Things in which it is impossible for God to lie (1965)
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"THINGS IN WHICH IT IS IMPOSSIBLE FOR GOD TO LIE"
MEDITERRANEAN SEA SURROUNDINGS
Before Our Common Era
Cities Locations
"Things In Which It Is Impossible For God To Lie"
"In this manner God, when he purposed to demonstrate more abundantly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeableness of his counsel, stepped in with an aeth, in order that, through two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled to the refuge may have strong encouragement to lay hold on the hope set before us."—Hebrews 6:17, 18.
COPYRIGHT, 1965 by WATCH TOWER BIBLE & TRACT SOCIETY OF PENNSYLVANIA
First Edition
2,000,000 COPIES
PUBLISHERS
WATCHTOWER BIBLE AND TRACT SOCIETY
OF NEW YORK, INC.
INTERNATIONAL BIBLE STUDENTS ASSOCIATION
Brooklyn, New York, U.S.A.
Made in the United States of America
Dedicated to the "God of Truth"
and
Published for the Benefit of All Seekers of Life-giving Truth in All Nations
Symbols of Scripture translations quoted from or cited herein:
AS - American Standard Version Bible, by the American Committee of Revision, of 1901
AT - The Complete Bible; An American Translation, by J. M. P. Smith and E. J. Goodspeed, of 1939
AV - Authorized or King James Version Bible, of 1611
Dy - Roman Catholic English Translation of the Latin Vulgate made at Douay and Rheims, as of 1610
Kx - The Holy Bible, translated by Monsignor R. A. Knox, as of 1949
Le - The Twenty-four Books of the Holy Scriptures, by Rabbi Isaac Lecser, as of 1853
Mo - A New Translation of the Bible, by Dr. James Moffatt, as of 1922
NEB - The New English Bible: New Testament, as of 1961
Ro - The Emphasised Bible · A New Translation, by Joseph
B. Rotherham, as of 1897
R8 - The Holy Bible; Revised Standard Version, as of 1952
Torah - The Torah: The Five Books of Moses, by the Jewish Publication Society of America, as of 1962
Yg - Young's Literal Translation of the Holy Bible, by Robert Young, as of 1862
Any Bible quotation or citation not followed by any specific abbreviation is made from the New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures (NW), the revised edition of 1961. Other translations of the Bible may be quoted or cited, but with the name of the translation not abbreviated.
DATING: In dating, the abbreviation B.C.E. stands for "Before Our Common Era," and C.E. stands for "Of Our Common Era," thus designating the number of the year before or after the year 1 C.E.
Made in the United States of America
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
1 God Lives! How We Know It 5
2 Which Sacred Book of Religion Is the Truth? 20
3 The True-Life Story as Told by the Holy Bible 45
4 When "All the Sons of God Began Shouting in Applause" 118
5 Your "Soul" Is You 134
6 How the Demons Came into Existence 151
7 How Death and Imperfection Invaded Mankind 170
8 The True Seed of "Abraham My Friend" 183
9 The Human Coming of the Prophet Like Moses 204
10 How Could One Man Die for the World of Mankind? 219
11 The Founding of the True Christian Congregation 236
12 God a Person—or Three Persons in One God, Which? 255
13 Are You Under the Ten Commandments of Moses? 270
14 Must You Keep a Weekly Sabbath Day? 285
15 God's Permission of Wickedness Soon to End 298
16 "The Conclusion of the System of Things" 313
17 The Return of the Prophet Greater than Moses 328
18 Freeing the Dead People from Hades 345
19 Judgment Day—When for All Mankind? How Long? 360
20 Earth's Future as a Paradise in God's Purpose 375
21 God Vindicated As Being No Liar 386
22 How to Become One'of God's "Men of Good Will" 394
CHART: Seven Overlapping Generations from Adam to Moses 57
CHART: The Earthly Line of Descent of the Son of God as the Seed of God's "Woman" 112, 113
Index to Scriptures Cited 408
God Lives! How We Know It
EGARDLESS of who he was, all of us will have to agree with the writer of nineteen centuries ago, when he said: "No man has seen God at any time." * And yet that man believed in God. Why did he do so, and how could he?
2 So, then, God is invisible to man! What does that prove? The person who says he believes in only what he sees (or thinks he sees) takes the very invisibility of God to mean that God does not exist, does not live. For example, on August 6, 1961, because the Russian astronaut saw "no God or angels" during his seventeen orbits by a manmade rocket through outer space around our earth, he felt he had absolute proof that God did not exist.
However, the argument of this Russian atheist goes according to the same line of reasoning followed by the Roman idolaters of the first century of our Common Era. These Romans worshiped many gods and paid relative worship to these mythical gods by means of idol images of various materials.
When the followers of the so-called "sect of the Nazarenes" came along and worshiped the God of creation without the use of man-made idols or temples, * the Roman idolaters called them atheists, godless. Since those Roman idolaters could not see the God of this "sect of the Nazarenes," they could not believe that He really existed and that this "sect" had a living God.
4 The worship of the mythical gods by the Romans has long since ceased and the beautifully carved statues of their gods and goddesses are mere relics in museums today; but the disciples of
that despised "sect of the Nazarenes" continue their worship today.
5 Really, the Russian astronauts and those of other nations who have orbited through outer space have reason to give thanks that out there they saw "no God or angels." They should be grateful that God remained invisible.
Why so? Well, could they or their space ships have stood the experience? What do they think God is? Like a mere man, the way the mythical gods of ancient times were pictured in carved statues? Frail man cannot bear to look at a nuclear bomb explosion at close range without being blinded. Could man look at the Creator of the sun, which is a furnace of continuous nuclear explosions that send out streams of nuclear particles into outer space? Call to mind the man of the sixteenth century before our Common Era who made bold to ask to see God's glory. He did not know what he was asking for, because, by means of some intermediary, God said to this man on the mountaintop: "You are not able to see my face, because no man may see me and yet live."*
This divine statement supplies us the scientific reason for it that no man on earth has seen God at any time. Man is not of the same stuff as God. He is too frail to survive contact directly with God, who is of boundless, immeasurable dynamic energy.
2 To bring into his view many things long in existence, man has had to reinforce his weak vision with powerful telescopes and with electron microscopes linked with television to magnify objects by two million times.
Many things are invisible to our naked eye.
"God lives!" That expression in the title of this chapter speaks of only one such individual or personality. Just who is meant? Even in the religious realms of twentieth-century mankind there is the worship of many gods. In discussing the religion of India, The Encyclopedia Americana said: "Indrea was made the ruler of 330,000,000 divinities. The trinity of Hinduism came into being in Brahma, the creator, Vishnu, the preserver, and Siva, the destroyer." An interesting viewpoint, as taken by Hindus regarding what they consider to be God, was explained on a Sunday in 1964 by a Hindu missionary and educator to a congregation of Unitarians in Brooklyn, New York. When explaining the difference between Hinduism and the religion of Christendom, the missionary went on to say:
Christians believe that God created man and that man, therefore, is subject to God, but the Hindu believes that the soul of man always was and always will be and hence that man is coexistent with God. "Because of this," said he, "we regard God, not as father, but as friend." \dagger
To Hindus, God was not before the human soul and the human soul is independent of God but always maintains a coexistence with God. \ddagger *Let us turn again to The Encyclopedia Americana, this time for what it has to say on the subject of God.
It says: "God, . . . in the Christian, Mohammedan, and Jewish sense, the Supreme Being, the First Cause, and in a general sense, as considered nowadays throughout the civilized world, a spiritual being, self-existent, eternal and absolutely free and all-powerful, distinct from the matter which he has created in many forms, and which he conserves and controls. There does not seem to have been a period of history where mankind was without belief in a supernatural author and governor of the universe. The most savage nations have some rudimentary ideas of a god or supreme being. Man is a religious as well as a rational animal. . . It is rather maintained that the study of human history, or human nature especially on its moral and spiritual side, and of the world as far as science reveals it to us make for the existence of a God, demand such a postulate as the key of the universe, and render the belief in a personal God greatly more probable than any other thesis."
To what extent the above encyclopedic explanation of God is true, we shall yet see. Although that is the general sense in which the people of Christendom, the Mohammedans and the Jews understand God, these religionists certainly do differ from one another as to the personality of God and the purposes of God toward mankind.
11 For instance, the main religions of Christendom believe that God is made up of three Persons, just the same as the Hindus believe in a trinity, whereas both the Mohammedans and the Jews believe that God is not a Trinity but One Person. However, the Mohammedans give no personal name to their God, whereas the Jews in their sacred writings give him a personal name repeated thousands of times over. The Mohammedans claim that God has no son, but the Jews believe that God is their heavenly Father. Naturally, then, each of those religious systems worships God differently, and somewhere there must be error about God. Erroneous worship could never be acceptable to the one true God, just as a certain man said nineteen hundred years ago when discussing the difference between the Samaritan religion and the Jewish religion of that day: "God is a Spirit, and those worshiping him must worship with spirit and truth."
12 For this reason there exists the greatest need to learn the truth about God, in order to know who He is and what He is.
HOW TO KNOW THAT HE LIVES
Since it is impossible to see the true God, we need to prove his living existence by some means other than that of actually seeing him with the naked human eye. It is a scientific fact that the existence, presence and activity of something invisible to the naked human eye can be proved by certain effects, results or consequences that we can observe with our senses of sight, smell, hearing, feeling and tasting.
14 For example, the farthest out known planet of our solar system is the ninth one named after the ancient Roman god Pluto. It is invisible to the naked human eye and even beyond the range of small telescopes, so that even a 15-inch refractor telescope has a hard time bringing it to view. It was first discovered in the year 1930. However, the existence of Pluto was suspected back in 1905.
Why? Because of its influence that produced certain effects upon the planets Uranus and Saturn. It came to be called Planet X. By making scientific calculations according to those effects it was made possible to locate the position of this planet about 3,680,000,000 miles distant from our sun, so as finally to train a telescope of sufficient strength upon it and photograph it. Thus by an astronomer's prediction and by twenty-five years of research, this yellowish planet Pluto was proved to exist.
15 In like manner the existence of a living God, the Great Creator, can be proved beyond doubt by the evidence that he gives of his being and of his activity. One argument in proof of this is an old one, but it is still good. A writer with solidly based faith in God used the argument for us nineteen hundred years ago.
His argument was like this:
16 Take, for example, that famous Buddhist temple now in ruins in Angkor, Cambodia,
known as the Angkor Wat; or, take the beautiful, magnificent tomb known as the Taj Mahal in Agra, India; or, take that Mohammedan
mosque known as the Dome of the Rock in the sacred area of the present-day walled city
of Jerusalem. Nobody will deny that each of these buildings was constructed by some man. Such buildings did not come about by accident. Their structure calls for the use of intelligence and the ability to design, not the intelligence and ability of a fish, insect,
bird or beast, but those of an alive man with an active brain. What shall we say, then, of our visible universe, the heavens and the earth, which are of still more remarkable structure and of far more complicated design and permanence? Unavoidably all this called for the existence and activity of a personal intelligence with ability and a life-span boundlessly greater than those of intelligent man.
17 Look at man himself! In what a wonderful, yes, fear-inspiring way he is constructed! He did not plan himself. The chances against his coming into existence, even in a small way at the start, by mere accident in the midst of chaos are endless.
18 When we intelligently consider all things in the heavens and the earth with which we are acquainted, we can come to but one decision, one conclusion, that of the writer of nineteen centuries ago, in these words: "Of course, every house is constructed by someone, but he that constructed all things is God."* Today, after nineteen centuries since those words were written, all these constructed things continue to exist in that same structure and to function. This proves that the great Constructor must also live to this day as the Sustainer of all these constructed things that are so inferior to him, their Creator. Indeed, God lives!
19 More than thirty-eight centuries ago a childless old man in the Middle East, not a Babylonian stargazer, was asked to look up into the night sky and count the stars, if he possibly could do so. So many were the stars appearing to his naked eyes that he could not fix the number of them. He was told that the number of his offspring or "seed" would be like those stars, of a number not then known to any man. In recent years astronomers, equipped with their mighty telescopes, have been occupied with counting the number of the stars, the planets, the comets, the meteors, and the galaxies of stars. What impressions do they receive regarding need for God to exist, as
they view the marvels of the heavens into which they are able to peer so deeply? Or, ought they to rule out the thought of God and take the narrow, shortsighted view of the philosophy of materialism? "Materialism," says The Encyclopedia Americana, is
the philosophical theory that everything which exists is ultimately material in nature, or that whatever is real can be derived and explained in accordance with the laws of material phenomena. This, of course, carries with it a denial of the reality of any finite or infinite spirit as an immaterial substance and a repudiation of all forms of idealism, which uses thought or intelligence as a principle of explanation. Thorough-going materialism asserts that nothing exists but physical bodies and physical
processes. What are called immaterial substances and processes it either declares to be unreal, or explains away as ultimately not different in nature from physical substances and processes. Moreover, for materialism of this consistent and uncompromising type, matter is dead and moves only by mechanical forces. It has no "psychic side," and the laws which it obeys are the expressions of a blind physical necessity. This extreme view . in various modified forms it still exists as a tendency to subordinate mental phenomena to physical processes.*
20 Like all the rest of us today, the astronomers who count and name the stars need to be spoken to just as a historical people of the eighth century before our Common Era were spoken to, in these words: "Raise your eyes high up and see.
Who has created these things? It is the One who is bringing forth the army of them even by number, all of whom he calls even by name. Due to the abundance of dynamic energy, he also being vigorous in power, not one of them is missing."*
21 Materialism cannot explain away the existence of all the heavenly bodies in all their abundance, their arrangement, their controlled movements, with the argument that matter always was and that it is simply "blind physical necessity" that causes them to move with such order and precision and without collision of one against the other. For motion of lifeless matter to exist, there must be a mover; and in this case it calls for an intelligent mover and lawgiver. Besides that, for matter to exist, there must be a creator of matter and a source of all its energy. If the materialist argues that matter has always existed (an argument that is disproved by exact science today), then the Creator of matter has always existed, being without beginning as well as without end. All matter is an effect, not a cause. Living matter derives its life from a living source, not from chemical accident.
22 It takes mathematics of the highest sort to calculate the heavens and the laws of the universe. Did all the mathematical intelligence that is displayed in the heavenly bodies and their arrangements, movements and accommodations spring from sightless, lifeless, brainless matter because of a physical necessity that matter came to discern or appreciate?
Sensible scientists and astronomers of our modern age do not think so. Even the avowed evolutionist Dr. Robert A. Millikan, an outstanding American scientist, was moved to make this admission: "A purely materialistic philosophy is to me the height of unintelligence. Wise men in all the ages have always seen enough to at least make them reverent." *
22 In agreement with this statement is the comment made by the author of the well-known theory of relativity, Dr. Albert Einstein:
It is enough for me to contemplate the mystery of conscious life perpetuating itself through all eternity; to reflect upon the marvelous structure of the universe, which we can dimly perceive, and to try humbly to comprehend even an infinitesimal part of the intelligence manifest in nature.
A HISTORICAL GOD
24 However, it is not enough for us to reason out and believe that there must be a God who exists in some sort of vague, unclear or indefinite way. It does not satisfy the human heart and mind for us to be merely theists, persons who believe in the existence of gods or even of one God who is Creator of the universe but who has made no revelation of himself. It still leaves us weak in faith, uncertain as regards worship, if we are just deists, persons who believe in the existence of God as proved by our powers of reason and by the material universe, but which God has remained indifferent toward his creation and has given no supernatural revelation to mankind. For theists and deists, and for persons who declare themselves to be believers in God in order not to be classed as Godless or atheists, God is a very remote Person, a God who has no personal relationship to them or whom they cannot get to know personally so as to understand him and appreciate him and know what he means to them.
To them his moral and religious laws remain unknown, his purpose in creating all things stays in doubt, and his purpose for mankind's future lingers in the dark. Such belief in God makes a person reverent but acts as no guide in life.
25 However, there is more to the existence and activity of God than what the theists and deists believe. God lives, and we can know it and we do know it because he is a historical God. He is a history-making God. From the very beginning he has intervened in human affairs and, happily, he is intervening in human affairs today. He has perceptibly taken a hand in human affairs at definite dates of history both before and during our Common Era and at specified places and locations. This is no myth, fable, legend or religious fancy. It is historically provable, with more proofs than many of the commonly accepted events of history. We know that God exists, not just as even dead, material stone may exist governed by the law of inertia, but as a living Person, aware of what is going on in all his creation. He is sensitive to what is going on even on our tiny earth. He is livelily reacting to what is going on or is needed and he is intervening as this may be needed.
26 We know that God has lived throughout the course of man's history for these past six thousand years. We know that it has been He, because he has said in advance what he would do and he has done it!
Historic events have not been left to blind, accidental chance, and with no meaning or explanation. God has proved that nobody in heaven or on earth has been able to block what he has purposed to do and what he has said that he would do.
27 It requires a real, living, all-powerful, intelligent God to do this; and such a living God has done it. The gods whom the nations worship by means of idols, images, statues of stone, wood, gold, silver or some other metal have been unable to do this. The one living and true God, the Creator of heaven and earth, has proved that he alone is God by doing it. He has not only created but also responsibly held this universe together throughout its billions of years of existence. He is not just a materialistic God occupied merely in creating visible, tangible material things. He is, above all, a moralistic God, a God who has divine qualities and the highest standard of righteousness and the perfect set of morals. Quite to be expected, then, there is a moral, religious issue tied in with human history. For that reason the living God, who is of the highest morality, has interested himself in human history.
23 Man's history has not zigzagged its way across these thousands of years according to the political bickerings and bargains of kings, emperors and military generals, with no definite pattern and, as feared today, leading nowhere else but to a nuclear world war that will stop all further human history. From his supreme position the interested, living God of earth and heaven has been controlling the general course of human history toward the full realization of his divine purpose. This fact holds true also today in this nuclear, space age. By what this God said long ago with regard to the future he has put himself into modern historical events.
He has determined his place in human affairs of our day. He has declared what he purposed to do
in this momentous period and has had it put down in writing that is readable today. The evidences that are at hand today in ample abundance prove that God has not lied, has not broken his promise. He cannot lie.
29 God lives—today, and informed persons on earth know it. Events that are immediately ahead of us and that will have an effect on all mankind will add further convincing proof that God lives, that he is keenly alive to mankind's best interests forever. Happy are all men and women who now seek to acquaint themselves with this one living and true God and who make a sincere effort to worship him in the right way, with spirit and truth.
Which Sacred Book of Religion Is the Truth?
ACRED books of great age lie at the bottom of the principal religions practiced throughout the earth today. If you, our reader, are a Confucianist, you may have read the nine Chinese classical books, namely, the five king and the four shu, which set forth a system of morality. Or, if you have served as a saffron-robed Buddhist monk, you likely have read the Pali canon of Buddhism, with its three "pitaka" or "baskets," that is to say, the Sermon Basket, the Discipline Basket and the Doctrinal Basket.
2 What if you, our reader, are a Hindu? On November 8, 1964, the building of the Community Church of New York City was turned into a Hindu temple as the congregation celebrated the Indian festival of light known as Divan and two worshipers did a choral reading from the ancient Hindu holy book Bhagavad Gita, "The Lord's Son." You, as a Hindu, have probably read that book, also the Vedas, the four Books of Knowledge, the Rig-Veda, the Yajur-Veda, the Sama-Veda and the Atharva-Veda,* besides the Brahmanas and the Upanishads.
But if you are Japanese, you may have read the Kojiki ("Ancient Records"), containing the Shinto myths and legends as committed to writing in 712 C.E., or the Yengishiki ("Ceremonial Law"), as committed to writing in 927 C.E. If, however, you are a Moslem, you may be a devout reader of the Koran, the Mohammed Bible of 114 suras, and you reverentially view it as the last word of God given to man through Mohammed the prophet of Allah, in the seventh century of our Common Era. The Koran, however, has never been made a part of the sacred Hebrew Scriptures, nor has it been made one piece with the Christian Bible.
Other sacred books of ancient times may come to the reader's mind. The users of the religious books named above consider them to be the truth and may even swear by them before giving testimony in court. How, though, can they all be the truth if they differ from one another, contradicting one another? Which one of them is the truth all the way through, without even an inside contradiction of itself? It does not do to take the position of some religionists who try to be very tolerant and who want to avoid religious discussion by saying to a person of a different religion, "Well, that is truth to you, and this is truth to me." A religious person certainly would not take that position when trading or doing business. He would insist that 1+1+1=3 ,not 1, and that two and two makes four, not five, and not let himself be cheated.
Truth does not contradict itself or deny the facts. It does not go contrary to reality, nor is it one thing to one person and another thing, even a contradictory thing, to another person. The one truth applies to all persons, whether they recognize it or not. It does not change because of location or of time. The truth is provable by actual fact. The truth endures, persists, because it is genuine, actually existing, in harmony with reality. All this we have to recognize about religion also. A seeker of pure truth, absolute truth, will not take offense at the question, he will not consider the following question to be narrow-minded or intolerant: Among all the ancient sacred books of religion, which one is the truth? Which one is true to itself, not self-contradictory, and true by actual fact, right straight through?
In order for a religious book that is used in worship of God to be the truth, it must be from a truthful source. It must have a truthful author, who is acquainted with fact, reality, truth, and who is unafraid to tell the truth for the benefit of the lovers and seekers of the truth. Really, it should spring forth from the God of truth and should show God as he really is in his qualities, his position, his purposes and his works. When we examine the various basic books of religion, we find that, with the exception of the one sacred book of truth, they all have to do with demonism, encourage demonism, allow for it or lay the basis for it.
The taint of demonism may be in the form of astrology, practice of magic, casting spells over victims, fortune-telling, consulting with spirit mediums in hope of getting in touch with dead
persons, the worship or appeasing of dead ancestors, the imagining that all natural objects and even the universe itself have living souls in them or connected with them. The facts show that demons are liars and are malicious and have misled the vast bulk of mankind. So the very connection of any ancient religious books with demonism argues against their being from the one truthful source.
THE BOOK FREE FROM DEMONISM
The one book of truth must be free from all demonism. Such a book we find in the Sacred Scriptures known as the Holy Bible. The writing of this Book was begun in the sixteenth century before our Common Era, or in 1513 B.C.E., and was completed in the first century of our Common Era, about 98 C.E. It was begun in ancient Hebrew and was finished in the common Greek of nineteen centuries ago. It was written by men from southwest Asia, all of them being descendants of the patriarch Abraham the Hebrew, who was born in the twenty-first century before our Common Era. The one living and true God called this Abraham away from Ur of the Chaldeans near Babylon, which was the birthplace of demonism in the form of astrology, magic, idolatry, deification of political heroes, and so forth.
The Holy Bible is a collection of sixty-six books, all these being in harmony with themselves, from first to last. From its first book, now called Genesis, to its last book, now called Revelation, the Holy Bible is against demonism and exposes it as false and against the one true God. The first book reports that God said to a snake or serpent in a beautiful garden in southwest Asia: "Upon your belly you will go and dust is what you will eat all the days of your life. And I shall put enmity between you and the woman and between your seed and her seed. He will bruise you in the head and you will bruise him in the heel." God was there indirectly talking to a demon, and, of course, against him. (Genesis 3:14, 15) In the fifth book of the Bible this same God declared the following law against demonism, to forbid it among his worshipers:
"When you are entered into the land that Jehovah your God is giving you, you must not learn to do according to the detestable things of those nations. There should not be found in you anyone who makes his son or his daughter pass through the fire, anyone who employs divination, a practicer of magic or anyone who looks for omens or a sorcerer, or one who binds others with a spell or anyone who consults a spirit medium or a professional foreteller of events or anyone who inquires of the dead. For everybody doing these things is something detestable to Jehovah, and on account of these detestable things Jehovah your God is driving them away from before you. You should prove yourself faultless with Jehovah your God.
For these nations whom you are dispossessing used to listen to those practicing magic and to those who divine; but as for you, Jehovah your God has not given you anything like this." —Deuteronomy ("Second Law") 18:9-14.
10 In the last book of the Bible here are some of the statements against demonism: "Thus with a swift pitch will Babylon the great city be hurled down, and she will never be found again. . . for by your spiritistic practice all the nations were misled." (Revelation 18:21-23) "But as for the cowards and those without faith and those who are disgusting in their filth and murderers and fornicators and those practicing spiritism and idolaters and all the liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulphur. This means the second death." Also: "Outside are the dogs and those who practice spiritism and the fornicators and the murderers and the idolaters and everyone liking and carrying on a lie."—Revelation 21:8 and 22:15.
11 Since all the Bible writers, from the prophet Moses the first of them to the Christian apostle John the last of those writers, were unitedly against demonism, they would seek no aid from the demons in any of their writings. The demons or unclean spirits were not permitted to give any testimony concerning God's purpose or his chosen servants. Nineteen centuries ago, when the anointed Prophet from Nazareth was carrying on his work in the Middle East, he refused to let demons share in his religious work. We read: "So he cured many that were ill with various sicknesses, and he expelled many demons, but he would not let the demons speak, because they knew him to be Christ." (Mark 1:34) "Even the unclean spirits, whenever they would behold him, would prostrate themselves before him and cry out, saying: 'You are the Son of God.'
But many times he sternly charged them not to make him known." (Mark 3: 11, 12) "By laying his hands upon each one of them he would cure them. Demons also would come out of many, shouting and saying: 'You are the Son of God.' But, rebuking them, he would not permit them to speak, because they knew him to be the Christ." (Luke 4:40, 41) Christ's apostles imitated him in this respect.
12 For example, we read this about Paul when preaching in Philippi, Greece: "As we were going
to the place of prayer, a certain servant girl with a spirit, a demon of divination, met us. She used to furnish her masters with much gain by practicing the art of prediction. This girl kept following Paul and us and crying out
with the words. "These men are slaves of the Most High God, who are publishing to you
the way of salvation.' This she kept doing for many days. Finally Paul got tired of it and turned and said to the spirit:
'I order you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.' And it came out that very hour." Acts 16:16-18.
13 The spirit that had obsessed that slave girl was trying to put on an appearance here of serving the Most High God and was thus trying to give the idea that the predictions made by the girl up till then were inspired of God and were truthful, reliable.
The apostle Paul saw through this hypocrisy and deception and turned down all cooperation with a spirit demon. For doing this the masters of the slave girl caused Paul and his companion Silas to be put in prison; but God delivered them that night.—Acts 16:19-34.
14 We can be sure, therefore, that no appeal was made to the demons in writing the sixty-six books of the Holy Bible. The fact is that the demons could never write or produce such a book as the Bible. For example, the experience of Joseph the great-grandson of the patriarch Abraham the Hebrew before Pharaoh the king of Egypt proved this. This is recorded in the first book of the Bible, in chapter forty-one. In the one night the God of Abraham and of Joseph sent two dreams to Pharaoh, while Joseph was yet unjustly in prison. To get the dreams interpreted, what did Pharaoh do?
15 Genesis 41:8 tells us:
8 tells us. "And it developed in the morning that his spirit became agitated. So he sent and called all the magicpracticing
priests of Egypt and all her wise men, and Pharaoh went on to relate his dreams to them. But there was no interpreter of them for Pharaoh." The demons had not inspired those meaningful dreams of Pharaoh nor could they help those Egyptian magicians and wise men to interpret the dreams.
Finally Pharaoh was obliged to summon Joseph from prison to interpret the dreams. Before doing so, Joseph said to Pharaoh: "I need not be considered! God will announce welfare to Pharaoh. . . The dream of Pharaoh is but one. What the true God is doing he has told to Pharaoh." (Genesis 41:16, 25) Pharaoh's dreams, Joseph's interpretation of them, and the accurate fulfillment of the dreams upon the land of Egypt are written down in the first book of the Bible, all without the help or participation of the demons and their magicians, of course.
16 Another case showing the inability of the demons to produce such a book of truth as the Bible is that of Daniel, another descendant of the patriarch Abraham, before Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon. God sent the king a dream of a great image, of four sections of metals, that a stone cut out of a mountain without human hands crushed to powder. The king forgot the dream by morning, but demanded that the dream be both recalled and then explained. The account of the matter says: "So the king said to call the magic-practicing priests and the conjurers and the sorcerers and the Chaldeans to tell the king his dreams." (Daniel 2:1, 2) The practicers of demonism proved unable to do so.
17 Then the prophet Daniel, whom the king called Belteshazzar, asked to see the king and he both recalled the king's dream and told its remarkable meaning. When proceeding to do this, Daniel said: "The secret that the king himself is asking, the wise men, the conjurers, the magic-practicing priests and the astrologers themselves are unable to show to the king. However, there exists a God in the heavens who is a Revealer of secrets, and he has made known to King Nebuchadnezzar what is to occur in the final part of the days."
The inability of the demon gods of Babylon was thus made painfully apparent.—Daniel 2:27-45.
18 On a later occasion King Nebuchadnezzar had another dream from the God of heaven. In telling what followed, the king said: "At that time the magicpracticing priests, the conjurers, the Chaldeans and the astrologers
were entering; and I was saying before them what the dream was, but its interpretation they were not making known to me." Thus again the
demons disappointed their earthly servants. The prophet Daniel as the servant of the Most High God proved able to tell the meaning of the dream. Just as he interpreted the dream, so it happened with the king. Like the preceding dream of King Nebuchadnezzar, this second dream and Daniel's explanation of it and how it was fulfilled upon the king are recorded in the Bible, free of all help from the demons. (Daniel 4:1-37) The Holy Bible owes nothing to the demons, but everything to God, and for that reason it is the one book of truth.
19 In Ephesus, a city of Asia Minor, the Christian apostle Paul taught for some months and also performed miraculous cures: "And the wicked spirits came out" of demon-possessed people. What resulted? Paul's companion Luke writes to tell us: "And many of those who had become believers would come and confess and report their practices openly.
Indeed, quite a number of those who practiced magical arts brought their books together and burned them up before everybody. And they calculated together the prices of them and found them worth fifty thousand pieces of silver. Thus in a mighty way the word of Jehovah kept growing and prevailing." (Acts 19:11-20) This makes it clear that the Holy Bible has borrowed nothing from books of magic inspired by demons.
The Bible does not mix God's word with that of the demons. It plainly says to worshipers of the living and true God: "The things which the nations sacrifice they sacrifice to demons, and not to God; and I do not want you to become sharers with the demons. You cannot be drinking the cup of Jehovah and the cup of demons; you cannot be partaking of 'the table of Jehovah' and the table of demons." (1 Corinthians 10:20, 21) Instead of sharing with the demons, it is necessary for worshipers of the living and true God to fight against the demons. To the worshipers of God at Ephesus the apostle Paul wrote: "Put on the complete suit of armor from God that you may be able to stand firm against the machinations of the Devil; because we have a fight, not against blood and flesh, but against the governments, against the authorities, against the world rulers of this darkness, against the wicked spirit forces in the heavenly places." In this warfare, God's worshipers need "the sword of the spirit, that is, God's word." Ephesians 6:11-17.
21 As never before in human history, we today need to war against those "wicked spirit forces in the heavenly places," the demons. We are living nineteen centuries later from when Paul wrote thus against the demons, and by now at least we should be living in a later period against which he warned, saying: "The inspired utterance says definitely that in later periods of time some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to misleading inspired utterances and teachings of demons, by the hypocrisy of men who speak lies, marked in their conscience as with a branding iron; forbidding to marry, commanding to abstain from foods which God created to be partaken of with thanksgiving by those who have faith and accurately know the truth."—1 Timothy 4:1-3.
22 Since Paul wrote, many persons who claim to worship the one living and true God have fallen away to religions, ancient and more recent, that are soaked or tainted with demonism, "the misleading inspired utterances and teachings of demons." In our search to find out which sacred book of religion is the truth we need to avoid all such expressions of demonism, in order not to be misled. In its hostility to demonism the Holy Bible avoids and rejects all such misleading inspired utterances and teachings of demons. This guarantees that the Bible is the truth, God's Word. If we follow it faithfully we shall not be misled, to our destruction.
FORETELLER OF THINGS TO COME
Another way by which the Holy Bible can be proved to be the one sacred book of divine truth is by proving that what it has foretold has come true. The Bible is distinguished from all other venerated books of religion in that it is prophetic. As a whole it is a Book of prophecy, since it both records prophecies and reports the fulfillment of those prophecies that had time to be fulfilled before the Bible was finished nineteen hundred years ago.
24 In its very first book, Genesis, the Bible sets out prophecies that are fundamental and of the greatest importance to the happiness and welfare of mankind; and in its sixty-sixth and last book, Revelation, it presents a whole prophecy. The opening words of Revelation bear witness to that fact, saying: "A revelation by Jesus Christ, which God gave him, to show his slaves the things that must shortly take place. And he sent forth his angel and presented it in signs through him to his slave John, who bore witness to the word God gave and to the witness Jesus Christ gave, even to all the things he saw."—Revelation 1:1, 2.
25 If it is true that God gave this last great prophecy of the Holy Bible through Jesus Christ, it is also true that this same God gave us the first prophecy written down in the Holy Bible, in its first book, Genesis. Read again those words in Genesis 3:15, addressed really to the demon that was invisibly behind the victimized serpent that died about six thousand years ago: "I shall put enmity between you and the woman and between your seed and her seed. He will bruise you in the head and you will bruise him in the heel." Who spoke those words? It was Jehovah God. His words were a prophecy, the first prophecy recorded in the Bible, a prophecy from which the Bible never gets away. As to the final fulfillment of that prophecy, there is a complete connection between that first prophecy in the first book of the Bible and the revelation of its fulfillment in the last book of the Bible, as follows: "And I saw an angel coming down out of heaven with the key of the abyss and a great chain in his hand.
And he seized the dragon, the original serpent, who is the Devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years. And he hurled him into the abyss and shut it and sealed it over him, that he might not mislead the nations any more until the thousand years were ended. After these things he must be let loose for a little while."—Revelation 20:1-3.
27 After seeing that in a miraculous prophetic vision, the apostle John was carried forward in time for a thousand years, to when that great Demon, "the dragon, the original serpent, who is the Devil and Satan," is let out of the abyss and fails in his new try at misleading all mankind on earth and is then wiped out of all existence anywhere, as if plunged into fire mixed with sulphur. (Revelation 20:7-10) He has not yet been bound and imprisoned in an abyss for a thousand years. For the past six thousand years he has been on the loose and is still misleading the vast majority of mankind today. When the apostle John wrote the Revelation, it was at the close of the first century of our Common Era.
So what the apostle John saw in vision, in signs, were "the things that must shortly take place." All the evidences are that the Demon, Satan the Devil, must yet be bound and put away in an abyss for the foretold thousand years. By measuring on this basis we can see that the Holy Bible foretells the future history of mankind for at least a thousand years in advance of our day.
29 The original prophecy of God concerning the bruising of the Serpent's head is a 'thing in which it is impossible for God to lie' and in which he will never be proved a liar.
None but the true, ever-living God could produce a book of prophecy that comes true in all its prophecies. As to prophecy, the Holy Bible is outstanding and is unequaled by any other religious book in the history of man, past or present.
31 Counting from the first occurrences in Numbers 11:25-27 the verb "to prophesy" is found 143 times in the Sacred Scriptures, Hebrew and Greek. The words "prophet(s)" and "prophetess" occur 471 times, counting from Genesis 20:7, where God called the Hebrew patriarch Abraham a "prophet." The word "prophetic" occurs twice, and the word "prophecy" or "prophecies" occurs 22 times, the word "prophesying" once. Besides this, the Hebrew word for "seer" is used 11 times, as, for instance, in connection with the prophet Samuel. (1 Samuel 9:9, 11, 18, 19) The seven Hebrew words and the two Greek words that are translated "vision(s)" occur 84 (71 + 13) times. The Hebrew word for "visionary" is used 22 times.
Besides this, there is the Hebrew word for "burden" or "weighty message" or "pronouncement," which is used 29 times from Proverbs 30:1 on to Malachi 1:1 in the sense of a solemn prophecy or a prophecy of doom. Thus, in the case of Malachi, who is the last of the Twelve Minor (Lesser) Prophets, his prophecy, written in Hebrew, is called "a pronouncement" (massá). This location of Malachi's prophecy in the Hebrew Scriptures corresponds with the fact that the book listed last in the whole Bible of sixty-six books is the prophecy called Revelation, written in Greek. From this it is seen that the whole Bible, from start to finish, is abundantly marked by references to prophecy, without fear that any of its prophecies would fail and prove to be a lie, a falsehood.
According to what is said in the letter of Jude (the second-last book of the Bible), verses fourteen and fifteen, the man Enoch of 3404-3039 before our Common Era was the first human prophet faithful to God. The last one of the entire Bible was the Christian prophet, the apostle John, who received the Revelation.
According to the Bible, there were pre-Christian prophets, the last of whom was John the Baptist, the son of Zechariah the priest, and there were Christian prophets, the first of whom was Jesus Christ. He was the greatest of
all the prophets reported in the Bible. (Acts 3:
19-23, Ephesians 2.1. 20; 4:11-16) One thing is certain about all these faithful prophets of the living God: they were not under the influence of demons nor inspired by the demons. King David said concerning his prophecies: "The
spirit of Jehovah it was that spoke by me, and his word was upon my tongue." (2 Samuel 23:1, 2) "The holy spirit spoke beforehand by David's mouth." (Acts 1:16) The Christian apostle Peter points to the nondemonic, godly source of the Bible prophecies by saying: "No prophecy of Scripture springs from any private interpretation.
For prophecy was at no time brought by man's will, but men spoke from God as they were borne along by holy spirit."—2 Peter 1:20, 21.
In the last book of the Bible God's angel spoke of an essential idea in genuine prophecy when he said to the apostle John: "All I am is a fellow slave of you and of your brothers who have the work of witnessing to Jesus. Worship God; for the bearing witness to Jesus is what inspires prophesying." Revelation 19:10.
Thus the holy writings of the complete Bible were written under no demonic inspiration, but under the inspiration of the spirit of God, who does not lie and who cannot lie. The last two books of the inspired Hebrew Scriptures to be written were those of Jerusalem's Governor Nehemiah and the prophet Malachi, about the year 443 B.C.E. When Jesus Christ, about whom the Hebrew Scriptures prophesy, was born, it was the autumn of the year 2 B.C.E. Between his birth and the last Hebrew prophet there was a gap of 441 years.
37 This gap allowed over four centuries of time to pass by for the Hebrew Scriptures concerning the promised Messiah, Jesus, to begin to come true. That they would come true was made sure by the fact that so many of the earlier Bible prophecies had already been fulfilled and the fulfillment of those prophecies was reported in the Hebrew Scriptures. But after the passage of these four centuries since the finishing of the writing of the Hebrew Scriptures the time was approaching for the prophecies concerning the coming of the promised Messiah, Jesus, to go into fulfillment.
Certainly, then, the God of those Hebrew Scriptures would see to it that the fulfillment of such prophecies should also be put on record. Where?
38 In inspired Scriptures written in the common Greek of the time, which was the international language of the first century of our Common Era. It would be reasonable to expect that in those inspired Greek Scriptures the writers would call attention to the fulfillment of the ancient Hebrew Scriptures. In fact, that was one purpose for writing those inspired Greek Scriptures, to prove the fulfillment of ancient Hebrew prophecies. Thus God the One who inspired the prophecies would prove true, and his promised Messiah and his chosen people would be plainly identified to us.
30 In the inspired Greek Scriptures the life account of the Messiah as written by the apostle Matthew is generally put first. Well, now, in the very first chapter of Matthew's account the fulfillment of Hebrew prophecy in the year 2 B.C.E. is remarked upon, in these words: "All this actually came about for that to be fulfilled which was spoken by Jehovah through his prophet, saying: 'Look! The virgin will become pregnant and will give birth to a son, and they will call his name 'Immanuel,' which means, when translated, 'With Us Is God.' "—Matthew 1:22, 23; Isaiah 7:14.
40 In the second chapter of Matthew three fulfillments of prophecy are noted, in these words: (1) "He stayed there until the decease of Herod, for that to be fulfilled which was spoken by Jehovah through his prophet, saying: 'Out of Egypt I called my son.'" (2) "Then that was fulfilled which was spoken through Jeremiah the prophet, saying: 'A voice was heard in Ramah, weeping and much wailing; .
. .'" (3) "He withdrew into the territory of Galilee, and came and dwelt in a city named Nazareth, that there might be fulfilled what was spoken through the prophets: 'He will be called a Nazarene.'"—Matthew 2:15, 17, 18, 22, 23; Hosea 11:1; Jeremiah 31:15; Isaiah 11:1.*
Thereafter throughout the rest of the Greek Scriptures the records of the fulfillments of inspired Hebrew Scriptures are introduced with such expressions as "That there might be fulfilled what was spoken," or similar expressions. For instance: "But all this has taken place for the scriptures of the prophets to be fulfilled." (Matthew 26:56) "Nevertheless, it is in order that the Scriptures may be fulfilled." (Mark 14:49) "These are my words which I spoke to you while I was yet with you, that all the things written in the law of Moses and in the Prophets and Psalms about me must be fulfilled." (Luke 24:44) "But it is that the word written in their Law may be fulfilled, 'They hated me without cause.'" (John 15:25) "But in this way God has fulfilled the things he announced beforehand through the mouth of all the prophets, that his Christ would suffer." (Acts 3:18) "The good news about the promise made to the forefathers, that God has entirely fulfilled it to us their children in that he resurrected Jesus; even as it is written in the second psalm."—Acts 13:32, 33.
42 Such expressions about the fulfillment of ancient Hebrew prophecies occur twenty-seven times in the inspired Greek Scriptures.
In Matthew 2:5, 6 we read: "They said to him: 'In Bethlehem of Judea; for this is how it has been written through the prophet, "And you, O Bethlehem of the land of Judah, . . . out of you will come forth a governing one, who will shepherd my people.'"' In scores of places the coming true of prophecy is called to our attention by the expression "It is written," or, "Just as it is written," or something similar, to emphasize that God's authentic prophecies were written down in the Hebrew Scriptures. Such expressions concerning the fulfillment of the written Hebrew prophecies occur ninety or more times in the Greek Scriptures.
44 Jesus Christ himself was a prophet who called attention to the way in which God's law applied and to the way in which the Hebrew prophecies were fulfilled, by repeatedly using the expression "It is written," or a like expression. Why did Jesus Christ thus continually refer back to the written Word of God? It was because, as he said in his prayer to God for his followers, "I have given your word to them, . . . Sanctify them by means of the truth; your word is truth." (John 17:14-17) There Jesus Christ called the inspired Hebrew Scriptures, from which he continually quoted, the "truth." Moreover, what he preached and taught his disciples was also the word from God and was likewise the "truth." So when his disciples wrote down what Jesus said, that written record in Greek was the "truth." Such a thing can be said for no other religious book on earth.
The Holy Bible alone contains such "truth."
45 The Hebrew Scriptures tell of the fulfillment of many of the prophecies that came true before Jesus was born in the year 2 B.C.E. Referring to the divine prophecy in 1 Samuel 2:21-36 and 3:10-14, the account in 1 Kings 2:27 reports: "So Solomon drove out Abiathar from serving as a priest of Jehovah, to fulfill Jehovah's word that he had spoken against the house of Eli in Shiloh."
46 Referring to Jeremiah's prophecies concerning the desolation of Jerusalem and the land of Judah for seventy years, the account in 2 Chronicles 36:20-23 says: "He carried off those remaining from the sword captive to Babylon, and they
came to be servants to him and his sons until the royalty of Persia began to reign; to fulfill Jehovah's word by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had paid off its sabbaths. All the days of lying desolated it kept sabbath, to fulfill seventy years. And in the first year of Cyrus the king of Persia, that Jehovah's word by the mouth of Jeremiah might be accomplished, Jehovah roused the spirit of Cyrus the king of Persia, so that he caused a cry to pass through all his kingdom, and also in writing, saying: 'This is what Cyrus the king of Persia has said.'" In this way the inspired Hebrew Scriptures contain within themselves their own evidence of their truthfulness, besides the testimony from the later Greek Scriptures.
However, not all the prophecies were reported in the Greek Scriptures as fulfilled. There are many Hebrew prophecies that have had fulfillment since the writing of the Christian Greek Scriptures, and many of these prophecies are having fulfillment in our own modern day. Furthermore, the Christian Greek Scriptures themselves contain prophecies that have undergone fulfillment since being written, and many of these have been undergoing fulfillment since the year 1914, in which World War I broke out.
48 What does all this evidence concerning the fulfillment of divine prophecy serve to prove? This, that all the other Bible prophecies that are yet due to be fulfilled will certainly come true. Such prophecies, having still a future fulfillment, are just as reliable for us as were those prophecies already come true. The Bible's prophetic value and truthfulness are thus strengthened.
40 It is just as the Christian apostle Peter wrote concerning the experience that he and James and John had in the mountain in the Middle East, when Jesus Christ was gloriously transfigured before their eyes and God's words from heaven were heard: "Yes, these words we heard borne from heaven while we were with him in the holy mountain.
Consequently we have the prophetic word made more sure; and you are doing well in paying attention to it as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until day dawns and a daystar rises, in your hearts. For you know this first, that no prophecy of Scripture springs from any private interpretation. For prophecy was at no time brought by man's will, but men spoke from God as they were borne along by holy spirit."—2 Peter 1:16-21.
In like manner, by the steady fulfillment of its hundreds of prophecies, we have the Holy Bible "made more sure" as being God's Word, the truth. Out of all the sacred books of religion in existence, the Holy Bible is the one Book that is the "truth."
IN GOD'S OWN NAME
God's prophecies in the Holy Bible are "things in which it is impossible for God to lie." He gave those prophecies in his own name, over his own signature, as it were. In harmony with that fact the Holy Bible is the only ancient book of religion that revealed God's personal name to us. In the second chapter of its first book God's name is revealed to us; and for 6,961 times that name is written in the thirty-nine books of the Hebrew Scriptures, it being spelled with the four Hebrew letters (Yod, He, Waw, He, to correspond with our YHWH). Since the twelfth century of our Common Era Europeans have pronounced the name as "Jehovah." But today there are many scholars who think its correct pronunciation is "Yahweh." For the honor of his name, Jehovah God must keep his word and fulfill his prophecies that he might prove himself to be true, reliable, faithful to his word, and not a liar.
He has already brought honor to his name by fulfilling so many prophecies. He will yet completely vindicate his name, "that people may know that you, whose name is Jehovah, you alone are the Most High over all the earth."—Psalm 83:18, NW; AV; AS; Yg.
By proving that he is the one God of true prophecy, the God who is almighty and able to make his prophecies come true, Jehovah distinguishes himself from all the false gods of the false religions. In the Holy Bible he challenges all the gods of the worldly nations to prove that they are gods of true prophecy. Let such gods seek the help of the demons to prove their own godship. Let those false gods produce their witnesses, their priests, their clergymen, their monks, their nuns, their preachers, and let these would-be witnesses prove from all other sacred books of religion that their gods are gods of true prophecy and hence are true gods, worthy of being worshiped as gods.
As regards himself, Jehovah has produced eyewitnesses of his deeds in actual history down to this day. Today his witnesses can recognize and identify his works and doings by the fulfillment of his written prophecies. They can point to his written Word, the Holy Bible, and locate the prophecy that fits the fulfillment and can say: "It is the truth!" To his faithful worshipers who bear witness for him he says in the words of his prophet Isaiah (according to the American Standard Version Bible): "Ye are my witnesses, saith Jehovah, I have declared, and I have saved, and I have showed; and there was no strange god among you: therefore ye are my witnesses, saith Jehovah, and I am God. Yea, since the day was I am he; and there is none that can deliver out of my hand: I will work, and who can hinder it?"—Isaiah 43: 10-13.
For this reason the written Word of God, the Holy Bible, stands forth as a challenge against all the other ancient sacred books of religion. None of these latter books can stand up against the Bible as the Book of true prophecy and hence as the infallible Word of the one living and true God. As the one Book that is the truth, the Holy Bible does not contradict itself or contradict the true facts, the realities, the works of creation, the authentic history of man, nor even the proved scientific facts of our day. The Bible pursues one theme throughout all its pages from beginning to end. It holds forth as its dominant teaching the promised kingdom of God as exercised through his promised Messiah, the Anointed One, for blessing all the families of the earth.
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