his clear Scriptural teachings that exposed so many of their errors.

And this Babylonish evil is still glaringly present with us. In just the past few months a book has come into our hands – written by a man of some considerable education and influential standing – who attempts to expound such subjects as “hermeneutical prin­ciples,” although he at the same time reveals a pathetic ignorance of some of the subjects he attempts to explain. He is a vehement expounder of the Trinity, eternal torment as the wages of sin, and his reliance on Satan’s great lie, “Thou shalt not surely die” ­even quotes that very text in support of his own perversions. In like manner he con­tends for the flesh and blood return of Jesus at His Second Advent.

In Jeremiah 1:5 it is noted, “I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations”; and this offers us a key to the typical relationship of that prophet Jeremiah to That Ser­vant here in the end of the Age, because the evidence is very strong that That Servant was also “ordained a prophet unto the nations.” In the 38th Chapter of the same prophet we are told how his enemies lowered him into a dungeon of mire, typical of the slander that was heaped upon antitypical Jeremiah, Brother Russell, by his enemies in Babylon. The book we mentioned carries on “the good work” (?) in the following manner: “Thus it was, that at the words of one colossally egotistical and unschooled haberdasher, the Times of the Gentiles ended.”

The same writer classes him with “the heretic Arius” in teaching that there is but “one God,” which is an honor to Brother Russell; and emphasizes that he justly lost two slander suits against The Brooklyn Eagle and an Ontario minister. It is our firm con­viction that he should have won both cases, but we shall not here recount the elements that entered into the reason for his loss of those suits. The Eagle had published that “Russell’s religious cult is nothing more than a money–making scheme, and the court’s decision vindicated the Eagle’s statement and proved its reliability.” Although we know that Brother Russell put more money into the organization than he ever received from that organization.

The same writer then sums up: “This then is the product of Charles T. Russell, who, because he would not seek instruction in the Word of God, dedicated his unschooled talents to a lone vain search without the guidance of the Holy Spirit.” There is much more of the same we could quote, but we would sum it up in words applied to Babylon, which now have equal force with the writer of the book in question: “The chief leaders of Babylon put him [Brother Russell] into the foulest condition of slander that certain executives of the clergy could invent, and by their strongest arguments they lowered him into the pit of slander, resulting in his sinking deeper and deeper into the filth of misrepresentation.”

Our beloved Pastor has been dead now for seventy–five years; but the foregoing is the sort of calumny that is still being printed and circulated about him because they realize that his teachings are still with us, and enduring. But, “As He is, so are we in this world.” (1 John 4:17)

ANTITYPICAL DANIEL

Our Pastor knew that he was the antitype of Daniel, as he indicated by two paint­ings prepared for, but not used as Photo–Drama slides. One of these slides interpreted the antitypical handwriting on the wall and one on Pastor Russell in the critics’ den, which was reproduced in plate cut on the back of a Bible Students’ Monthly and in the 1913 Convention Report. Daniel does not type our Pastor in all the latter’s relations, but only in his relations to the world as a teacher on subjects pertinent to the world and on some of the relations of the Church to the world. In this treatise we do not write in a spirit of “angel worship,” but in appreciation of his faithful ministry and .”labor of love” toward all God’s people.

In Chapter One the account of Daniel’s education for the position of statesman in Babylon is get forth. Here Nebuchadnezzar types the nominal people of God. Ashpenaz (Dan. 1:3) types the chief leaders in the nominal church, such as supervised the subor­dinate teachers of the nominal church, and such as particularly supervised the educa­tional arrangements of Christendom’s prospective teachers. It was the desire of the nominal people of God (vs. 3,4) that the most gifted and promising young men be selected for training as teachers of their views in symbolic Babylon. As Daniel (vs. 4,6) was one of those chosen for such educational opportunities in literal Babylon, so was Brother Russell chosen by those nominal Christians with whom he associated as a religiously and intellectually promising young man to teach in the nominal church.

And as the King (v. 5) provided that such students be fed from the royal table, so the nominal people of God arranged that the future teachers and leaders in symbolic Babylon be nourished on the religious diet that they themselves ate. As Daniel determined not to defile himself with the Levitically unclean meats (v. 8) of the King’s ta­ble, so Brother Russell determined that he would not defile himself with symbolic Baby­lon’s unclean doctrines. Since the story of how this happened is not generally known and should be preserved, we give it here in fair detail.

Brother Russell was born with a most exceptionally fine religious endowment. Be­fore he was born his mother consecrated him to the Lord, and afterward gave him the most careful religious training within her ability. As he often said, he could not remember a time from childhood’s first memories onward when he was not consecrated. Early he, showed his zeal in seeking to save people from Eternal Torment, among other ways, by his writing at the age of 14 Scripture passages on the sidewalks and walls of houses, urging people to repent and believe. In such evangelistic zeal, when 16 years old, he sought to convert an infidel acquaintance. The latter asked him if he believed God to be perfect in wisdom, justice, love and power. On his replying, “yes,” his acquaintance asked him how such  a God could have absolutely predestined the vast majority of the race to eternal torment. The boy answered that he could not understand it.

Up to this time he had not thought deeply on this feature of his (the Congregational) church’s creed. Troubled by the question, he raised it in the circles of his church. Unable to get any satisfying answer, he expressed his doubts on the matter. The report spread in the church that he was on the way to becoming an infidel. The pas­tor and elders of the church appointed a special meeting to solve his questions. But instead, they only increased his doubts. They told him that the Bible taught that doc­trine. He then said to them, “I believe God is perfect in wisdom, power, justice, and love, and I will not believe anything contrary to His character to be a revelation from Him. Therefore I do not believe He gave the Bible as His revelation; for, if He had given it as such, it would agree with His wisdom, power, justice and love.” It was at this stage wherein he decided he would never believe as a revelation of God anything contradictory to His character, that he, as antitypical Daniel (v. 8), determined not to defile himself with Levitically unclean meats; for he concluded that any doctrine con­trary to God’s character is false. It will be noted that the stand that Brother Russell took on the matter of God’s character as a test of revealed religion, when he was 16 years old, he retained until death ended his course.

His pastor and elders, as representatives of the highest church authorities (v. 9), thought highly of him; and his determination to accept only what harmonized with God’s character (pulse, v. 12) put them into considerable difficulty with the pertinent nomi­nal people of God who would cut them off from their positions (“endanger my head to the king,” v. 10), if they did not require of him to accept the Congregational creed in whole. But rather than lose so promising a young man, they conceded to him temporarily (ten days, v. 12) the privilege of subjecting all teachings to the rule of harmony with God’s character. Accordingly, we find Brother Russell as a youth of 16 a disbeliever, not actually, though ostensibly, in the Bible, but actually in the Calvinistic creed, which he was mistaught to be the right interpretation of the Bible.

He was of too religious and logical a mind to be content without a revealed reli­gion. He therefore set out to learn what the true religion was, and to this end decided to investigate all religions until he would find the true one. So he began with that of the Chinese, whose idea of the creation is this: In the beginning all was water, where it grew into our present earth. That was enough of the Chinese religion for him! Worse absurdities than this made him reject Hindooism and Buddhism. Because Mohammedanism was partly based on the Old and New Testaments, he rejected it. Thus his rejection of the non–Christian religions left him for a while stranded high and dry on the shores of un­belief, though all the while he devoutly held to God as perfect in wisdom, justice, love and power, and trusted Him as such.

But his religious disposition could not be content with no religion; and what to do troubled him. Finally he said to himself, I can at least believe so much of the Bi­ble as is contained in the Golden Rule Godward and manward: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and all thy mind, with all thy soul and with all thy strength ... and thy neighbor as thyself.” (Matt. 22:37,39) Furthermore, he concluded that Je­sus’ explanation of the law, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself, as meaning: All things whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, do ye even so unto them (Matt. 7:12) was correct. Thus he said, “I believe that much of the New Testament.” This prompted him to look up the context of Matt. 7:12, which he found to be a part of the Sermon on the Mount. He studied this in the light of God’s character and recognized it to be in harmony therewith. Therefore he accepted it. This moved him to desire to study more of Jesus’ teachings, which, accordingly, led him to study these as they are found elsewhere in the four Gospels.

Always he found them in harmony with God’s character. This moved him not only to accept all of Jesus’ teachings in the Gospels as he understood them, but also greatly to appreciate Jesus as a teacher Divinely inspired. Such appreciation of Jesus’ teachings prompted him to want to know more of His life, which moved him to a study of the Gospels historically, resulting in his recognizing Jesus as a perfect human being and the Son of God. But up to then he rejected the New Testament, except the Gospels.

One day he noted the passage (John 16:12-14) wherein Jesus said that the Spirit would reveal to the Apostles such truths as Jesus would yet give them, and which they were as yet unable to bear. He desired to know what those teachings were. Hence he began to study the Acts, the Epistles and Revelation; and as he understood them he rec­ognized their harmony with God’s character. Thus gradually, and upon a right founda­tion he came to believe that the New Testament was the revelation of the God of wisdom, power, justice and love, in whom he had always believed.

But the Old Testament he continued to reject. The following things gradually led him to believe in the Old Testament: He noticed that not only did Jesus and the Apostles quote from the Old Testament, but used such quotations to prove their doctrines. Hence he concluded that whatever they quoted from the Old Testament was true. On later thought he decided to study the connections from which these quotations were made; and these he found to be in harmony with the quotations themselves and God’s character. Hence he ac­cepted the teachings of these contexts. This led him to study the connections of these contexts, and thus more and more of the Old Testament became clear to him until his faith was confirmed in the prophetic writings and in the historical writings which were closely interwoven with the prophetic writings. Still he suspected the books of Moses, except those parts quoted by Jesus and the Apostles; because he mistakenly was led to think that Moses made himself a dictator to Israel and established a priesthood that tyrannized over the people. But deeper study convinced him of his mistakes on these points; and he came to see that the Mosaic legislation was the most benevolent, and freedom, equality and fraternity-inspiring legislation ever inaugurated. Accordingly, he accepted also the Pentateuch as Divinely inspired; and thus his faith accepted the whole Bible.

He continued to study the Scriptures privately and in an independent Bible class at Alleghany, Pa.; and by 1872, four years after he started out in quest of the Divine revelation, he not only accepted the entire Bible as that revelation, but also the fol­lowing points as its main teachings: the unity of God; the Divine Sonship of Jesus; the Spirit as God’s power and disposition; man’s fall from perfection into sin; death as sin’s penalty (Rom. 6:23); the unconsciousness of the dead (Eccl. 9:5); the Ransom as guaranteeing an opportunity for the elect in this life and for the non-elect in the Millennium; the eternity of the physical universe (Ecc. 1:4); the destruction of the symbolic world at Christ’s Second Advent (2 Peter 3:10-12); the Second Advent for the restitution of all things (Acts 3:19-21); eternal life in heaven for the elect, and on earth for the saved non-elect; and eternal annihilation for the incorrigible.

It was in 1875 that the antitype of Nebuchadnezzar’s examining Daniel (vs. 18-20) began. From 1872 to 1875 Brother Russell continued to increase in grace, knowledge and fruitfulness in service. It was in October 1874, that he came to see that Jesus in His resurrection became a Spirit being, and that therefore He would not in His Second Advent come in the flesh, but as a glorious Divine Spirit, and necessarily then would be invis­ible to human natural sight. He embodied these thoughts as well as those on the object of our Lord’s return in a tract entitled, The Object and Manner of Our Lord’s Return. The misteachings of the Adventists on the object and manner of our Lord’s return had raised more or less doubts and questions in many minds, and this aroused Brother Russell to write and spread that tract, which was circulated to the extent of 50,000 copies.

THE METAL–MAN DREAM

The second chapter of Daniel treats of Nebuchadnezzar’s dream of the metallic image of a man with a golden head, silver shoulders and arms, brazen belly, iron thighs and legs, and feet and toes of a mixture of iron and clay, and of the stone which destroyed the image and then grew into a mountain, filling the entire earth. It is not our pur­pose in our study of Daniel – type and antitype – to point out the prophetic features of Daniel, since that is sufficiently done in Studies, Volumes One, Two and Three. Here we limit our attention to the typical features of this book. Nor will we rehearse the typ­ical features. Rather, we will merely indicate them by the citing of the verses in which they occur, asking our readers to have the book of Daniel open at the pertinent part for the sake of reference. In interpreting Daniel’s interpretation of the dream, our Pastor gave its prophetic teachings. At the same time, the entire story of Dan. 2 types something very interesting. Typically, this chapter sets forth the meaning of history under the rule of the nations during the Times of the Gentiles and the prophe­sied role of God’s Kingdom as the destroyer and successor of these.

In this chapter, as in the preceding one, Nebuchadnezzar types the Gospel-Age nom­inal people of God, who, as such, have been in existence since the Jewish Harvest. His having the dream represents the nominal people of God having a proper view of the mean­ing of history as exemplified in the four universal Gentile powers and in their ten suc­cessor powers, and of the role of the prophesied Kingdom of God as their destroyer and successor; for the Apostles properly taught the early Christians that, as represented by the deterioration of the metals from gold to silver, from silver to brass, from brass to iron and from iron to a mixture of iron and clay, under the Gentile rule the race and its governments would become more and more fallen and depraved – and that when depravity would reach its height the kingdoms of this world would be destroyed by God’s Kingdom, which would stand forever. This, in brief, is the philosophy of human history under Gentile rule and the prophetic role of the Kingdom of God. And this view, taught by the Apostles, remained with the real and nominal people of God for several centuries.

The papacy’s teaching another theory of God’s Kingdom in its time and other rela­tions to the kingdoms of this world darkened the subject; for it taught that it was God’s Kingdom commissioned to convert the world and rule over it for 1,000 years before Christ’s return, whereas it was the clay mingled with iron in the feet and toes. (The Jehovah’s Witnesses teach similarly about their organization in our day.) This view gradually caused the one given to the nominal people of God by the Apostles to be for­gotten by them (the thing is gone from them, v. 5). For many centuries the true view was forgotten; and it was only beginning with the illumination – in 1748 – that nominal Christians began to demand an explanation of the meaning of history from the clergy (Chaldeans), the professors (magi), the historians (astrologers) and the prophets (sor­cerers) of Christendom (v. 2). Their inability to tell what was the early view of Christians thereon, as well as its meaning, was typed by the inability of Nebuchadnez­zar’s wise men to tell the dream and its interpretation (vs. 4–11).

The decree to slay the wise men of Babylon types the determination of the thinking members of the nominal church to set aside as their teachers (a symbolic killing) the wise men of Christendom. Arioch (vs. 14,15) represents those who led the people in set­ting aside such teachers, i.e., the free thinkers, higher critics, etc., who beginning about 1785, worked to undermine popular confidence in Christendom’s wise men as teachers. Undoubtedly, the prestige of such wise men was greatly decreased with ever–increasing numbers of nominal people of God from that time onward. Arioch’s seeking Daniel (v. 13) represents that such free thinkers, higher critics, etc., sought to undermine Brother Russell as a teacher in Christendom. Daniel’s tact in dealing with Arioch (vs. 14,15) types Brother Russell’s tact in dealing with free thinkers, etc. Arioch’s telling Dan­iel the situation (v. 15) types the free thinkers, etc., telling the situation of the antitypical wise men to Brother Russell.

Daniel’s going to the king and obtaining time to consider and answer the matter (v. 16) represents Brother Russell’s standing before the nominal people of God as a teacher of religion and promising, if allowed due time, to solve the matter at hand. Daniel’s laying the matter before his three friends and asking their united prayers over the matter (vs. 17, 18) represents Brother Russell’s habit of asking suggestions from the brethren when in difficulty and asking their prayers for Divine enlightenment, e.g., when he was perplexed over the meaning of the voice of the three signs (Reprint 4057, last par.). Members of the Bethel family will recall such things as occurring. This course he followed in the present instance. God’s revealing this matter to Daniel (v. 19) types God’s making known to Brother Russell the view of the early Christians on the meaning of history as exemplified in the Gentile rule and the prophesied role of God’s Kingdom. Daniel’s thanksgiving (vs. 19-23) types Brother Russell’s thanksgiving at this mercy of God. Daniel’s desiring Arioch not to destroy Babylon’s wise men (v. 24) repre­sents Brother Russell’s refutation of the course of the free thinkers, etc., which was a hindrance to their object. Arioch’s bringing Daniel to the king as one who would tell and interpret the dream (v. 25) types the free thinkers, etc., more or less praising Brother Russell, whose kindly manner and logical teachings favorably impressed them.

Nebuchadnezzar’s asking Daniel if he could give and interpret the dream (v. 26) types the nominal people of God inquiring, i.e., searching Brother Russell’s teachings for an answer to the matter on hand. Daniel’s reminding Nebuchadnezzar that Babylon’s wise men could not answer his questions (v. 27) types Brother Russell’s statements that Christendom’s clergy, professors, learned ones, prophets and philosophers have been un­able to answer the matter. Daniel’s attributing the implied wisdom, not to himself, but to God (v. 28), types Brother Russell’s denying that he had his wisdom of himself, but that it was of God, who revealed the knowledge to him as due. Daniel’s telling and in­terpreting the dream (vs. 28-45) types Brother Russell’s showing the view of the early Christians on the increasing depravity accompanying the rule of the Gentiles and on the role of God’s Kingdom as the destroyer and successor of these. This view our Pastor gave in his writings, sermons and lectures. The king’s honoring and promoting Daniel (vs. 46-48) type how increasingly the people of Christendom honored Brother Russell, re­garding him as above all other religious teachers of Christendom. Daniel’s desiring promotion for his three friends (v. 49) types Brother Russell’s using his position to advance the Lord’s people as teachers in Christendom. Daniel’s sitting in the king’s gate (v. 49, place of chief prominence), types the great and favorable publicity that Brother Russell got especially from 1913 onward.

In the events of Daniel 3, Daniel took no part. It has often occasioned wonder as to where Daniel was while Shadrach, Meshach and Abed–nego were undergoing the trial of the golden image and the fiery furnace. While the record is silent on this point, one thing is certain about it, i.e., that Daniel was absent from the plain of Dura; for he certainly would have stood beside his three friends, had he been present. When we look at the antitype it becomes manifest that Daniel, who throughout his book types our Pas­tor, could not have been there; for had he been present it would have spoiled the anti­type; for Brother Russell died before either of the two fulfilments set in where he lived. Thus in the light of the antitype Daniel’s absence during the events described in Chapter 3 is entirely clear. Nevertheless, Daniel wrote this, as well as the rest of the book that bears his name. And what does his writing this chapter type? Brother Russell’s giving the two antitypes of this chapter, e.g., one in Reprints 2495, 2496, and the other in Reprints 4873, 4874. Thus in giving these two antitypes of this chap­ter our Pastor antityped Daniel in writing it.

THE HANDWRITING ON THE WALL

The fifth chapter of Daniel treats of Belshazzar’s feast, the handwriting on the wall, its reading and interpretation. In one of the pictures used in the German Photo ­Drama the antitype of the interpretation is given. Therein Brother Russell is repre­sented as giving the right interpretation, while the clergy, etc., are pictured forth as in confusion thereover. In this picture Belshazzar types the nominal people of God in state, church and capital especially their leaders as a class. His 1,000 lords (v. 1) represent these leaders distributively as being many, i.e., in their totality. His wives represent the main organizations of the nominal people of God, and his concubines their lesser organizations.  The feast types the Parousia privileges and advantages that the nominal people of God appropriated to themselves – particularly so in the church unions during the Harvest period. The golden and silver vessels (vs. 2, 3) type the Di­vine truths that had been taken captive in the Dark Ages with God’s real people into symbolic Babylon. The sending of these vessels types the requirements that the teachings of God’s Word be made subservient to Babylon’s unclean uses. Putting Babylon’s wine in­to these vessels types the corruption of the Divine truth with Babylon’s errors. The banqueters’ drinking therefrom types the antitypical Babylonians’ partaking of a mixture of truth and error in their Parousia feast. The fingers of a man’s hand (v. 5) that wrote on the wall represent the exhibition of Divine power (hand) on symbolic Babylon’s walls (her political, financial, ecclesiastical, social and labor powers). The king’s seeing the part of the hand that wrote (v. 5) types the nominal people of God recogniz­ing in part that it was a manifestation of Divine power that they witnessed. And such power was manifest in the signs of the times occurring in Babylon’s political, finan­cial, ecclesiastical, labor and social powers.

The great perturbation of the king at the sight (v. 6) types Christendom’s fears at the events which proved to be the signs of the times – “men’s hearts failing them for fear and for looking after those things which are coming upon the earth.” (Luke 21:26) The king’s demand that the wise men of Babylon be brought before him (v. 7) types the demand of the nominal people of God that the wise men of Christendom be summoned to the fore on the subject at hand. His offer to give the purple robe, the golden chain and the third position in the kingdom to the one who would read and interpret the handwrit­ing, represents Christendom’s reward of making the true reader and interpreter the roy­ally accepted (purple robe), Divinely authorized (golden chain on the neck) chief teacher in the religious (the third) department of symbolic Babylon.

The failure of the king’s wise men to interpret the handwriting types the failure of Christendom’s learned men, clergy and prophets, to read and interpret the signs of the times. Belshazzar’s increased fears and that of his lords (v. 9) types the increased perplexity of the nominal people of God, particularly of its leaders, at the events which proved to be the signs of the times, etc. Daniel’s being brought in before the king (v. 13) types Brother Russell being brought in before the nominal people of God by his writings, sermons and lectures. Daniel’s first statement (v. 17), that the king keep his gifts or bestow his rewards upon another types Brother Russell’s disinterested­ness; for he gladly gave his service in the cause of Truth freely, declining to accept financial recompense therefor. “Seats free – No collections” was his shibboleth during his entire ministry.

First of all Daniel read the writing (v. 25), which the Babylonian wise men could not even read. Then, as Daniel explained the meaning of the words (vs. 26-28), so Broth­er Russell explained the meaning of the signs: MENE (v. 26) – “God hath numbered thy kingdom and finished it.” This Brother Russell explained as the 2520 years of the Gen­tile Times, which would end in 1914. Very significant in this connection is the fact that the numeric value of those words on the wall is exactly 2520 – Mene, 1000; Mene, 1000; Tekel, 20; Peres 500, the gerah being the unit here meant. Thus Brother Russell boldly declared, many years before 1914, that the allotted years of Gentile rule were 2520, and that they would end in 1914 by a great world-wide war. The beginning of the war precipitated Christendom into two antagonistic camps – the Radicals and the Conservatives, with the breach between the two becoming ever wider with each passing year. This will presently eventuate in the complete destruction of the Conservative camp, with the resultant obliteration of the present forms of state, church and capital.

In addition, he related that these signs of pending doom also indicated the immi­nence of God’s Kingdom as the kingdom that would succeed the kingdoms of this world. Thus did he point out the three great things indicated by the signs of the times: (1) the end of the Gentile Times; (2) Babylon’s judgment going against her; and (3) the overthrow of Satan’s empire, to be succeeded by God’s two-phased Kingdom. Brother Rus­sell explained these things in crystal clarity, which none of Babylon’s wise men could do. They could not even recognize their significance. Events since 1914 amply corrob­orate the truth of his readings. Daniel’s being accepted as the third (the religious) ruler in Babylon types that Brother Russell was increasingly regarded as the greatest religious teacher in Christendom; and his renown was world-wide.

HONOR TO WHOM HONOR IS DUE

Much of the foregoing is taken from Brother Johnson’s writings; and from it we may properly draw the conclusion that he was fully persuaded that Brother Russell was “that servant” (Matt. 24:45-47). And such persuasion convinced Brother Johnson that the sys­tem of Truth Brother Russell presented, with all important doctrines of the Bible clearly and correctly explained, should be retained as he gave it. Thus, Brother Johnson was bold in defending all attempts to pervert the Truth as it is contained in Tabernacle Shadows and the Six Volumes of Studies in the Scriptures. This he did from the heart, and not by mere lip service.

Both of these Messengers died late in October, and we fondly pay homage to both of them at this season of the year. It is in order here to state that during Brother Rus­sell’s lifetime the Truth group he led was almost 100% solidly persuaded that he was That Servant, but quite a few denied the fact shortly after he was gone. And many others who laud Brother Russell reject large parts of the Truth he gave us – chief among these are the Jehovah’s Witnesses. This is strikingly similar to the Roman Catholics, who claim they originated with the Apostle Peter but also reject about every important teach­ing he gave. Thus, consistency in their words and in their acts is sadly absent.

Of both of these “men of God” (2 Tim. 3: 17) we offer the appropriate tribute: “Wealth and riches [rich in faith and in knowledge of the Lord, as well as rich in char­acter] shall be in his house: his righteousness endureth forever... A good man will guide his affairs with discretion... The righteous shall be in everlasting remembrance.” (Psa. 112:3-6)

(Brother Hoefle, Reprint 304, October 1980)

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LETTER OF GENERAL INTEREST

Dear Sister: Greetings in the Name of Jesus, our Beloved Savior!

Received your “CTR” book with the hardcover. Yes, I should have more than one on hand.

You, in your note that came with the hard-covered book said, “But the more people persecuted the Russellites and Brother Russell when he was here, the more people became interested to find out what he taught.”

You continued to say, “They even burned his books in the front of many churches, and that even helped – made people curious to know what it was about.” You must re­member they burned the Bibles at one time, but the Bible was preserved the same as Brother Russell’s books were preserved.

And you said, “The word was loud and clear, ‘Come out of her, my people.’ They came out! And the ones that came out were greatly blessed.”

With love ------- (CONNECTICUT)

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