So now you know III.

Revelation19-22 NWT(2013 Edition)

19 After this I heard what seemed to be a loud voice of a great crowd in heaven. They said: “Praise Jah!*+ The salvation and the glory and the power belong to our God,² because his judgments are true and righteous.+ For he has executed judgment on the great prostitute who corrupted the earth with her sexual immorality,* and he has avenged the blood of his slaves that is on her hands.”*+³ And right away for the second time they said: “Praise Jah!*+ And the smoke from her goes on ascending forever and ever.”+⁴ And the 24 elders+ and the four living creatures+ fell down and worshipped God who sits on the throne and said: “Amen! Praise Jah!”*+⁵ Also, a voice came from the throne and said: “Be praising our God, all you his slaves,+ who fear him, the small ones and the great.”+⁶ And I heard what sounded like a voice of a great crowd and like the sound of many waters and like the sound of heavy thunders. They said: “Praise Jah,*+ because Jehovah* our God, the Almighty,+ has begun to rule as king!+⁷ Let us rejoice and be overjoyed and give him glory, because the marriage of the Lamb has arrived and his wife has prepared herself.⁸ Yes, it has been granted to her to be clothed with bright, clean, fine linen—for the fine linen stands for the righteous acts of the holy ones.”+⁹ And he tells me, “Write: Happy are those invited to the evening meal of the Lamb’s marriage.”+ Also, he tells me: “These are the true sayings of God.”¹⁰ At that I fell down before his feet to worship him. But he tells me: “Be careful! Do not do that!+ I am only a fellow slave of you and of your brothers who have the work of witnessing concerning Jesus.+ Worship God!+ For the witness concerning Jesus is what inspires prophecy.”+¹¹ I saw heaven opened, and look! a white horse.+ And the one seated on it is called Faithful+ and True,+ and he judges and carries on war in righteousness.+¹² His eyes are a fiery flame,+ and on his head are many diadems.* He has a name written that no one knows but he himself,¹³ and he is clothed with an outer garment stained* with blood, and he is called by the name The Word+ of God.¹⁴ Also, the armies in heaven were following him on white horses, and they were clothed in white, clean, fine linen.¹⁵ And out of his mouth protrudes a sharp, long sword+ with which to strike the nations, and he will shepherd them with a rod of iron.+ Moreover, he treads the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty.+¹⁶ On his outer garment, yes, on his thigh, he has a name written, King of kings and Lord of lords.+¹⁷ I saw also an angel standing in the sun, and he cried out with a loud voice and said to all the birds that fly in midheaven:* “Come here, be gathered together to the great evening meal of God,+¹⁸ so that you may eat the flesh of kings and the flesh of military commanders and the flesh of strong men+ and the flesh of horses and of those seated on them,+ and the flesh of all, of freemen as well as of slaves and of small ones and great.”¹⁹ And I saw the wild beast and the kings of the earth and their armies gathered together to wage war against the one seated on the horse and against his army.+²⁰ And the wild beast was caught, and along with it the false prophet+ that performed in front of it the signs with which he misled those who received the mark of the wild beast+ and those who worship its image.+ While still alive, they both were hurled into the fiery lake that burns with sulfur.+²¹ But the rest were killed off with the long sword that proceeded out of the mouth of the one seated on the horse.+ And all the birds were filled with their flesh.+

20 And I saw an angel coming down out of heaven with the key of the abyss+ and a great chain in his hand.² He seized the dragon,+ the original serpent,+ who is the Devil+ and Satan,+ and bound him for 1,000 years.³ And he hurled him into the abyss+ and shut it and sealed it over him, so that he would not mislead the nations anymore until the 1,000 years were ended. After this he must be released for a little while.+⁴ And I saw thrones, and those who sat on them were given authority to judge. Yes, I saw the souls* of those executed* for the witness they gave about Jesus and for speaking about God, and those who had not worshipped the wild beast or its image and had not received the mark on their forehead and on their hand.+ And they came to life and ruled as kings with the Christ+ for 1,000 years.⁵ (The rest of the dead+ did not come to life until the 1,000 years were ended.) This is the first resurrection.+⁶ Happy and holy is anyone having part in the first resurrection;+ over these the second death+ has no authority,+ but they will be priests+ of God and of the Christ, and they will rule as kings with him for the 1,000 years.+⁷ Now as soon as the 1,000 years have ended, Satan will be released from his prison,⁸ and he will go out to mislead those nations in the four corners of the earth, Gog and Ma′gog, to gather them together for the war. The number of these is as the sand of the sea.⁹ And they advanced over the whole earth and encircled the camp of the holy ones and the beloved city. But fire came down out of heaven and consumed them.+¹⁰ And the Devil who was misleading them was hurled into the lake of fire and sulfur, where both the wild beast+ and the false prophet already were;+ and they will be tormented* day and night forever and ever.¹¹ And I saw a great white throne and the One seated on it.+ From before him the earth and the heaven fled away,+ and no place was found for them.¹² And I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne, and scrolls were opened. But another scroll was opened; it is the scroll of life.+ The dead were judged out of those things written in the scrolls according to their deeds.+¹³ And the sea gave up the dead in it, and death and the Grave* gave up the dead in them, and they were judged individually according to their deeds.+¹⁴ And death and the Grave* were hurled into the lake of fire.+ This means the second death,+ the lake of fire.+¹⁵ Furthermore, whoever was not found written in the book of life+ was hurled into the lake of fire.+


21 And I saw a new heaven and a new earth;+ for the former heaven and the former earth had passed away,+ and the sea+ is no more.² I also saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God+ and prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.+³ With that I heard a loud voice from the throne say: “Look! The tent of God is with mankind, and he will reside with them, and they will be his people. And God himself will be with them.+⁴ And he will wipe out every tear from their eyes,+ and death will be no more,+ neither will mourning nor outcry nor pain be anymore.+ The former things have passed away.”⁵ And the One seated on the throne+ said: “Look! I am making all things new.”+ Also he says: “Write, for these words are faithful* and true.”⁶ And he said to me: “They have come to pass! I am the Al′pha and the O·me′ga,* the beginning and the end.+ To anyone thirsting I will give from the spring* of the water of life free.*+⁷ Anyone conquering will inherit these things, and I will be his God and he will be my son.⁸ But as for the cowards and those without faith+ and those who are disgusting in their filth and murderers+ and the sexually immoral*+ and those practicing spiritism and idolaters and all the liars,+ their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur.+ This means the second death.”+⁹ One of the seven angels who had the seven bowls that were full of the seven last plagues+ came and said to me: “Come, and I will show you the bride, the Lamb’s wife.”+¹⁰ So he carried me away in the power of the spirit to a great and lofty mountain, and he showed me the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God+¹¹ and having the glory of God.+ Its radiance was like a most precious stone, like a jasper stone shining crystal clear.+¹² It had a great and lofty wall and had 12 gates with 12 angels at the gates, and on the gates were inscribed the names of the 12 tribes of the sons of Israel.¹³ On the east were three gates, and on the north three gates, and on the south three gates, and on the west three gates.+¹⁴ The wall of the city also had 12 foundation stones, and on them were the 12 names of the 12 apostles+ of the Lamb.¹⁵ Now the one who was speaking with me was holding a golden reed as a measure in order to measure the city and its gates and its wall.+¹⁶ And the city is laid out as a square, and its length is as great as its width. And he measured the city with the reed, 12,000 stadia;* its length and width and height are equal.¹⁷ He also measured its wall, 144 cubits* according to a man’s measure, at the same time an angel’s measure.¹⁸ Now the wall was made of jasper,+ and the city was pure gold like clear glass.¹⁹ The foundations of the city wall were adorned with every sort of precious stone: the first foundation was jasper, the second sapphire, the third chal·ce′do·ny, the fourth emerald,²⁰ the fifth sar·don′yx, the sixth sardius, the seventh chrys′o·lite, the eighth beryl, the ninth topaz, the tenth chrys′o·prase, the eleventh hyacinth, the twelfth amethyst.²¹ Also, the 12 gates were 12 pearls; each one of the gates was made of one pearl. And the main street of the city was pure gold, like transparent glass.²² I did not see a temple in it, for Jehovah* God the Almighty+ is its temple, also the Lamb is.²³ And the city has no need of the sun nor of the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God illuminated it,+ and its lamp was the Lamb.+²⁴ And the nations will walk by means of its light,+ and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it.²⁵ Its gates will not be closed at all by day, for night will not exist there.+²⁶ And they will bring the glory and the honor of the nations into it.+²⁷ But anything defiled and anyone who does what is disgusting and deceitful will in no way enter into it;+ only those written in the Lamb’s scroll of life will enter.+


22 And he showed me a river of water of life,+ clear as crystal, flowing out from the throne of God and of the Lamb+² down the middle of its main street. On both sides of the river were trees of life producing 12 crops of fruit, yielding their fruit each month. And the leaves of the trees were for the healing of the nations.+³ And there will no longer be any curse. But the throne of God and of the Lamb+ will be in the city, and his slaves will offer him sacred service;⁴ and they will see his face,+ and his name will be on their foreheads.+⁵ Also, night will be no more,+ and they have no need of lamplight or sunlight, for Jehovah* God will shed light upon them,+ and they will rule as kings forever and ever.+⁶ He said to me: “These words are faithful* and true;+ yes, Jehovah,* the God who inspired the prophets,+ has sent his angel to show his slaves the things that must shortly take place.⁷ Look! I am coming quickly.+ Happy is anyone observing the words of the prophecy of this scroll.”+⁸ Well I, John, was the one hearing and seeing these things. When I heard and saw them, I fell down to worship at the feet of the angel who had been showing me these things.⁹ But he tells me: “Be careful! Do not do that! I am only a fellow slave of you and of your brothers the prophets and of those observing the words of this scroll. Worship God.”+¹⁰ He also tells me: “Do not seal up the words of the prophecy of this scroll, for the appointed time is near.¹¹ Let the one who is unrighteous continue in unrighteousness, and let the filthy one continue in his filth; but let the righteous one continue in righteousness, and let the holy one continue in holiness.¹² “‘Look! I am coming quickly, and the reward I give is with me, to repay each one according to his work.+¹³ I am the Al′pha and the O·me′ga,*+ the first and the last, the beginning and the end.¹⁴ Happy are those who wash their robes,+ so that they may have authority to go to the trees of life+ and that they may gain entrance into the city through its gates.+¹⁵ Outside are the dogs* and those who practice spiritism and those who are sexually immoral* and the murderers and the idolaters and everyone who loves and practices lying.’+¹⁶ “‘I, Jesus, sent my angel to bear witness to you about these things for the congregations. I am the root and the offspring of David+ and the bright morning star.’”+¹⁷ And the spirit and the bride+ keep on saying, “Come!” and let anyone hearing say, “Come!” and let anyone thirsting come;+ let anyone who wishes take life’s water free.+¹⁸ “I am bearing witness to everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this scroll: If anyone makes an addition to these things,+ God will add to him the plagues that are written in this scroll;+¹⁹ and if anyone takes anything away from the words of the scroll of this prophecy, God will take his portion away from the trees of life+ and out of the holy city,+ things that are written about in this scroll.²⁰ “The one who bears witness of these things says, ‘Yes, I am coming quickly.’”+“Amen! Come, Lord Jesus.”²¹ May the undeserved kindness of the Lord Jesus be with the holy ones.

On the triumphant kingdom II

From Chapter II of Marley Cole's book


ONE

GROUP OF PEOPLE took their religion

seriously enough to go out 100 per cent (65 per cent of them

regularly every month) to share with their neighbors what

to them was the only good news in the world. In April, 1956,

when the United States population reached 167,440,000,

this

group consisted of 185,010 doorstep preachers-a national

peak. Their activities all over the world were in the

news. The Polish uprising did not quite smother out the

reports coming from that country that the Communist government

was reviewing and dropping charges of “American

espionage” against long-imprisoned Witnesses and freeing

them-at the same time that the Polish clergy warned

the

public not to listen to the news that the liberated Witnesses

would be bringing to their doorsteps.

What news? Whatever the Witnesses had to tell the Poles,

it was the same news, without variation, in all countries.

In

frain. Against the background of the jittery, confused and

calloused mood of the people their message sounded. It announced

here and now a live and pulsing hope for life in

a

new world-here, now, and for this generation.

What is it like to lay aside your share of the world’s

troubles and go out and knock on strange doors and offer

comfort to your neighbor with the news that gave you hope?

How

many people are the Witnesses reaching?

On the basis of a cross-section count, it is conservative to

estimate that an average of ten houses a week are called

upon by each Witness. That means 1,850,000 homes, or

about four million people, a week. That

is 96 million homes

every year.

By their direct personal approach Jehovah’s Witnesses

are reaching more than the equivalent of the national

population within each twelve months.

Worldwide the Witnesses are active in more than 160

countries. They speak their good news in identical terms in

more than 100 languages. By 1957 as many as 640 thousand

were calling from house to house. At the same ratio

of ten

calls a week each, about

330 million homes were contacted

in a year. There are not that many homes in all of North and

South America and Europe combined.

Never in any age did a group of people concentrate

so

single-heartedly on the job of getting their message across

to the world. These figures must be a revelation to the heads

of churches. “There is no hope of some 300 thousand pastors

in America reaching the

70 million who are outside our

churches,” a pastor complained recently, in a plea for the

“laymen” to get out and preach. (The 1956 Yearbook

of

American Churches lists

2 13 thousand clergymen in active

charge of local churches.)

If 185 thousand Witnesses reach

165 million people within a year, why should the pastor

160 lands their voices were heard, heralding the same re

despair that the 300 thousand preachers he speaks of will

never reach a mere

70 million people?

To be sure,

it cannot be done unless the clergy revolutionize

their present routine. Modern clergymen

are overburdened,

and cracking

up under their duties, working

from thirteen to eighteen hours a day. But is their modem

regimen an improvement over the direct person-to-person

method of ministry that Jesus Himself inaugurated? After

1,600 questionnaires and ten thousand pages of evidence,

Dr. Samuel W. Blizzard, Professor of Social Science at New

York’s Union Seminary, came

up with the finding that

American clergymen, although the best-educated in American

history, have been robbed of their ministry to the degree

that they are no longer primarily preachers at all. The

preacher is no longer a character stepping out

of the Bible,

infused with the Word and the Will of his Lord. Today he

is “director of human relations,” employing a social rather

than a scriptural code. He must play five other roles that

leave little time for preaching-“the roles of pastor, counselor,

organizer, administrator and promoter

. . . ,” Dr.

Blizzard found. Orthodox clergy have no time to knock on

doors.

But

the Witnesses of Jehovah, where their number is one

Witness to one thousand population, successfully reach

the

total population, although

97 out of 100 Witnesses do their

preaching in their spare time.

Why is this resuscitation of Bible-type Christianity noteworthy?

What intelligible contribution can it make to

our

fantastically fas t-paced, mixed-up, nuclear-age civilization?

The churches have tried everything else, and nothing else

has worked. Nothing else has produced a people united,

century Christians were. Nothing else has brought people

to the startling awareness that a faith worth having is worth

propagating. Nothing else has given people a faith to live

for-even to die for, to consume them, fire them, preserve

them immune to the world, carry them away with their convictions

to

the extent that they cannot endure it, like Jeremiah,

unless they preach

it. The churches are realizing that

they have exchanged quality for quantity, that something

must be done, that Bible faith and practices cannot be improved

on in any age, that while they may not like the doctrines

of

Jehovah’s Witnesses they are going to have to adopt

Witness methods. In countries like America, alert church

leaders see the handwriting on the wall and are crying out

in alarm. In other countries, such as Russia and East Germany,

history has overtaken the churches and they must

grapple unprepared for their lives, learning too late that religion

can only survive in times of persecution by the ministry

of its so-called “laymen.”

Every believer a preacher, a house-to-house missionary,

was the identifying mark

of the first-century ministry. That

was why Christianity made spectacular progress during

apostolic days. Four hundred years ago conscientious priests

sparked the Protestant revolution to restore the priesthood

to the people. Their revolt was against an unscriptural evil:

a

highly segregated priestcraft, a hierarchical church structure

that had become a secular power. They sought to wrest

the ministry from the cathedral and restore it to the flock.

But Protestantism never achieved its shining goal. The ministry

of

the people foundered. The “laity” never became integrated

with the clergy. The rank and file sought not the

kingdom first. And now, as Protestantism looks into the mirror

of the contemporary scene, she sees staring back at her

the image of that from which she revolted, her own brand

of priestcraft.

That is why the Witnesses of Jehovah stand out in sharp

perspective. It is reassuring to know that what once was in

the time of Christ and the apostles can be again; that the

goal of the Wycliffes and the Luthers is not unattainable.

During the past 80-odd years this group has gradually, laboriously

rescued the Christian ministry from the pulpit and

planted

it in the hearts and minds and mouths of the rank

and file, and restored the pristine ideal of

a “preaching fellowship.”

What do these people say at the doorsteps of the nations?

Why

do they call on you? What do they seek?

Something fires them more than the “callers” from the

church around the corner who come to your house now and

then to invite you to church next Sunday. They call to do

more than invite

you to sign a “decision-for-Christ” pledge

on a piece of cardboard, while leaving your mind blank and

your heart bearing no imprint.

A young man named Arden Peters is an example of the

185 thousand peripatetic Witnesses of Jehovah who, by

1956, were busy morning, afternoon, and evening, throughout

every city and town and practically every village and

countryside in the United States. Calling on all, passing up

none, they accepted the total population as the “field” from

which their

flocks were gathered. Naturally they were running

into every conceivable kind of reaction.

Peters had learned to expect rebuffs and retorts from

harassed housewifes and nerve-shattered husbands. He rang

the bell of one of the “new” homes on his list, the residence

of

a man we shall call Carson Brown. The door opened a

Holding Mr. Brown’s gaze, Peters began. “Good evening,

Mr.

Brown. My name is Peters. I won’t take but a few moments.

I am calling at the request

of a worldwide society of

Christian educators. About six hundred thousand of our

ministers are making a worldwide survey. We are trying to

find out what people are thinking in all parts

of the earth

about a very timely question. Would you be

so kind as to

tell me what you think the answer is?”

“The answer,” Mr. Brown responded, “to what question?”

The Witnesses try within the first few seconds not only

to attract the householder’s concentration, but to make him

feel they have his best interests in mind.

“The question, Are we living in a marked generation?

That is, marked by Bible prophecy?”

“Oh, I wouldn’t know.” Mr. Brown hurriedly shook his

head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Do you believe that we are living at the end of what the

Bible describes as the rule of Satan?”

‘‘I

didn’t know that Satan was ruling.”

“Would you say that this is God’s world? Or is God’s

world the New World to come? As we call from house to

house we find that millions

of people are asking that question.

They can understand why God might love a new world

of righteousness enough to give His Son for

its ransomer

and king. But they cannot understand why God would love

and deal with a wicked old world like ours, when the Bible

says that He hates every form of wickedness and is positively

going to destroy this old world and its god, Satan.”

“I never thought much about

it,” Mr. Brown shrugged

vaguely. “One way or another.”

“Do you read the Bible very much?”