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WATCH TOWER BIBLE & TRACT SOCIETY 117 Adams Street -   - Brooklyn 1, N.Y., U.SA.

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"And all thy children shall be taught of Jehovah; and great shall be the peace of thy children.” * Isaiah 34:13.

THE BIBLE CLEARLY TEACHES

THAT JEHOVAH is the only true God, from everlasting to everlasting, and is the Maker of heaven and earth and Giver of life to his creatures; that the Word or Logos was the beginning of his creation and his active agent in creating all other things; and that the creature Lucifer rebelled against Jehovah and raised the issue of His universal sovereignty;

THAT GOD created the earth for man, made perfect man for the earth and placed him upon it; that man yielded to unfaithful Lucifer, or Satan, and willfully disobeyed God's law and was sentenced to death; that by reason of Adam’s wrong act all men are born sinners and without the right to life;

THAT THE LOGOS was made human as the man Jesus and suffered death in order to produce the ransom or redemptive price for obedient men; that God raised up Christ Jesus divine and exalted him to heaven above every other creature and clothed him with all power and authority as head of God’s new capital organization;

THAT GOD’S CAPITAL ORGANIZATION is a Theocracy called Zion, and that Christ Jesus Is the Chief Officer thereof and is the rightful King of the new world; that the faithful anointed followers of Christ Jesus are Zion’s children, members of Jehovah's organization, and are His witnesses whose duty and privilege it Is to testify to Jehovah’s supremacy and declare his purposes toward mankind as expressed In the Bible;

THAT THE OLD WORLD, or Satan's uninterrupted rule, ended A.D. 1914, and Christ Jesus has been placed by Jehovah upon the throne, has ousted Satan from heaven, and now proceeds to vindicate His name and establish the "new earth”;

THAT THE RELIEF and blessings of the peoples can come only by Jehovah’s kingdom under Christ, which has begun; that His next great act is to destroy Satan’s organization and establish righteousness completely in the earth; and that under the Kingdom the people of good-will surviving Armageddon will carry out the divine mandate to “fill the earth" with righteous offspring, and that the human dead in the graves will be raised to opportunities of life on earth.

ITS MISSION

THIS Journal Is published for the purpose of enabling the people to know Jehovah God and his purposes as expressed in the Bible. It publishes Bible Instruction specifically designed to aid Jehovah’s witnesses and all people of good-will. It arranges systematic Bible study for Its readers and the Society supplies other literature to aid in such studies. It publishes suitable material for radio broadcasting and tor other means of public Instruction in the Scriptures.

It adheres strictly to the Bible as authority for Its utterances. It is entirely free and separate from all religion, parties, sects or other worldly organizations. It is wholly and without reservation for the kingdom of Jehovah God under Christ his beloved King. It is not dogmatic, but Invites careful and critical examination of its contents In the light of the Scriptures. It does not indulge In controversy, and Its columns are not open to personalities.

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“KING FOR ALL EARTH” TESTIMONY PERIOD

For a world-wide testimony to the one “King for all the earth” the month of October has been set aside. During that favorable season all subjects of Jehovah’s King, who now reigns despite his enemies, will join in special efforts to advertise the King and his kingdom. The Awake! magazine will be the principal offer to the people, a year’s subscription for $1.00. For those who are readers of Awake! already, the offer will be three bound books on a contribution of $1.00. The books to be offered are “Let God Be True", “The Kingdom Is at Hand", and “The Truth Shall Make You Free", besides the latest booklet, Permanent Governor of All Nations. This is not book-agency work, but is ambassadorial work for winning subjects to the new world’s King. Viewing it that Scriptural way, Watchtower readers will appreciate the honor of it and will want to show their allegiance^- to the “King for all the earth” by sharing in this special work of October. We anticipate that many will write for references and instructions and supplies. We want to put all such in happy contact with the organized active subjects of the King. We close with a reminder of your reporting at the end of this Testimony Period.

“WATCHTOWER” STUDIES

Week of November 7: “King for a Thousand Years,” fl 1-20 inclusive, The Watchtower October 1, 1948. Week of November 14: “King for a Thousand Years,” fl 21-25 inclusive, also “A Reign with the Devil Bound,” fl 1-17 inclusive, The Watchtower October 1, 1948.

“AWAKE!”

This magazine stepped into the field of public service at the Glad Nations Theocratic Assembly of Jehovah’s witnesses in August of 1946, and is published by the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, Inc. It answers the rousing call for fearless information, not because we have entered the atomic age, but because the world is fast asleep near the brink of that universal war Scrip-turally called “Armageddon" and lovers of life in security need to be awakened to the real sense of the news and the pressing issues upon which to decide. Awake! is aimed to help them make a right decision that leads to life unending in the now-close New World of righteousness. It is a magazine of 32 pages devoted to news and information of world import, gained from world-wide sources. Its make-up is of fine appearance. Its leading articles, without compromise toward commercialism, politics and religion, present the straight facts, without fear to publish the plain truth. Much variety of interest is also provided in shorter articles of educational and instructive value. Under the heading “Thy Word Is Truth”, each number of Awake! offers a moderate-length discussion of Bible teachings of importance. A final section, headed “Watching the World”, makes note of the latest world news before going to press and gives the pith of all news items, uncolored, undistorted, concise. Awake! is published on the 8th and 22d of each month. A year’s subscription of 24 issues is $1, American money; individual copy, 5c; mailed anywhere.

ffieVWCHTOWER

ANNOUNCING JEHOVAH'S KINGDOM

Vol. LXIX                              October 1, 1948                                  No. 19

KING FOR A THOUSAND YEARS

"They lived and reigned with the Anointed one the thousand years."—Rev. 20: 4, The Emphatic Diaglott.

JEHOVAH, when giving his first prophecy to mankind, looked forward six thousand years. It is now about sixty centuries since His power and wisdom created the first man on earth, and by all the indications about us our generation has strong assurance from His Word that we shall see the fulfillment of that first prophecy. Logically it was written down in the first book of the Holy Scriptures. How it is to be fulfilled in our time is recorded in the last book of those Holy Scriptures, namely, in the Revelation, written more than sixteen hundred years after the book of Genesis and more than four thousand years after the first divine prophecy to man. Truly, Jehovah God does not forget his promises, but faithfully vindicates his word; “for he is faithful that promised.” (Heb. 10:23) As far as his own promises and works are concerned he says: “I am God, and there is none like me; declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things that are not yet done; saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure; . . . yea, I have spoken, I will also bring it to pass; I have purposed, I will also do it.” (Isa. 46:9-11, Am. Stan. Ver.) Surely, then, what he has told us he purposes to do in the thousand years next after he fulfills his first prophecy we can depend on coming to pass. He will give manldnd a king for a thousand years.

² Nearly six thousand years ago, as the first man and woman listened, Jehovah God said to the Serpent that had induced them to sin against God’s law: “Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life: and I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.” (Gen. 3:14,15) One inspired writer speaks of the lower animal creation as “natural brute beasts, made to be taken and destroyed”. (2 Pet. 2:12) So, for the Serpent to be cursed of all beasts, or be the most cursed of them, meant certainly that he would be caught and destroyed. The further fact that he would eat dust meant the same thing, that he would

1. Why can we depend upon God’s first prophecy to be fulfilled? 2. What did that prophecy mean for the wicked one?

having the key of the abyss and a great chain in his hand. And he laid hold on the dragon, the old serpent, which is the Devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years, and cast him into the abyss, and shut it, and sealed it over him, that he should deceive the nations no more, until the thousand years should be finished: after this he must be loosed for a little time. And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that had been beheaded for the testimony of Jesus, and for the word of God, and such as worshipped not the beast, neither his image, and received not the mark upon their forehead and upon their hand; and they lived, and reigned with Christ a thousand years. The rest of the dead lived not until the thousand years should be finished. This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: over these the second death hath no power; but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years/’—Rev. 20:1-6, Am. Stan. Ver.

• ⁵ Here believing men and women have the glorious promise of a King for a thousand years. We say glorious, because the Scriptures describe it as a glorious thousand years or millennium. When we explain this period as a literal thousand years in length and as due to start in the near future, it raises a great storm of protest among the leading religionists of Christendom. However, we can well quote here what a widely acknowledged Baptist authority has to say on this point, namely, Professor A. T. Robertson, internationally known as the leading scholar of this century in the field of “New Testament Greek” in America, if not also in the world. In Volume 6 (page 457) of Word Pictures in the New Testament, published in 1933, the late Professor Robertson said in commenting on Revelation 20: 2: "For a thousand years ... In this book of symbols how long is a thousand years? All sorts of theories are proposed, none of which fully satisfy one. Perhaps Peter has given us the only solution open to us in II Pet. 3:8 when he argues that 'one day with the Lord is as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day/ It will help us all to remember that God’s clock does not run by ours and that times and seasons and programs are with him.”

WHY THE SHIFT IN VIEWPOINT

• ⁸ Viewing the period as being a literal thousand years is neither a strange nor a new thing. Prominent professed Christians of the second century believed the thousand years to be literal, men such as Papias, Justyn Martyr, and Irenaeus, and also Tertullian (about A.D. 180), who introduced the term

• 5. How is the protest against a literal 1,000 years answered?

• 6, 1, When and why did religionists shift from the literal view? trinitas (or trinity) into the religious literature of the time. But particularly from the fourth century on there was a decided shift away from this literal view. The fourth was the century when Constantine fought his way to the emperorship of the Roman Empire and adopted the popular form of Christianity of the day and called the Nicene Council A.D. 325 for the settlement of the “trinity” dispute. So the leading religionists who claimed to be Christians became popular with the political state and became official servants of the emperor. After that Augustine and also Jerome, who translated the Holy Scriptures into Latin, opposed the acceptance of the thousand years as literal.

¹ Says McClintock and Strong’s Cyclopaedia, Volume 6, page 265, on the literal view: “It was still common, however, in the time of Jerome, who himself was one of its opponents. But gradually the tenet which had so widely prevailed became obnoxious and proscribed. One great reason of this remarkable change of sentiment is to be found in the altered condition and prospects of the Church. Christians at first yearned for the reappearance of the Lord. Moreover, it was impossible for them to raise their faith and hopes so high as to expect the conquest of the Roman empire by the moral power of the cross, independently of the personal and supernatural interposition of Christ. But as the Gospel made progress, the possibility and probability of a peaceful victory of the Christian cause over all its adversaries, by the might of truth and of the spirit, gained a lodgment in the convictions of good men. . . . Augustine’s treatment of the subject marks an epoch. He says (Concerning the City of God, 20, 7) that he once held to a millenarian Sabbath; nor does he consider the doctrine objectionable, provided the joys of the righteous are figured as spiritual. But. proceeding to discuss the subject, he advocates the proposition that the earthly kingdom of Christ is the Church, which was even then in the millennial jera, and on the road to a glorious ascendency over all its enemies.”

⁸ This view that the thousand years or millennium meant an indefinite, uncertain period and that the Christian church was already enjoying it and reigning has proved erroneous and its bad consequences duly showed up. As one thousand years from Jesus’ birth neared their close, or as A.D. 1000 approached, many religious folk began to think that the judgment and fiery end of the world would occur that year. Excitement became widespread throughout western Europe because it was feared that God’s "day of wrath” was at hand. When the world did not burn up that year, the religionists felt it was proof that the thousand years of Revelation 20:2 were not

8. How did the bad consequences of the changed view show up? literal but an indefinite period of long duration. They still held to the view that the millennium was yet in progress and that the Christian church was already reigning in it. That view obtains among the Roman Catholic Hierarchy to this day.—See footnote.*

⁹ The Catholic view was long entertained that the thousand-year reign of the Roman Catholic Hierarchy began A.D. 800, when pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, and that it ended with the close of the eighteenth century in the days of Napoleon Bonaparte, who took the pope prisoner to France. Hence the “little time” during which Satan was to be loosed continued from then on. In 1870 the pope was shorn of temporal dominion by the invasion of Rome and the setting up of the Kingdom of Italy with Rome as capital. Fifty-nine years later temporal power was restored to the pope by the Lateran Treaty between fascist Mussolini and pope Pius XI, whereby Vatican City was established as the pope’s political domain. In 1933 cardinal Eugene Pacelli signed for Pius XI the concordat between the pope and Nazi Hitler, a baptized Roman Catholic. In a speech at Washington, D.C., February 16, 1940, Dr. Edmund A. Walsh, of the Jesuit Georgetown University, stated that the German aims in World War II were the reestablishment of the Holy Roman Empire. He said he had heard Adolf Hitler say that the Holy Roman Empire, which was a Germanic empire, must be reestablished. (New York Times, Feb. 17, 1940) Less than two months later, on May 10, 1940, when the Nazi armies invaded Holland, Belgium and Luxemburg, Hitler declared to his troops: “Your hour has

• In the Murphy edition of the Catholic Douay Version Bible the footnote on Revelation 20: 2 says on the binding of Satan: “Bound him, &c. The power of Satan has been very much limited by the passion of Christ: for a thousand years; that is, for the whole tune of the New Testament: but especially from the time of the destruction of Babylon or pagan Rome, till the new efforts of Gog and Magog against the church, towards the end of the world. During which time the souls of the martyrs and saints live and reign with Chnst in heaven, in the first resurrection, which is that of the soul to the life of glory; as the second resurrection will be that of the body, at the day of the general judgment.”

Says the British Jesuit version, “The Westminster Version of the Sacred Scriptures”, Volume 4 of the New Testament, 1931 edition, on Revelation 20: 2-6: “ ‘A thousand years’: not to be taken literally, as was done by the Millennianists. The duration thus indicated is that of the long period to intervene between the restraint placed on Satan at Christ’s first advent . . . and ‘the little time’ allowed to the devil to exert an extraordinary activity before the close of time. . . . Hence, the first resurrection is the spiritual reign of God’s saints during the long period of peace (1,000 years) granted to the Church, whereas the second resurrection is the physical rising of the dead at the close of time (cf. John xi, 25, 26).”

To the same effect are footnotes in “The New Testament” translated from the Latin Vulgate by the episcopal committee of the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine in 1941. Also in the translation of 1944 by the British Monsignor Ronald A. Knox. 9, 10. What about the papal millennium and little season after it? now come, and the battle that begins today is to decide the fate of the German nation for the next thousand years. Do your duty now. The blessings of the German people accompany you.”

• ¹⁰ According to a telephone message to the New York Times from Fulda, Germany, December 6,1941, those blessings included the prayers of the German Roman Catholic clergy, including the bishops. (New York Times, Dec. 7,1941) Of curious agreement with the announced aims of Nazi Hitler was the broadcast over the Vatican radio station on June 25, 1940, that “henceforth Sunday masses will be recited in Vatican grottoes and broadcast, to give the world through prayer 'a new order following the present war—an order inspired by principles of truth, justice and charity’.” (New York Times, June 26, 1940) Paris had fallen to the Nazis, and the French officers had signed an armistice with Germany a few days previous. In speaking of the next thousand years Hitler was either making a back reference to the thousand-year existence of the Germanic Holy Roman Empire or to the thousand years predicted in Revelation, chapter 20. All Catholic prayers and hope for a Holy Roman Empire after World War II to end the time of Satan’s loosing collapsed with the defeat of Hitler and Mussolini.

NOT YET IN PROGRESS

• ¹¹ All peoples can be grateful that Christendom’s religious interpretations of the thousand-year reign have proved false, for the long reign of the popes and bishops, who sit upon thrones and talk of their period in office as a reign, has never been marked by the binding of Satan the Devil and the blessings for mankind that the Bible promises during the true millennium. The promised millennial reign is yet in the future, but near. The King for that thousand years is not a succession of so-called “vicegerents of Christ”, but Christ Jesus himself. That he will reign in person is proved by the fact that the faithful Christians who have part in the first resurrection are said to live and reign “with Christ a thousand years”.

• ¹² Christ Jesus is the promised Seed of God’s “woman”. He is the One appointed to crush the Serpent’s head, quite contrary to the pope’s attitude to the Serpent, for the pope has said he is willing to do business with the Devil himself if it will further the Hierarchy’s interests. So Pius XI did not hesitate to do business with Mussolini and Hitler. For refusing to compromise with the Devil,-the “heel” of Christ Jesus was bruised or crushed at Calvary by this Serpent, who used his own wicked seed upon earth, particularly the religious leaders of ancient Israel. To these Jesus once said: "Ye are of your

• 11 When is the millennium, who is its king, and why’

• 12 . How was the "heel” of the Seed bruised, and how was it healed? father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him.” “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because ye shut the kingdom of heaven against men:... Ye serpents, ye offspring of vipers, how shall ye escape the judgment of Gehenna?” (John 8:44; Matt. 23:13, 33, Am. Stan. Ver., margin) Almighty God restored Christ Jesus from the effects of the “heel” wound by raising him from the dead on the third day, to immortal life as a spirit person, divine.

¹³ Forty days later, when Christ Jesus ascended to his Father, he did not then begin his reign of a thousand years, for he had not yet destroyed his enemies in heaven and in earth nor bound Satan the Devil and chained and sealed him up in the abyss. When he appeared in God’s presence, the prophecy began to be fulfilled in which King David had spoken of Christ as his Lord and said: “Jehovah saith unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool. Jehovah will send forth the rod of thy strength out of Zion: Rule thou in the midst of thine enemies.” (Ps. 110:1, 2, Am. Stan. Ver.) That Christ did not reign from that first century onward the apostles John and Paul plainly show. John wrote the Revelation toward the close of the first century and spoke of the thousand-year reign as yet future, as one of the “things which must shortly come to pass”. (Rev. 1:1) John outlived Paul. About A.D. 61, while at Rome, Paul wrote his letter to the Hebrews and said: “But now we see not yet all things put under him. But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour; that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man. . . . that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; and deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.”—Heb. 2: 8, 9, 14, 15.

¹¹ Then, to show that Christ Jesus at his Father’s right hand in heaven did not yet have Satan under his feet but must wait in expectation for all his enemies to be made his footstool, Paul went on to say of the “man Christ Jesus”: “But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God; from henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his footstool.” (Heb. 10:12,13) The promise is that the faithful Christian overcomers would reign with Christ for the thousand years, but Paul vigorously denied that the Christians were reigning in his day. He himself did not sit upon an episcopal throne and claim to reign, but he said to the Corinthians who did assume 13, 14. How did John and Paul show Christ was not then reigning? to run ahead and reign as kings either politically or in a spiritual manner: “You are now full; you are now become rich; you reign without us; and i would to God you did reign, that we also might reign with you.” (1 Cor. 4:8, Douay) The faithful overcomers reign in heaven with God’s Anointed King after Satan the Serpent has his head bruised, and therefore Paul showed that the thousand-year reign was yet future by saying to the Christians at Rome: “And the God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly.”—Rom. 16: 20.

¹⁵ Consequently the Catholic Hierarchy, in reigning from the days of Emperor Constantine or from the start of the Holy Roman Empire under Charlemagne, have not followed the examples of the apostles Peter and Paul. They have not waited for God to make the enemies Christ’s footstool and to send Christ’s scepter out of the heavenly Zion with the command: “Rule thou in the midst of thine enemies.” (Ps. 110:1, 2) So they could not have received their power and authority to reign on earth from God. They could only have received it from the one who offered Christ all the kingdoms of this world and their glory, but whose offer Christ refused, namely, from Satan the Devil. Thus the Catholic Hierarchy have not bound the Devil by their unauthorized reign on earth, but Satan the Devil has further deceived Christendom and all the rest of the world by the religio-political reign of the Hierarchy. Their reign has promoted the rise of godless communism, and their fight against it now is in vain.

THE DAY OF GOD ALMIGHTY PRECEDES

¹⁸ Down to the days of Emperor Charlemagne the popes of Rome used to be elected by the people of Rome. But Christ Jesus would not let the people make him king: “when Jesus therefore perceived that they would come and take him by force, to make him a king, he departed.” (John 6:15) He waited upon his Father, Jehovah God, to make him a King at His own right hand in heaven. When he sat down at his Father’s right hand after he ascended to heaven, he expected to wait there till the end of the “seven times” of the Gentiles. (Dan. 4:16, 23, 25, 32; Luke 21:24) Christ Jesus knew those times began in 607 B.C., when the king of Babylon destroyed Jerusalem and God overturned the throne upon which the royal line of King David sat as His visible representatives. Jehovah God said; “I will overturn, overturn, overturn, it: and it shall be no more, until he come whose right it is; and I will give it him.” (Ezek. 21:27) Christ Jesus is the one “whose right it is”, and Jehovah God gives him the kingdom at the end of the “seven times” of Gentile domination of our earth. Those “seven times” equal 2,520 years;

15. From whom did the Hierarchy get power to reign? The result? 16. From whom did Jesus accept kingship, and when⁰ and since they began in the fall of 607 B.C., they end in the fall of A.D. 1914. Till that year Christ Jesus in heaven had to wait, and at that time he came into the kingdom and God sent forth the scepter of his sway out of heavenly Zion, to rule amid his enemies. By enthroning and crowning Jesus Christ as his Anointed Kling and Royal Consort, Jehovah God took his power and established his kingdom with Zion as his capital organization.

¹⁷ At that time, A.D. 1914, the year that World War I began, the vision that John saw of “things which must shortly come to pass” started fulfilling, namely: “And the seventh angel sounded the trumpet : and there were great voices in heaven, saying: The kingdom of this world is become our Lord’s and his Christ’s, and he shall reign for ever and ever. Amen. . . . We give thee thanks, 0 Lord God Almighty, who art, and who wast, and who art to come: because thou hast taken to thee thy great power, and thou hast reigned. And the nations were angry, and thy wrath is come, and the time of the dead, that they should be judged, and that thou shouldest render reward to thy servants the prophets and the saints, and to them that fear thy name, little and great, and shouldest destroy them who have corrupted the earth.”—Apoc. 11:15-18, Douay.

³⁸ When the Lord God Almighty thus started his kingdom of the new world by means of his Anointed One, his King Christ Jesus, there was reason for Satan the Devil to stir up the nations of this old world to anger. The seven times of their uninterrupted domination of the earth had run out, and now their further stay in power was threatened by God’s bringing his anointed Son to the heavenly throne. Angry, they refused to accept God’s Son as rightfully enthroned King. So God’s wrath justly began against the nations and the time came for him to destroy those who corrupted and destroyed the earth; for the earth is God’s footstool.—Isa. 66:1.

¹⁸ The bringing of Jehovah’s Son to the throne of heavenly Zion is pictured for us in the next vision that John describes. In it he shows us who God’s “woman” is, whose Seed would suffer a heel-wound from the Serpent, but would, in turn, crush the Serpent’s head. This “woman” is no woman on earth, for we read of her: “And a great sign appeared in heaven: A woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars: and being with child, she cried travailing in birth, and was in pain to be delivered. And there was seen another sign in heaven: and behold a great red dragon, having seven heads, and ten horns: and on his heads seven diadems. . . . and the dragon stood before the woman who was ready to be delivered; that, when she should be delivered, he might

17, 18. Why did God’s wrath begin against the nations?

19, 20. Why is Jesus’ human birth not pictured at Revelation 12:5? devour her son. And she brought forth a man child, who was to rule all nations with an iron rod: and her son was taken up .to God, and to his throne.” —Apoc. 12:1-5, Douay.

• ¹⁰ This “woman” is no allusion to Mary in any sense. The babe Jesus was a perfect babe, and when his earthly mother gave birth to him at Bethlehem it was a perfect birth and there is no evidence that it was accompanied by terrific birth pangs, with Mary crying “travailing in birth" and “in pain to be delivered”. Furthermore, the Roman Catholic Hierarchy insist that Mary is “ever virgin”, but Revelation 12:17 says of the apocalyptic “woman” that the dragon made war with the “rest of her seed”. This shows she had other children, namely, Jesus’ followers. Moreover, the vision fails to show that the “man child”, after his particular birth here, has his heel bruised by the dragon. Hence the vision does not refer to the birth of Jesus from Mary at Bethlehem nineteen centuries ago.

• ²¹ Actually the vision represents the birth of God's kingdom by the bringing forth of his Son in the new capacity of acting King to rule amid the enemies. The woman, arrayed with heavenly light, could not picture the Christian church, “the body of Christ,” for Christ Jesus is not a child of the church. Jesus speaks of the church as the children whom God gave him and he builds the church upon himself as “this rock". (1 Cor. 12:27; Heb. 2:13; Matt. 16:18; 1 Cor. 10:4) So the “woman” stands for God’s universal organization of holy creatures, of whom Christ Jesus is one, the Chief One. The “woman” has had heavenly existence before ever Mary or the Christian church existed; and the apostle Paul points to God’s “woman”, the holy universal organization, when he says to his Christian brethren: “But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all. So then, brethren, we are not children of the bondwoman, but of the free.” (Gal. 4:26,31) Due to the opposition and evil designs of the dragon and his wicked seed, this “woman” (or universal organization) was putting forth efforts and was in painful anxiety for the birth of God’s kingdom. At God’s due time for its birth the glorified Jesus in heaven was brought forth from the universal organization to assume the new office of King in the heavenly Jerusalem or Zion. At his coming forth from her as her Son by the power of God the Father, Christ Jesus was “caught up unto God, and to his throne” and was given the “rod of iron” with which to “rule all nations".—Rev. 12: 5.

• ²² Then the kingdom of God for the new world came! Then Christ Jesus was authorized to rule in the midst of his enemies and to make them his foot-

• 21. Who is the “woman¹’, and what was done with her man child'’ 22. How is Christ’s ruling amid his enemies next shown in vision'’ stool by God’s power! This is shown by what next follows in the vision: “And there was a great battle in heaven, Michael and his angels fought with the dragon, and the dragon fought and his angels: and they prevailed not, neither was their place found any more in heaven. And that great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, who seduceth the whole world; and he was cast unto the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him. And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying: Now is come salvation, and strength, and the KINGDOM OF OUR GOD, AND THE POWER OF HIS Christ : because the accuser of our brethren is cast forth, who accused them before our God day and night. ... Therefore rejoice, 0 heavens, and you that dwell therein. Woe to the earth, and to the sea, because the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, knowing that he hath but a short time. And when the dragon saw that he was cast unto the earth, he persecuted the woman, who brought forth the man child. And the dragon was angry against the woman: and went to make war with the rest of her seed, who keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.”—Apoc. 12:7-10, 12,13,17, Douay.

• ²³ Note, please, that this casting of Satan and his wicked angels down does not mean binding him for a thousand years or the bruising of his head. It does not relieve the earthly nations of the oppressions of Satan and his seductions. The casting of him down to the earth leads up to greater woe for the earth and sea, and also to his persecutions and war against the remnant of the seed of God’s “woman”, because these keep God’s commands and deliver the witness that Jesus Christ is King. There is Scriptural and factual evidence to believe the ousting of Satan and his angels from heaven by the battle up there was fully accomplished by A.D. 1918, in which year World War I came to an end. In the thirty years since then Satan, greatly enraged at being ousted from heaven, has brought terriffic woe upon mankind, including atomic warfare.

• ²⁴ No, Satan is not yet bound and in the abyss. All the religious teaching that Christendom’s clergy have given the people for the past sixteen centuries since Constantine’s day has failed to bind and put restraint upon Satan and his demons. Rather, as the light of God’s Word shines now upon the facts of history, we see that by such religious teaching Satan the Devil has deceived and seduced the whole world. (Rev. 12:9) Those who claim that Christ’s second coming is post-millennial and that the conversion of the world to Christianity must occur before he comes are now faced with Scriptural and factual disproof 23. Was Satan bound when ousted from heaven? Why your answer? 24. Why is Christ’s coming not post-millennial? of their false teaching. Today Jehovah’s witnesses intensely preach “this gospel of the kingdom”, not in hope of world conversion, but just “for a witness unto all nations” before the final end comes upon this world. (Matt. 24:14) The casting of Satan out of heaven by war in the spirit realm precedes the millennium. It hastens to a climax the “perilous times” that were predicted to come “in the last days”. Hence, more so since A.D. 1918 than before, we find Christendom filled with people who are “lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God” and “having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof”. (2 Tim. 3:1-5) This is not due to the failure of true Christianity, for it was never meant to convert this present evil world. Yet it succeeds in producing the 144,000 faithful followers of Christ who prove worthy of reigning with him for the Thousand Years. —Rev. 14:1,3; 7:4-8.

• ²⁵ If we say Christ’s thousand-year reign has not yet begun, why or how can we say he began reigning A.D. 19141 For these Scriptural reasons: The Gentiles’ “seven times” ended then, and the Lord God Almighty took his rightful power over the earth and began reigning. It was then, therefore, that “the kingdom of God” came. It was then that the great “day of Jehovah” began for the vindication of his universal sovereignty and holy name.* This “day of Jehovah” extends from A.D. 1914, when he took his power to reign, and runs to the end of the coming battle of Armageddon when Satan the Devil will be bound in a real way and sealed up in the abyss. Christ Jesus is Jehovah’s Chief Vindicator. On this account He installs Jesus as King A.D. 1914, puts the “iron rod” in his hand and bids him rule amid the enemies and reduce them to his footstool. Hence Jesus puts Satan and his angels out of heaven and down to the earth, God’s footstool. But he does not at once bind Satan and start his own thousand-year reign of peace and freedom from Satanic interference. No, this preliminary reign is as King David’s forty-year reign of warfare that preceded the peaceful reign of David’s son and successor, King Solomon. During this “day of Jehovah” the remnant of the “woman’s” seed must be assembled and be set to work preaching “this gospel of the kingdom”, and the “great multitude” of the Lord’s “other sheep” must be gathered. (Rev. 12:17; 7:9-17) All this takes time. Also it must be done amid the opposition and persecution by the abased Satan and his angels, in order to test the integrity and devotion of the remnant of the seed and of the great multitude. This is why Satan and his demons are left unbound.

’See Isaiah 2:12 and 13:6, 9; Zechariah 14:1; Ezekiel 30:3-5; Joel 2:1-13; Obadiah 15; Zephaniah 1:7, 14 in the American Standard Version.

• 25. It he began reigning in 1914, why has the millennium not begun

A REIGN WITH THE DEVIL BOUND

DESCRIBING the grand climax of the “day of Jehovah”, the apostle John writes: “And I saw an angel coming down out of heaven, having the key of the ahyss and a great chain in his hand. And he laid hold on the dragon, the old serpent, which is the Devil and Satan, and hound him for a thousand years.” (Rev. 20:1, 2, Am. Stan. Ver.) This event is the culmination of the great universal warfare described in the eleven verses just preceding, namely, at Revelation 19:11-21. It is universal because forces in heaven and in earth take part in it. The 'rider on the white horse’, the King of kings and Lord of lords, Christ Jesus, leads his victorious hosts against his combined enemies, the dragon and wicked demons with their earthly lineup of the “beast”, the “false prophet”, and the “kings of the earth, and their armies”. All these are “gathered together to make war against him that sat on the horse, and against his army”. Is this “the war of the great day of God, the Almighty”? Yes, the “day of Jehovah” attains its grand climax with His victory in this universal battle, at the “place which is called in Hebrew Har-Magedon”. This is the place to which demon-inspired utterances out of the mouths of the dragon, the beast and the false prophet gather the “kings of the whole world” for battle against Jehovah’s enthroned King of kings and Lord of lords.—Rev. 16:13-16, Am. Stan. Ver.

• ² It was foretold that the King of kings would overcome all those at war with him, resisting his reign of a thousand years (Rev. 17:14), and now he is described as doing it. “Jehovah hath sworn, and will not repent: Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek. The Lord at thy right hand will strike through kings in the day of his wrath. He will judge among the nations, he will fill the places with dead bodies; he will strike through the head in many countries.” So says Psalm 110:4-6, Am. Stan. Ver.

• ³ While still alive in their resistance to Jehovah’s King, the beast and the miracle-working false prophet are caught and pitched into the ‘lake of fire burning with brimstone’. That denotes their eternal destruction, for this lake “is the second death”, from which nothing can come back into existence. (Rev. 20:14,15; 21:8)) All those lined up with the beast and false prophet, namely, all the kings of the whole world and their armies, never survive the universal war of Armageddon. The prospect is terrifying. It should spur those who love life in the righteous new world to forsake the side of the deceptive ‘false prophet” and “beast”, and to align themselves on the side of the sure victor, Jehovah’s King.

I. With what does the "day of Jehovah” come to its climax? 2, 3 What is the fate of the King’s visible enemies?

• ⁴ After the earthly kings and their armies have been whipped and the false prophet and beast have been destroyed, the head of the old Serpent, Satan the Devil, must next be crushed by the Seed of God’s “woman”. The fact that the mighty angel comes down from heaven to catch and bind him shows that this wicked one is now at the earth, cast down to Christ’s footstool where the Serpent’s head can be crushed under foot. This angel who is mightier than Satan and who binds and imprisons him is no other than Christ Jesus himself, for the word angel means messenger. Christ Jesus is Jehovah’s “angel of the testament”, or “angel of the covenant”, who is sent to vindicate Jehovah’s sovereignty and name. (Mal. 3:1, Douay, and Bagster’s Septuagint Translation) Calvary is past for him, and now “Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over him”; but now it comes Satan the Devil’s turn to die by Jehovah’s Executioner, the woman’s Seed. (Rom. 6:9) The “great chain” with which he binds him is not the power of the gospel. The preaching of the gospel never has bound and never will bind that wicked counterfeiter of the gospel. The “chain” pictures Christ’s extensive, unbreakable power to restrain Satan completely. So great is his power that he does not first have to kill Satan in order to render him powerless. No, he catches him alive and enchains him and then he crushes his head to death.

THE ABYSS

• ⁵ To death? Yes, that is the state that is symbolized by the abyss to which the angel has the key. Christ Jesus has not only the “keys of hell and of death” but also the “key of the abyss”. (Rev. 1:18) At Revelation 9:1-11 he is pictured as having that key and, with it, he acted as the Greater Moses and released a tormenting plague of spiritual locusts upon Christendom, “which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified.” (Rev. 11: 8) Concerning these spiritual locusts we read, in Rotherham’s translation: “They have over them as king the messenger of the abyss, whose name in Hebrew is Abaddon [‘=Destroyer’], and in the Greek he hath for name Destroyer.” And Monsignor Knox’s translation from the Latin Vulgate reads: “Their king was the angel of the abyss, whose name in Hebrew is Abaddon, in Greek Apollyon, that is, in Latin, the Exterminator.” (Rev. 9:11; also Douay) That is what Christ Jesus, the “woman’s” Seed, is to Satan the Devil and all his wicked seed, namely, the Destroyer or Exterminator.

• ⁶ When Jesus died on earth, he himself went into the abyss. At Romans 10:6,7 the apostle Paul writes: “Say not in thy heart, Who shall ascend into

4 Who is the angel that binds Satan? and what is his chain? 5, 6. What is the abyss, and who has the key to it?

heaven? (that is, to bring Christ down): or, Who shall descend into the abyss? (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead).” {Am.Stan. Ver.) Before Jesus’ death, on the occasion that he was about to cast a legion of devils out of an obsessed man at the sea of Galilee, we read, “they entreated him that he would not command them to depart into the abyss.” They did not want to die then, before it was due for Satan their prince to be himself cast into the abyss. So Jesus let them live on.—Luke 8:31, Am. Stan. Ver.

• ⁷ When Jesus went into the abyss of death, Satan the Devil had his earthly seed make the sepulcher sure against breaking in to steal Jesus’ body. He had the stone before the door sealed, with a government seal. (Matt. 27: 62-66; see also Dan. 6:16,17) But now, as the final feature of Armageddon, Satan the Devil is helplessly bound and his head crushed by being put into the abyss of the death state. John says the divine Messenger “cast him into the abyss, and shut it, and sealed it over him, that he should deceive the nations no more, until the thousand years should be finished: after this he must be loosed for a little time”. (Rev. 20: 3, Am. Stan. Ver.) This proves that the thousand-year reign of Christ begins, not at the close of the Gentile times A.D. 1914, but after Armageddon is fought and all his foes are destroyed and are thus unable to interfere with his righteous rule of peace.

• ⁸ The imprisoning of Satan the Devil in the abyss means the completion of the destruction of the “heavens and the earth which are now”, and which are “kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men”. (2 Pet. 3:7) That is how John’s vision is fulfilled: “And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them.” (Rev. 20:11) That earth has been the visible organization of the Devil over mankind, whereas the heaven has been the wicked invisible organization of Satan and his demons. By the end of this “day of Jehovah” they will have been fully destroyed as though by fire.

• ⁸ What a king for the nations of earth to have for a thousand years! A king that can do the humanly impossible, namely, rid mankind of the unrighteous, oppressive visible organization and destroy the wicked invisible powers responsible for it and operating it, namely, the mighty dragon Satan and all his demons! And the “nations” over whom this Liberator King will begin his millennial reign will be his “other sheep”, the “great multitude” out of all nations, kindreds, people and tongues. These now accept the Kingdom gospel and forsake the “beast”

• 7. What next proves the millennium begins after Armageddon? 8. What does Satan's being abyssed mean as to the old world?

9. Over what “nations” does the King begin his reign, and why? and the “false prophet” and all this doomed world, and they follow the Good Shepherd, God’s Lamb, who can shield and spare them and bring them alive through the battle of Armageddon. Thus surviving the final end of this world, just as Noah and his family survived the flood at the end of the old world, they will see all the visible signs marking the binding and abyssing of Satan the Devil, and they will know that not for a thousand years will he be around again to try deceiving the nations of mankind. (John 10:16; Rev. 7:9-17) They will rejoice with unspeakable joy at this vindication of Jehovah’s universal sovereignty and name by his Vindicator King, Christ Jesus.

KINGS WITH THE MILLENNIAL KING

• ¹⁰ But behold whom the King of kings has reign with him for the Devil-free thousand years. John says: “And I saw thrones with people sitting on them, who were allowed to judge—saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for the testimony of Jesus and God’s word, those who would not worship the Beast or his statue, and who would not receive his mark on their forehead or hand; they came to life and reigned along with the Christ for a thousand years. . . . This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is he who shares in the first resurrection; over such the second death has no power, they shall be priests of God and Christ, and reign along with him during the thousand years.”—Rev. 20:4-6, Moffatt.

• ¹¹ Those participating in this millennial reign with Christ must share in the first resurrection, which is the resurrection like that of Jesus, who was the firstborn from the dead. “It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption: it is sown in dishonour; it is raised in glory: it is sown in weakness; it is raised in power: it is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body.” (1 Cor. 15: 42-44) John tells us that 144,000 faithful followers of Christ Jesus share in this first resurrection to reign with him in reward for their devotion to God’s Word and Christ’s testimony even to a violent death and for overcoming this world and its antichrist agencies pictured by the “beast”, its “statue”, and the “false prophet”. The “souls” John saw are not so-called 'disembodied spirits’ of dead Christians, but they are the faithful resurrected 144,000 themselves, clothed upon with their house from heaven, clothed upon with immortality and incorruption. (2 Cor. 5:1-4) These souls are the resurrected creatures themselves; just as Paul says of man’s creation: “The first man Adam became a living soul.” (1 Cor. 15:45; Gen. 2:7) These resurrected souls do not reign with Christ on earth. The earth is God’s footstool; and kings do not reign from a footstool. They reign from the

• 10, 11. Who reign with Christ, and what are these “souls”? throne; and heaven is God’s throne. There Christ sits with his Father in His throne, and the 144,000 faithful resurrected souls reign with him.—Rev. 3:21; Matt. 5:34,35.

• ¹² The religious Hierarchy, who sit on earthly thrones and claim to rule as Christ’s vicegerent and apostolic successors, reign for a few years and die off and have to be succeeded by other clergymen. This fact proves that their reign as priests is a counterfeit, unscriptural reign. But Christ Jesus and his 144,000 do not need to have successors to continue reigning through the thousand years. Jesus is a king-priest like Melchizedek forever by reason of the “power of an endless life”, and so he has an “unchangeable priesthood”. (Heb. 7:15,16, 24, 25) His 144,000 fellow priests and kings overcome the world, and the promise is: “He that overcometh shall not be hurt of the second death.” (Rev. 2:11) This is made possible for them by their being resurrected with immortality and incorruptibility.—1 Cor. 15:52-54.

• ¹³ Think, therefore, of all the good that such a royal house in heaven can effect during the thousand years without a change or an interruption of rulers through death. Because they are immortal, that thousand years is as one day to them. (2 Pet. 3:8) The King of kings is the “last Adam”. God told the “first Adam” in Eden that he would die in the day he sinned. Adam lived 930 years and died for his sin, which denotes that from God’s time-measurement Adam died within a thousand-year “day”, after begetting the human race in sin and death. (Gen. 2:17; 5:3-5; Rom. 5:12) The “last Adam”, Christ the Lord, also has his “day” of a thousand years, in which he reigns, but he becomes “the Everlasting Father” to all that obey him as King. “He must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet. The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death,” the death that the “first Adam” brought upon humankind. (Isa. 9:6; 1 Cor. 15: 25, 26) Under Satan and his demons the 2,520 years of Gentile domination of the earth have brought mankind to their present woeful state, and have been a curse. But not so Christ’s continuous reign of a thousand years. He and his 144,000 will make up the “new heavens” which God promised to establish to displace the Satanic heavens and to pour down righteousness upon obedient mankind. As Peter has written: “We, according to his promise, look -for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.” (2 Pet. 3:13) “The new heavens and the new earth, which I will make, shall remain before me, saith Jehovah.”—Isa. 66: 22, Am. Stan. Ver.

• ¹⁴ Satan the Devil will not be able to interfere

• 12. How does mortality prove the Hierarchy’s reign a counterfeit? 13. How will the last Adam’s day be opposite of that of the first?

14. During the millennium who will enter into earthly blessings? with the establishment of the promised “new earth”, where God’s will shall be done as it is in heaven. This will be a righteous visible organization for the governing and blessing of all mankind privileged to live during the thousand years. The “great multitude” of good-will surviving Armageddon will be the first to enter into the earthly, physical blessings of the righteous new world. With all the destroyers of the earth exterminated, the earth will be transformed into an Edenic paradise, blossoming like a rose. But the apocalyptic vision shows that in due time the sea, and death and hell (or Hades) will deliver up the dead that are in them. Then under perfectly righteous conditions, without a devil to seduce, the resurrected earthly ones will be privileged to avail themselves of Christ’s ransom sacrifice and to prove by their works then that they love Jehovah God and his kingdom by Christ Jesus. Faithful obedient works will be rewarded with blessings and healing and finally uplift to human perfection in God’s true image and likeness.

• ¹⁵ “And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, and shall go out to deceive the nations.” (Rev. 20:7,8) This means the resuscitation of Satan the Devil for a little time to test the absolute stability of the new world. This resuscitation of him will not be any unrighteous act, any more so than that there will be a resurrection of the unjust and those who have done evil as well as a resurrection of the just and the doers of good.—Acts 24:15; John 5:28, 29.

• ¹⁶ Those of uplifted mankind who then yield to Satan’s deceptions as the perfect Eve did in Eden, followed by the perfect Adam, will perish forever in the “second death”. Those who maintain their perfection and sinlessness by unwavering loyalty to God’s King will have their names written in the book of life. That means their justification, their being declared unswervingly righteous and worthy of the right to everlasting life. Thus will be fulfilled the prophecy: “The rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished.”—Rev. 20: 5,12-15.

” Satan, who tries to deceive and overturn that new world, will be punished with “second death”, his everlasting destruction, with no future interruption. (Rev. 20:10) Thus Christ Jesus will prove to be a “king against whom there is no rising up” (Prov. 30:29,31), and the new world will go on without end, proving to be forever stable in vindication of Jehovah’s universal sovereignty. The thousand years of Christ’s reign having served their divine purpose perfectly to God’s glory, “then cometh the end, when he shall have deHvered up the kingdom to God, even

15, 16 When will the rest of the dead live again? Why then?

• 17. How does Christ dispose of Satan and show loyalty to God? the Father.... And when all things shall be subdued unto him, then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him that put all things under him, that God may be all in all.” (1 Cor. 15: 24-28) Thank God that the vision of the thousand-year rule of his reigning King is soon to be realized.

MEXICO GOES TO SCHOOL

YOU know how to read and write, it is your duty to I teach another,” says one of the signboards frequently seen throughout Mexico. A finger points to all passersby, whether citizens or foreigners living in the country, for it is an all-out campaign against illiteracy. Another announcement seen in public places reads: "If you don’t know how to read and write, you should not be here—you should be in school.” Mexico is coming out of her shell, emerging from centuries of darkness and ignorance to take her place among enlightened nations of the earth. But why the necessity for such a campaign in this twentieth century? Let us look back into history for the educational background of this great Latin-American country.

Before Columbus landed on the shores of America, many distinct Indian tribes formed the population of Mexico. Two outstanding forms of culture flourished, the Aztec to the north and the Maya to the south. The various pyramids and ruins still in existence testify to the fact that a complicated system of hieroglyphics was in use, which were understood only by the priestly caste trained in a seminary-school known as the calmecac, and a knowledge of reading and writing was in no wise necessary to be considered part of the cultured group. Only children of the nobles could attend the calmecac. There was only one such school in the city of Tenochtitlan (now Mexico city), and this was annexed to the Aztec temple. Being controlled by the priests, the training was predominantly religious.

Young men of the middle class began their education at about fourteen years of age when they entered the tel-puchcallis, a military school which did not include reading and writing in its curriculum. There were between forty and fifty of these schools in Mexico city to train the warriors, but the greater part of the population were considered as slaves and were denied any education at all. Each Indian tribe had a different concept of the world and life which was reflected in their mode of education. That of the Aztecs was a traditional type based on the customs of the past, being a combination of the military and the religious.

To the south, the Mayas were more progressive. Service to their people, their religion and their families was their main object in life. Both men and women were imbued with four basic qualities: love of work, honesty, sexual continence and. respect. As in the case of the Aztecs, class distinction was the basis for public school education. The nobles in one school learned religion, including astrology, writing, arithmetic and genealogy, while the middle class received largely military training. The social stability of the Mayas and their long existence as an empire have been.attributed in large part to the emphasis which they placed upon education.

Then came the Spaniards, in 1521, bringing in not only the culture of the Old World but its evils as well. Instead of lifting the moral standard of the conquered peoples through education, it served the purpose of the Conquista-dores to treat them as slaves. The Spanish colonists were interested mainly in exploiting the rich natural resources in the newly-discovered land of treasures. With the help of the Inquisition, which was soon brought to “New Spain”, thousands of Indians were “converted” to the so-called “Christian religion” and became more subservient due to the morbid fear planted in their hearts. Far from the principles of brotherhood and equality, class distinction became even stronger, and with the years new classes came into existence. The children of the Spaniards who were born in the new land were called criollos. The mixture of Spanish and Indian blood by intermarriage produced the mestizos, the pure-blooded Indian being considered the lowest class.

During the Colonial era education was grossly neglected. The Indian school system was abolished, with nothing to take its place. A school census taken after 273 years of Spanish domination revealed only 10 elemental schools in the entire country. In the city of Mexico, of 1,400 pupils only 73 were Indians. According to the laws, the Spanish were not permitted to live in Indian towns. Usually only one person in each town knew the Spanish language, the Indian nobleman who was selected to represent the government.

This condition continued until the independence from Spanish rule was won, in 1810, which marked a bright spot in national education. In 1822 Lancasterian schools which had been begun by the public school system in New York were started in Mexico. They provided for basic education in large groups, and, while not very successful, this method awoke public interest in free schools for the poor. In 1833 a government office was created for the inspection and governing of educational activities. For the first time education was put in secular hands. In 1859 the great revolutionary, Benito Juarez, said to be the “George Washington of Mexico”, framed the famous Reform Laws which disestablished the church and provided for the suppression of religious education. However, his rule was interrupted by the reign of Maximilian and Carlota, sent by Napoleon III of France, who dreamed of establishing a great Catholic empire in Mexico. During the few years of French intervention religion once more came to the fore and Mexico suffered another setback in its educational life. But with the defeat of the French forces Benito Juarez again became president and things took a turn for the better. A law was passed which made elemental education free and obligatory and abolished religious teaching. Some progress is seen from the fact that .in 1871 there were 5,000 primary schools in operation, but in 1877 an estimate showed Mexico with an illiteracy rate of 93 percent, second only to India’s 98 percent.

From 1877 to 1911 was the regime of Porfirio Diaz. While he ruled with the iron hand of a dictator, he was interested in public education and entrusted matters of education to able men such as Justo Sierra, who still lives in the memory of the Mexican people as the “Beloved Teacher”. A good start was made in establishing schools for the native Indian population, but again a political crisis bringing ten years of revolution interfered. Rural schools were discontinued during this period until, following the revolution, the new Constitution of 1917 was put into effect providing for the free education of all and prohibiting religion from entering into the realm of education.

The declared purpose of the revolution was to throw off the yoke of the upper classes in order to accomplish greater social, economic and cultural progress in the nation as a whole. To realize this aim schools were to play an important part, and rural schools began to function but in the face of tremendous odds—lack of teachers, inadequate facilities, and, above all, the great difference among the people. Of the native Indian population even now only 1,225,136 speak Spanish more or less fluently, while about 3,000,000 rural inhabitants speak a little Spanish but retain the forms of life and culture of the aborigines. Many others speak only their native dialect. So the struggle against the darkness of ignorance goes on, seemingly endless in view of such obstacles.

But the Great Educator, Christ Jesus, had said, “I am the light of the world.” In spite of the fact that some men would fight against that light, preferring the darkness (John 3:19), he commanded his followers to let their light shine before all men. In harmony with that in Minneapolis, Minnesota, U.S.A., on August 21, 1943, a declaration was adopted by an assembly of about 12,000 of Jehovah’s witnesses which said in part:

"That all 'men of good-will’, without distinction as to race, creed or color, must be located and prepared for life in the new world; and that the educational work with the Kingdom truth is the most essential instruction to such ones now and in the postwar period, as it makes them ready for life eternal; . . . That the textbook of freedom is Jehovah God’s Word, the Bible, and that the truths he has revealed therein by his Son and King at the temple make the people free, -without which all freedoms announced by men are passing and illusory; . . . That in obedience to our commission we will endeavor now and in the postwar era to extend more widely the publication of Kingdom truth and to increase the number of free Biblestudy classes in the homes of ‘men of good-will’ throughout the earth, using the educational means which the Lord has provided for our use. ...”

INSTRUCTION IN READING AND WRITING

When the attention of Jehovah’s witnesses in Mexico was called to the great educational campaign under way, they went to work as one man. All became education-conscious. An Awake!- subscriber who had previously been a director of federal rural schools in the state of Veracruz -writes that he has met many people with no desire whatsoever to read and write, but upon becoming interested in searching the Scriptures by means of the Watchtower publications, they develop a real desire to learn. The clergy have encouraged the people to live in ignorance, and this has resulted in an apathy on the part of many to attend the reading and writing centers established by the government. Many who began with good intentions showed a lack of perseverance, for in many parts of Mexico the climate is conducive to a passing interest in things. Reading is only a means to gain knowledge; there must be an incentive to learn before a great effort is made. Jehovah’s witnesses, knowing that people of good-will are hungering after knowledge of God and his purposes, carry them the Bible and the Watchtower publications containing that spiritual food. Those who attend Bible studies only to listen find themselves with a keen desire to be able to read for themselves and readily accept the help of those who offer to teach them.

The results have been gratifying. They did not confine their activities to those who met with them for study. From door to door they contacted other persons who had a desire to read and made regular visits for the purpose of teaching these people freely. A large percentage of those associated with Jehovah’s witnesses have learned to read by using the Bible and Bible helps as textbooks.

From Nogales, Sonora, a subscriber writes that many persons who did not know how to read and write, on coming in contact with the Bible studies of Jehovah’s witnesses there, were impelled by a love of God’s Word to learn and are now helping others in the educational campaign. Such is the case with another of Jehovah’s witnesses in Mexicali, Lower California. She writes: “A representative of La Torre del Vigia [The Watchtower] came to my home with some very interesting books, as he explained. I told him that it would be for the people that can read. He replied that all the people had that privilege and that if I wished he would teach me to read and study the books. That was about two years ago, and now, by means of those books, I not only can read but write, and I also co-operate in this educational work of teaching others.”

On the 21st of August, 1944, just one year to the day after the announcement of the free educational campaign by Jehovah’s witnesses, the National Campaign Against Illiteracy was established in Mexico by presidential decree. It was a person-to-person teaching work which was obligatory upon everyone who knew how to read and write. Special books and notebooks were provided by the government to anyone presenting the name of a candidate for instruction, and at the end of the course a government inspector examined the student and awarded a certificate of merit to the teacher. Of course, Jehovah’s witnesses were quick to avail themselves of this help, and several study halls were recognized as instruction centers, provided with the special books, and they were granted certificates of merit for their work.

Typical is the experience of Jehovah’s witnesses in the city of Jimenez, Tamaulipas. Upon contacting a group of persons in the rural section who were eager to study the publications brought to them but who could not read, the witnesses set about to teach them. The school inspector furnished the necessary books and notebooks and the lessons were begun. After twelve visits all the group could read and write and were enjoying a regular Bible study. The school inspector expressed his appreciation of the good work of these instructors and promised his co-operation in their future efforts.

In November, 1947, the UNESCO, the educational and cultural organization of the United Nations, met in Mexico city to discuss the many problems in connection with the fulfillment of their pledged purpose, namely, ‘to help member states who desire such help to establish a minimum fundamental education for all their citizens. To stimulate and co-ordinate fundamental education throughout the world? An extensive report of their work in Mexico was printed November 28, 1947, in which basic education was defined as “the process of transmitting a minimum of knowledge, preparation and attitudes which man needs to live, enjoy good health, take advantage of opportunities that are offered to him of higher education, and prepare himself to fulfill the duties and exercise the rights of a free citizen of the world”. They recognized the need of lifting the general standard of life of the Mexican people, and the value of education as the ideal medium to realize this purpose. After a thorough study of the educational history of Mexico, Doctor Kuo-Yu-Shou stated that an effort much greater than the reading and writing campaigns is needed to supply the necessary culture. Mention was made of the millions of primitive natives who are still living in the past, as is the case not only in Mexico but in other Indo-Latin countries. Attention was called to their living conditions and customs, such as the “cures” by witch-doctors to cast out evil from their patients, the “evil eye” so much feared, the terrible force of “curses” which overtake and follow the accursed one, the worship of images and statues in their religious practices, the religious rivalry between neighboring towns and communities which often results in bloodshed, human life meaning very little.

These are problems which greatly disturb the leaders in the field of world education. As we have seen, religion has been largely responsible for this lack of progress and the retention of superstition in Mexico. The Roman Catholic Hierarchy has always claimed that the education of the people rightfully belongs under and should be under the charge and supervision of the Vatican. Even now when the government in its Constitution has prohibited the teaching of religion in the schools, the influence of the Catholic Hierarchy has stealthily crept into many schools. Religious services and teachings are included in the program and no opportunity is missed to inject the religious viewpoint.

As recently as May 7, 1948, the daily newspaper Tema de Hoy of Jalapa, Veracruz, published an account which reveals the true attitude of the Hierarchy toward public education. The village priest of Cosautlan, a little town near Jalapa, installed a microphone in his pulpit with four loudspeakers on the outside of the building, and in a loud voice which was heard even in the neighboring communities he forbade all the “faithful” to send their children to school. He incited them to rise up against the schoolteachers and the members of the school board, even authorizing them to plant ambushments against ‘anyone they might choose’. In the face of the demonized mob the teachers and the authorities were forced to flee for their lives, and order was restored only when the state government intervened. As usual, the Catholic system was shown to be against the spirit of education and progress.

But the greatest educator of all time pronounced the only real remedy when he said, “The truth shall make you free.” In obedience to his command his followers in Mexico, as in other parts of the world, are carrying on a real educational work. Soon every study hall all over Mexico will be converted into a classroom for several hours a week in a vigorous effort to teach all who will to read and write. The government has promised to co-operate by providing necessary textbooks. People of good-will who have been kept in ignorance for so long are grateful for the help provided for them to gain the life-giving knowledge in the Great Textbook of instruction, the Bible. Equipped with such knowledge they look forward to life in the new world of righteousness, when all the earth shall be “full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea”. (Isa. 11:9) Further report will be made in due time.

MICAH FORESEES OUTCOME OF DIVINE JUDGMENT

MICAH¹ the prophet is sitting in his little adobe house in Moresheth-gath in the shephelah of Judah. He has been writing for some time and he realizes that his hand is not as steady as it used to be and that his eyes tire more quickly. But, then, he has almost finished his writing. When he finishes, he closes his eyes to rest them and in his mind he sees the many occasions on which he has preached, in the good reigns of King Jotham (774-759 B.C.) and King Hezekiah (745-716) and in the wicked rule of Ahaz between them. Hezekiah is now nearing the end of the twenty-ninth year of his reign. Micah remembers his trips to Jerusalem to celebrate the feasts Jehovah has commanded. How he enjoys the songs of praise to Jehovah! His heart rejoices to see God’s worshipers come -from far and near to worship at the temple. He always feels refreshed at Jehovah’s feasts, especially after talking with the prophets Hosea and Isaiah. He remembers, too, his trips to Samaria to deliver God’s message against it. How full of idols the land had been! Now its inhabitants have been exiled by Assyria. Assyria!

He can almost hear again the tramping of the armies which he has watched on more than one occasion from his shephelah hills. How foolish of Assyria, he thinks, to imagine she could take Judah from the hand of Jehovah, the Supreme Ruler of the universe! Who is like Jehovah?

His eyes rested, he reads over his record of Jehovah’s message that he has seen over the years concerning Samaria and Jerusalem.—Mic. 1:1.

His reading brings back many memories. He thrills anew as he did originally many years ago when Jehovah first inspired him to call the whole earth to divine judgment: “Hear, ye peoples, all of you; hearken, 0 earth, and all that therein is: and let the Lord Jehovah be witness against you, the Lord from his holy temple.” (Mic. 1: 2, Am. Stan. Ver.) How fearful had been the vision!—“Mountains melt away before him, valleys split asunder, like wax before a fire, like water pouring over a fall.” (Mic. 1:4, Moffatt) Then Jehovah had given him the reason: “For the transgression of Jacob is all this, and for the sins of the house of Israel. What is the transgression of Jacob? is it not Samaria? and what are the high places of Judah? are they not Jerusalem?” (Mie. 1: 5) Micah remembers how full of Baal-worship were the city and kingdom of Samaria; the God-dishonoring calf-worship at Bethel; its conspiracy with Syria against Judah. With pleasure he remembers how good King Hezekiah of Judah purged the land of false worship, including the high places. (2 Ki. 18:4) He remembers going throughout the land and with his own hands helping the rest of Jehovah’s worshipers throw down the high places, right after the memorable first celebration of the Passover and feast of unleavened bread after the cleansing of the temple.—2 Chron. 31:1.

He is pained when he comes to the part of the prophecy that mentions Judah’s loss of his home town, Moresheth-gath. (Mic. 1:14) Another passage reminds him that he often deplored Israel’s willful breaking of God’s covenant. How glad he was when Jehovah inspired him to say: “Woe to them that devise iniquity and work evil upon their beds! when the morning is light, they practise it, because it is in the power of their hand. And they covet fields, and seize them; and houses, and take them away: and they oppress a man and his house, even a man and his heritage. Therefore thus saith Jehovah: Behold, against this family do I devise an evil, from which ye shall not remove your necks, neither shall ye walk haughtily; for it is an evil time”!—Mic. 2:1-3, Am. Stan. Ver.

He remembers how his and his fellow prophets’ persistent obedience to God in proclaiming the doom of the covenantbreakers irritated the false priests and their unfaithful backers. They used to say to him and his fellow proclaimed: “Do not keep on harping.” “One should not be harping upon such things.” (Mic. 2: 6, An Amer. Trans.) But he and his faithful brethren had kept right on preaching and the efforts of the unfaithful objectors did not succeed in protecting them from the reproach and shame that was due them. (Mic. 2:6, Young) He clearly remembers the counsel Jehovah inspired him to give to those faithful souls he found living among the false worshipers: “Arise ye, and depart; for. this is not your rest: because it is polluted, it shall destroy you, even -with a sore destruction.” —Mic. 2:10.

How stubbornly Israel had refused to heed the message Jehovah had inspired him to deliver to them! They preferred false prophets. No wonder Jehovah had inspired him to say to them: “The prophet for such folk would be some empty fellow and a liar, who promised to prophesy of wine and spirits!”—Mic. 2:11, Moffatt.

The next part of the prophecy makes Micah remember that he had wondered about God’s faithful people after His final judgment. One day Jehovah inspired him to utter a prophecy concerning them: “I will collect all Jacob, gather Israel’s survivors, all together like sheep in a fold, like a flock in its pasture, with the stir and noise of numbers.” (Mic. 2:12, Moffatt) As he recalls the occasion when Jehovah made him see that message it seems that the noise was not that of disorder but of harmonious activity in praising Jehovah, as at a temple celebration in Jerusalem.

Reading on, he remembers the grief he had felt on seeing officials in Israel refuse justice to the people and treat them as a beast does its prey. He rejoiced in the message Jehovah caused him to see and proclaim: “Hear, I pray you, ye heads of Jacob, and rulers of the house of Israel: is it not for you to know justice? ye who hate the good, and love the evil; who pluck off their skin from off them, and their flesh from off their bones; who also eat the flesh of my people, and flay their skin from off them, and break their bones,, and chop them in pieces, as for the pot, and as flesh within the caldron. Then shall they cry unto Jehovah, but he will not answer them; yea, he will hide his face from them at that time, according as they have wrought evil in their doings.” (Mic. 3:1-4, Am. Stan. Ver.) Often Micah’s stomach has been turned by the highly commercialized false worship of the misleading clergy in Israel. How aptly Jehovah describes their racket!—“When they have something to bite with their teeth, [they] cry, Peace; but [they] prepare war against him who putteth nothing in their mouth.” (Mic. 3:5, Leeser) How thankful Micah is that throughout his long and faithful ministry he has always been able to say: “I am full of power, even the spirit of Jehovah, and of judgment, and of might, to declare unto Jacob his transgression, and to Israel his sin”!—Mic. 3: 8, Am. Stan. Ver., margin.

As he reads on he remembers the proper response of King Hezekiah to the word from Jehovah that he, Micah, spoke to all the people of Judah: “Thus saith Jehovah of hosts: Zion shall be plowed as a field, and Jerusalem shall become heaps, and the mountain of the house as the high places of a forest.” (Jer. 26:18, Am. Stan. Ver.; Mic. 3:12) Hezekiah immediately showed fear of Jehovah and entreated the favor of Jehovah, and Jehovah repented of the evil which he had pronounced against them. (Jer. 26:19) Micah offers a silent prayer tor Jehovah that He has let him live to see such righteous reign.

Micah always delights in reviewing the glorious vision Jehovah gave him of the temple mountain being elevated till it is the highest mountain and of the long streams of people flowing up to it from every direction, from every nation. Again he hears them say: “Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of Jehovah, and to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths. For out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of Jehovah from Jerusalem.”—Mic. 4:1, 2, Am. Stan. Ver.

He continues reading slowly, for every line brings back many memories. Then he comes to a part that has always deeply interested and puzzled him. How he wishes he knew just what its fulfillment would be like! “Thou, Beth-lehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting. Therefore will he give them up, until the time that she which travaileth hath brought forth: then the remnant of his brethren shall return unto the children of Israel.” (Mic. 5:2, 3) The fulfillment of that must be a blessed time, he concludes. “And he shall stand, and shall feed his flock in the strength of Jehovah, in the majesty of the name of Jehovah his God: and they shall abide; for now shall he be great unto the ends of the earth.” —Mic. 5:4, Am. Stan. Ver.

Micah reads on to the end of the writing. His thrilled heart is full of joy and thanksgiving to Jehovah for his continuous assurances that the outcome of His divine judgment will prove that He is the supreme Sovereign, that there is none like Him in the universe. He is impelled to write a final prayer: “Who is a God like unto thee, that pardoneth iniquity, and passeth by the transgression of the remnant of his heritage? he retaineth not his anger for ever, because he delighteth in mercy. He will turn again, he will have compassion upon us; he will subdue our iniquities; and thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the sea. Thou wilt perform the truth to Jacob, and the mercy to Abraham, which thou hast sworn unto our fathers from the days of old.”—Mic. 7:18-20.

Micah foreshadowed Jehovah’s witnesses who today keep on preaching that Jehovah is the rightful Sovereign of the universe, and that he will ultimately destroy all who oppose his righteous rule. As Micah did, so they too continue to obey Jehovah’s command to preach, no matter what His opposers say to them; and they too rejoice in Jehovah’s precious promises and say to him in prayer, “Who is a God like unto thee?”

FIELD EXPERIENCES

GOD ANSWERS REQUEST FOR INSTRUCTION

Jehovah God uses his faithful witnesses to instruct those who sincerely wish to know him and serve him. One of such sincere ones tells how her prayer was answered.

“I’m very proud and glad to have the world know that I’ve become a witness for Jehovah and His glorious kingdom. I’ve received so many lovely cards and letters the past few months from church members of the Presbyterian Church I belonged to practically begging me to come back to church; but that I can never do, go back to shallow religion. What hurts them is that they all knew in our adult Sunday-school class that I was really studying, searching and seeking in the Scriptures for the truth, and I’d ask so many of the older members about things and they didn’t seem to know anything about the Bible and they’d gone to that church all their lives.

"You see, I’m 27 and have 5 small children and am just a farmer’s wife, but I’ve always believed in God and never could get that ‘trinity’ stuff through my head. I was brought up to be a Lutheran and went to Lutheran Bible school summer after summer, and still I refused to be confirmed. I used to tell Mom that it was too foolish to think that if little babies weren’t baptized God would let them go to a burning ‘hell’! When in high school I used to read every book I could find in hopes of finding out or solving the mystery of life. Then I got married at 17 and became so rushed for several years with the little ones that I didn’t have time to do much reading; but my baby is 2-J now, and about 1$ years ago I began to really study the Bible and it seemed to contradict itself all through, but I knew it wasn’t God’s Word, it was me that didn’t understand it and rightly divide the words. The minister couldn’t answer my questions either or anyone else, and then I began to think, Why would God have a book written in His name that no one could make sense out of? It says, ‘Knock, and it shall be opened unto you,’ and ‘Blessed are those that hunger and thirst after righteousness’; so I thought, Well, I’m knocking and thirsting; so I asked God to please open it unto me and let me be a doer of the Word too, not just a hearer, no matter what it might require of me.

“That very evening one of Jehovah’s witnesses came to my door and I asked him in. He could answer all my questions, and I never had known anyone with such zeal for the Lord. It took me about six weeks to realize this was all the real truth at last; so I quit church and have been studying all winter. I’ve gone witnessing now two Sunday mornings and it is truly the most interesting, thrilling work I’ve ever done!”

GOD’S WORD BRINGS PEACE

The truth of God’s Word and the spirit manifested by Jehovah’s faithful people awakens a response in honest hearts. One who had in vain searched for peace outside God’s Word says:

“In July, 1942, I enlisted in the United States Navy because I wanted to stop the slaughter of millions of innocent Jews; because I wanted to stop the book-burning, the plunder. I wanted to see democracy reign the world over. I played a very small part in the war. I was discharged on December 2, 1943. Back once more in civilian life I found things different, much different than I had expected. I saw the same things happening here that we were fighting against in Germany. More subtle, less vicious perhaps, but here nevertheless. I was astounded.

“Then came VE-Day, then VJ-Day, flag-waving, rejoicing, celebrating, and of flong live democracy’. The dreams of the returning veterans of a home, a family, security and, yes, the four freedoms, did not materialize. ... I saw conditions and became nauseated at the sight of them. I became depressed and discouraged.

“I went to churches, to American Legion meetings, and saw the same things. Then I met a communist. The more I heard about communism the more interested I became. I read all of Marx and Engels I could find. I went into communism then with all the energy and force I could muster. All the pent-up fury that had been stored in me in the past years of depression and war added fuel to my energy and force. I became a member, an active one. I was overflowing with enthusiasm in the ‘cause’. But soon I began to feel the lack of something. It couldn’t be religion. I saw the farce of religion and condemned it with the rest of them. Yet I upheld man’s right to worship whomever he pleased and denied him the right to condemn another for his beliefs. But still this lack of something.

“Just recently I came to live with my sister and brotherin-law whom I let talk me into attending some meetings of Jehovah’s witnesses. At last I see what has always been lacking—brotherly love! the truth! the truth of the Bible, the Word of God!

“To say the least, I am relieved of a burden. I feel free. Peace is at last settling on my shoulders where the burdens of hopelessness and despair were carried. In the light of the truth I have given up communism and have accepted God’s Word as the truth. I have rejected Marx and have taken the truth of the Bible. I truly thank God for His guiding hand He has so graciously given me through Jehovah’s witnesses.”

¹

“Who is like Jehovah?” is the meaning of the name Micah.