THE THRILLING MESSAGE
contained in these pages will fill lovers of righteousness with an earnest desire for the time when the kingdom of God will shower blessings on those who dwell in all the earth. Furthermore, it will strengthen their conviction of the certainty of the realization of these marvelous promises contained in the Holy Bible.
This heartwarming message was delivered as the principal discourse at the "Everlasting Good News" Assembly of Jehovah's Witnesses. An assembly such as this, scheduled to convene in twenty-four principal cities around the world from June 30 through September 8, 1963, brings this best of good news to people of many nations. By the publication of what was said on that occasion it is our hope that it will bring joy to the hearts of millions more who receive a printed copy.
— THE PUBLISHERS
COPYRIGHT, 1963byWATCH TOWER BIBLE & TRACT SOCIETYOF PENNSYLVANIA
PUBLISHERSWatchtower Bible and Tract Societyof New York, Inc.International Bible Students AssociationBrooklyn, New York, U.S.A.
Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from theNew World Translation of the Holy Scriptures, 1961 edition.
Made in the United States of America
WHEN GOD IS KINGOVER ALL THE EARTH
PEOPLE all around the globe want an improvement in the government over them. There are men who are convinced that they can bring about the betterment desired in government, and they want to be the government and insist on being it. Suppose that people everywhere were given the freedom of choice and a free election were held in which every adult person could vote without fear, which particular man would they all vote to have over them as king or ruler? Which man would even the majority of the people want to have as the one ruler over all the earth? Can any man or any group of men prominent in world affairs today recommend a candidate for such an office? Is there any man having their confidence who is qualified for such a world-important job? Could any man prove satisfactory in the job? And after he died, what other man would be fit to succeed him? Are people to be divided up forever into many national groups, each within its own sacred boundaries and with its own set of rulers over it and its own style of government and laws? These are practical questions. As we study them it makes us realize the difficult situation of all mankind.
2 Today many realistic people believe that it would be dangerous to entrust world government to any one man, even if he were assisted by a cabinet of men having charge over various depart-
1. (a) What common want do people everywhere have? (b) What timely questions on this matter face us?2. How do realistic people view a one-man government?
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ments. Those who know and understand imperfect, selfish human nature shrink from such an idea. The job of world rulership is too big for any one man.
3 What shall we do, then, since the need for a unified rulership of all the human family grows greater all the time? The expenses of running a national and local government keep increasing year after year. The problem of not enough jobs for able-bodied men and women to earn a living becomes more complicated as the use of machines for human labor spreads. The terrific rate at which the human family is increasing without birth control and because of helping old people to live longer raises the question of how to feed them all when our small earth gets more crowded. No one wants to lower the earth's population by killing off the excess people with a third world war. It is feared that with the present military preparedness such a world war would kill off too many; it would, in fact, kill off all mankind, despite shelters underground against nuclear attack. Seemingly, it is within mankind's power today to commit world suicide. The situation looks impossible!
4 In this day medical science is trying to improve human birth. Suppose, now, we should try to produce a perfect child from an unmarried girl in the best of physical and mental form but without her having sexual union with a man and without what they call "artificial insemination." That would be impossible, everybody would say.
3. Name some of the problems facing any government on earth today.4-6. (a) What would be the general opinion of people if a suggestion were made to try to produce a perfect child? (b) Was such a thing impossible for Jehovah? (c) Just what did Jehovah do in this regard?
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Once there existed a need to produce such a child here on earth. For man such a thing was impossible then, even as it is impossible today. But it was done. It did not prove impossible.
Not impossible for whom? Not impossible for man's Creator, who is also the Creator of all things in heaven and earth, of the things seen and unseen. Almost two thousand years ago he sent his messenger, named Gabriel, from the invisible heavens to announce the birth of a child who would one day become king over the whole earth. The angelic messenger Gabriel located the girl who was to be the mother of this future king. She was a young unmarried woman in the small town of Nazareth, about seventy-five miles southwest of the ancient city of Damascus in Syria. This virgin girl was a descendant of a king named David, who used to rule in old Jerusalem, the
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location of which is now in the land of Jordan. But David's royal line of successors had been overturned, dethroned, more than six hundred years before this coming of the heavenly messenger. It was now the Creator's time to produce the descendant of King David who would take the throne over the whole earth for the sake of all mankind.
The angel Gabriel said to the virgin girl:
6 "Have no fear, Mary, for you have found favor with God; and, look! you will conceive in your womb and give birth to a son, and you are to call his name Jesus. This one will be great and will be called Son of the Most High; and Jehovah God will give him the throne of David his father, and he will rule as king over the house of Jacob [his forefather] forever, and there will be no end of his kingdom."
7 As the girl Mary was unmarried and the angel Gabriel said nothing to her about a husband, she did not see how she could become the mother of an everlasting king. So she said to Gabriel: "How is this to be, since I am having no intercourse with a man?"
8 Then, in order to explain how the only virgin birth of a man on record would come about, the angel Gabriel said to Mary: "Holy spirit will come upon you, and power of the Most High will overshadow you. For that reason also what is born will be called holy, God's Son. . . . because with God no declaration will be an impossibility." Mary agreed to let God perform his will toward her.*
* See Luke, chapter 1, verses 26-38, in the Holy Bible.
7. What was the reaction of the young unmarried woman Mary?8, 9. How did Gabriel satisfy Mary's mind and later the mind of Joseph?
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9 God's declaration to Mary by his angel Gabriel did not prove to be an impossibility, no, not for God the Most High. Some time later Mary, though still unmarried and not living with a man, was found to be pregnant. Not knowing God's power to produce a virgin birth of his Son on earth, people thought that Mary had violated her virginity, immorally. But an angel from God corrected the wrong understanding of Joseph of Nazareth and he married Mary.
10 About six months after Joseph took her, Mary gave birth to her firstborn son, whose name was called Jesus. However, he was born in Bethlehem, about five miles south of Jerusalem, and where King David himself had been born.* This fulfilled a prophecy that had been made by a man named Micah of that neighborhood over seven hundred years before then. Pointing forward to the fact that the child whose birth he foretold would be a ruler of world importance, Micah said as God's inspired mouthpiece: "You, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, the one too little to get to be among the thousands of [the tribe of] Judah, from you there will come out to me the one who is to become ruler in Israel, whose origin is from early times, from the days of time indefinite." (Micah 5:2) God Almighty made it possible for the man Micah to foretell so many centuries in advance the birthplace of this important ruler.
11 It remains a fact, therefore, that, if the royal families and the politicians on earth today cannot
* See Matthew 1:1 to 2:6; Luke 2:1-20.
10. Of what significance was it that Jesus was born in Bethlehem?11. In spite of man's failure to produce a ruler to unify our earth, why can we be confident that the situation is not hopeless?
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bring forth a man to rule over all the earth for the unifying of all its peoples, God Almighty has someone worthy and capable to put in charge of the whole earth when the time for God's kingdom arrives. So, despite the alarming conditions in which mankind finds itself today, the situation is not hopeless for us. If we learn about this God and what he has already done and will yet do for the sake of his kingdom over all mankind, and if we put our faith in God with whom nothing is an impossibility, we shall be of good cheer. Mankind can be saved from destruction. "With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible." That is what the miraculously born Jesus himself said about man's salvation. — Matthew 19:26.
12 What has God already done for his kingdom over all the human family, and what will his kingdom mean to earth's inhabitants? God has already done so much for the sake of putting his kingdom in universal Control, that he will not now reverse himself and fail to carry through his purpose to glorious success. Because of what he has promised concerning his kingdom, he will not stop till he has proved all his declarations true, though they seem impossible to men and although the whole political and religious world may be against his kingdom. Regarding the triumph of his kingdom he has said: "Jehovah of armies himself has counseled, and who can break it up? And his hand is the one stretched out, and who can turn it back?" (Isaiah 14:27) Let us take courage, then, and continue our examination. It is not into something impossible.
12. Is there any danger that Jehovah through his Kingdom arrangement may fail to bring about the fulfillment of mankind's greatest needs? Why?
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WHEN HE WAS RULER OVER PARADISE
13 In this day of great changes; when new nations are being formed with their own native governments, men are talking a great deal about the self-determination of the peoples arid national sovereignty over territories. But amid all these discussions, who of mankind ever asks about the sovereignty of God over our earth? Who has the right more than God does to establish a royal government over all the earth? He is the Creator of the earth and of man and beast upon it. The earth, the whole globe, is His, and man and beast owe their lives to Him. In the Holy Book in which his deeds are recorded it is written right at the very start: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." (Genesis 1:1) Before ever he created man and woman, God created the lower animals, the fish, the birds, and the beasts of the earth. At that time he was in absolute charge of the earth, and all forms of animal life thrived, all this without man's assistance.* Neither was there any man to dispute him. Finally God created man and woman as a creation separate and distinct from all the animals previously created and superior to them. God did not make man and woman cave dwellers and require them to live in holes in the ground. He created them perfect, with perfect minds, and put them in a beautiful park in which to enjoy peace, happiness and plenty as earthly children of God. He did not create them in a so-called Stone Age and oblige them to make stone weapons to fight and kill the animals. He made
* See the book of Job, chapters 38-41.
13. (a) What governments are most of mankind interested in today? (b) Are they concerned with God's government? (c) What had Jehovah done long before man ever came into existence, and what kind of a start did he give to newly created man?
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them earthly overseers over all the animal world, to have control over them without fear and even to domesticate some of them.
14 God had no fear of the earth's becoming overcrowded with man and beast, but he said to the first man and woman in their human perfection in the Paradise of Pleasure: "Be fruitful and become many and fill the earth and subdue it, and have in subjection the fish of the sea and the flying creatures of the heavens and every living creature that is moving upon the earth." — Genesis 1:26 to 2:25.
15 At man's appearance on the earth about six thousand years ago, who was ruler over all the earth? Man, because he lived on it? No, but God, because he created it, and perfect man was merely the subject of God the universal Ruler. He was the Theocrat, which title means God-Ruler, and he had a theocracy over all the earth.
16 Were the perfect man and woman in the Paradise happy under that theocracy? They were perfectly happy, and they had before them the opportunity of living happily forever in that Paradise, provided they obeyed the heavenly Theocrat perfectly. When, finally, the whole earth became filled with the offspring of this perfect couple in Paradise, who, then, would be the ruler over all the earth? The first man and father of them all? No, but man's Creator, the heavenly Theocrat. This was the original purpose of God the Creator. Today, merely six thousand years later, it is still his purpose. He has not changed his mind about
14. How do we know Jehovah did not fear there would be an overpopulating of the earth?15-17. (a) Who was mankind's first ruler, and what opportunities were before them? (b) Would rulership change after the earth became filled with people according to God's purpose?
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it because today the billions of earth's inhabitants are opposed to it.
17 As regards his declared purpose, he says in his inspired Book: "I am Jehovah; I have not changed." (Malachi 3:6) Will it be impossible for him to realize his unchanged purpose of worldwide rulership? To judge him by what he has said and done in the past, the answer is a flat No! Today's generation of mankind are yet going to see whether they can make it impossible for God the Creator to realize his purpose.
18 Who was it that started on the earth this business of making men kings to rule over certain territories? It certainly was not God the Creator. Think of it for a moment! Would he the Creator renounce his own position as Theocrat and appoint a man on earth to be the worldwide or even territorial king, especially an imperfect man, disobedient and out of harmony with God? Who, then, started the kingdoms of men and the world empires? Who is really responsible for the international government mixup we have today?
19 When God created the first man and woman, Adam and Eve, he became their heavenly Father. He properly expected and required of them to render childlike obedience, honor and loyalty and love to him as their Father and Life-giver. He had given them perfect life, and he had the right to take life away from them and destroy them if they disobeyed him and proved rebellious. This earth is only a very tiny part of God's boundless domain; and as the Ruler over all creation in heaven and earth, he rightfully laid down the laws for the government of his perfect earthly creatures.
18. Why is it not reasonable to believe Jehovah made the start of having men rule on earth? 19. What requirements for man did God properly outline, and what would be the result if man became disobedient?
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He published his law to man and said to Adam: "You will positively die," if you disobey my law. (Genesis 2:15-17; 3:3) This meant the taking away of disobedient Adam's life, with no future existence for him anywhere.
REBELLION AGAINST HIS RULE
20 At this particular time, when all looked peaceable and promising, the question of sovereignty over the inhabited earth arose, and down to this twentieth century of our Common Era it has not been settled. But it will be settled in our day. Let there be no mistaking about that. Back there the question was raised in the invisible heavens by an ambitious son of God. He coveted the sovereignty over the earth, with mankind as his subjects. He set himself in opposition to God the Creator, his own Father. He thus made himself Satan, which name means Opposer. This rebellious spirit son slandered God his Father and thus made himself the Devil, which means Slanderer, Malicious Defamer. He used the serpent in the Garden of Eden to deceive the woman, Adam's wife Eve, and thus the serpent became a symbol of him as a deceiver, and Serpent, yes, Original Serpent, became one of his reproachful names. — Revelation 12:9; 20:2.
21 By inducing selfishness in Adam and Eve he led them to break God's law and take themselves out from under God's sovereignty and put themselves under the sovereignty of the Serpent, Satan the Devil. For their rebellion God the Creator drove them out of the Paradise of Pleasure to live for some years, to bring forth offspring, and to die. He let them have their sovereign Satan the
20. Who first rebelled against God's righteous rule, and why?21. What resulted to Adam and Eve for disobedience, and so who now became their sovereign?
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Devil. God appointed no king over them or their offspring. — Genesis 3:1-5:5.
22 Within seventeen hundred years from then the earth became filled with violence, and mankind in general had made its way of life a ruinous one upon the earth, a corrupt way. Was God concerned about this condition in the earth that he had created? Yes, indeed! How did he wipe out the ruinous condition? By transformation of human society, or by world conversion? No. But by destroying all the corrupt people. To his prophet Noah he said: "The end of all flesh has come before me, because the earth is full of violence as a result of them; . . . And as for me, here I am bringing the deluge of waters upon the earth to bring to ruin all flesh in which the force of life is active from under the heavens." — Genesis 6:11-17.
23 For Noah and his family to survive the Flood God told him to build a huge floating ark, and to take specimens of various families of birds and animals inside. On the very day that Noah and his family entered the completed ark and the door was shut behind them, the deluge broke upon this terrestrial globe. Billions of tons of water from the heavens were precipitated upon the earth for forty days. Under God's protection Noah's ark floated safely upon the waters that rose mountain high, but all the world of corrupt people outside perished. What a demonstration this was of God's control of natural forces! What a manifestation this was of God's universal sovereignty!24 Inasmuch as Jehovah God does not change,
22. How did God later show he was still very much interested in the earth he had created?23. In what way did he show he was still Universal Sovereign?24. Since God does not change, what can we expect in our day?
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