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Pagină:A-great-image-part-I-1930.djvu/10

6.133 de octeți adăugați, 23 martie 2020 18:32
Neverificat: Pagină nouă: 234 to cast their billions of taxes, with no other result than that boodlers and grafters multiply, scandals in high places abound, and national fear and distrust inereases. As...
(Neverificat: Pagină nouă: 234 to cast their billions of taxes, with no other result than that boodlers and grafters multiply, scandals in high places abound, and national fear and distrust inereases. As...)
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234 to cast their billions of taxes, with no other result than that boodlers and grafters multiply, scandals in high places abound, and national fear and distrust inereases. As a result a great ery of protest is going up from the people. This protest is in the form of labor organizations, socialism, communism, bolshevism and general anarchy, and these are looked upon with fear by the people, and in many quarters are re- garded as an even worse menace than militarism. Describing this same condition, which he foresaw would exist at this time, Jesus uttered these prophetic words: ‘‘Upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; .. . men’s hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth.’’—Luke 21: 25, 26, The question arises, Will peace cver come? Is de- liverance from the present almost intolerable condi- tions of suffering and fear a possibility? If so, how? and when? The answer to these questions is found nowhere except in the Bible. Not realizing this fact, the people are looking to their leaders for an answer. Some are hoping against hope that preparedness will bring about peace; others are likewise hoping that the peace conferences will lead to a gradual disarma- ment, and that deliverance will come in that way; others are hoping that the whole world will vote the socialists into power, or the communists, or the bol- shevists, and that these will reform the body politic. These hopes are vain. Peace will never come from any of these sourees. Men cannot bring about peace. But peace is coming, and it lics in the very near future. The author and promoter of wars and con- fusion on the earth is Satan, and as long as he is un- restrained there will be no peace. Peace, justice, truth, righteousness and happincss belong to God’s kingdom, Wars, confusion, unrighteousness, oppres- sion and unhappiness pertain to Satan’s kingdom. Few people realize that Satan is ‘‘the god of this world’’, This means that Satan rules the world. He controls the people by using selfish men as his tools, Through these sclfish men he deceives the world into believing that the hope of deliverance is in ‘‘pre- paredness’’, ‘‘peace conferences,’’ ‘‘church union,’’ ‘leagues of nations,’’ or else in ‘‘socialism’’ or eom- munistic governments of some kind. These schemes are deceptions put forth by Satan to divert the minds of the people from the one and only hope of deliv- erance set forth in the Bible. Satan began his deceptions in Eden, first with Eve and later with Adam. Having diverted them from the service of God, he sct about to organize their posterity into sclfish institutions, for the very purpose of using these selfish institutions to blind people to the purpose of Jchovah God. But what is God’s pur- pose? It is this. When Satan led Adam and Eve into sin and brought the eurse of sin and death on the race, God determined to deliver the race from this tke WATCH TOWER Beoortyn, N. ¥. eurse and also to deliver them from the power of Sa- tan and his deceptions. He purposed to accomplish this deliverance by and through his Son, and he fore- ordained that the time of the deliverance would be at the second advent of Jesus, and during the thou- sand-year reign of Christ which begins at his second advent, This thousand-year reign is called ‘‘the kingdom of God’’, and is what Jesus referred to when he taught his followers to pray, saying: ‘‘Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in carth, as it is in heaven.’’ Since God has ordained that Jesus shall bring peace into the earth, he is referred to as the ‘‘Prince of Peace’? and the ‘‘Prince of life’’. In Isaiah 9: 6, 7, we read of this wonderful Prince, as follows; ‘‘For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulder; and his name shall be called Wonderful Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. Of the inerease of his government and peace there shall be no end.”’ Nearly nineteen hundrcd years ago, when Jesus was on earth, Satan’s representatives, who were the religious leaders of that day, called him ‘‘Beelzcbub the prince of the devils’’. Those Pharisees were the willing tools of Satan. By exposing their shams, hypocrisies and false teachings, Jesus was bringing a blessing to the people. No wonder Satan used them to call Jesus the prince of devils. Peter accused those hypoerites to their face and charged them with the murder of Jesus. His words are found in Acts 3:14,15 and read: ‘‘Ye denied the Holy One and the Just, and desired a murderer to be granted unto you; and killed the Prince of life, whom God hath raised from the dead.’’ Again, in Acts 5:30, 31 this same Peter renewed his charge against those hypo- critical religionists, saying: ‘‘The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom ye slew and hanged on a tree. Him hath God exalted with his right hand to be a Prinee and a Saviour, for to give repentance to Isracl, and forgiveness of sins.’’ Peace is coming to the world through this highly exalted Jesus, ‘‘the Prince of Peace,’’ ‘‘the Princo of life,’’ the ‘‘Saviour’’ of the world. His thousand- year kingdom will be the ‘‘desire of all nations’’, This kingdom is the only hope of the world. Over and over, the Scriptures exhort the Lord’s people to “‘wait for hig Son from heaven’’; and to ‘patient waiting for the kingdom’, We do well to note some of these texts, In Luke 23:51 we read of Joseph of Arimathea as follows: ‘‘Who also himself waited for the kingdom of God.’”’ In 1 Corinthians 1:7 we read:

    • So that ye come behind in no gift; waiting for the

coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.’? Again, in 1 Thes- salonians 1:10 we are exhorted to ‘‘wait for his Son from heaven’’, and in 2 Thessalonians 3:5 are these words: ‘‘The Lord direct your hearts into the love

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