Human Imperfection, Teboho Kibe [read a book .txt] 📗

and the sense of revolt against them is growing and spreading, especially under the lash of radical agitators. The long-oppressed ones, being so many more in number, are expressing sympathy toward one another and are feeling their numerical strength. Through their representatives they are growing more outspoken and insistent in their demands.

Many sincere men have taken up the cause of the liberty of the people, but what can they offer the people? Only a human theory or scheme of liberty, which falls far short of the true liberty and leaves the people at last disappointed. At the same time many men, greedy for power, have marked the craving of the masses for release from long-established tyrannies and oppressions and have put themselves forward as liberators in order to exploit the people’s desire for liberty to their own advantage and ambitious designs. As a result the masses come under new robbers of liberty. Their plight becomes no better, if not worse, under new rulers who are slaves of their own ambition. As someone of old time with a prophetic vision nicely expressed it: “While they are promising them freedom, they themselves are existing as slaves of corruption.”—Quoted from 2 Peter 2:19, NW.

It is quite generally thought that to have an independent government and to enjoy self-rule means real liberty. In many lands democracy, which means the rule by the people through public servants of theirs, is held to be the peak of liberty. To win the people’s support and to justify the entering of the United States of America into World War I President Wilson invented the slogan, “Make the world safe for democracy.” But today, after more than thirty years, so-called “democracy” has never been in greater peril. True, many absolute monarchies or kingdoms have disappeared since then, and yet the oppressions upon the people have not decreased nor has their freedom been enlarged.

There are men who have a contempt for the ability of the people to rule themselves by servants whom the people select and who draw their power from the consent of the people they govern. Certain political figures and certain religious hierarchies resent the effort of the people to gain greater liberties and to have more control of the government over them and to make their rulers answerable to the people. And so to fight against the liberation of the people, they establish totalitarian governments or personal dictatorships or strict authoritarian rule. They glorify the political state. They believe that the state has the absolute right to plan all the activities of human society and to demand the unquestioning obedience of all the citizens. Thus today mankind in general is divided between two political ideas of rule and two ideas of how far the freedom of the people may go. Hot and cold wars that are being fought over these political considerations rage and the liberties of the people are suffering great restrictions and damage. True freedom by human means appears farther off than ever, despite all the modern-day slogans.

NOT ORIGINAL WITH DEMOCRACY

The United States of America enjoys what some people call a democracy or people’s rule, and some effort is being made to popularize it among other peoples. But not all peoples seem to want the democracy or kind of democracy that the American people enjoy, for they see in it what look like serious flaws; and the way the democracy is being carried out in practice comes under criticism from many quarters. Yes, even in the United States of America, with all its worthy democratic features, the people do not enjoy the real liberty. Even there there is need for the great liberation. There as well as in all other parts of the world it is very fitting to proclaim the great message of true liberty.

It was this American Republic that popularized the famous words contained in the subject of this address. After the Declaration of Independence was proclaimed on July 8, 1776, the Liberty Bell was rung from Independence Hall, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. On this bell appears the quotation, “Proclaim Liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof.—Lev. xxv, 10.” But these words are really no part of any American propaganda. They did not originate with American republicanism or democracy. They originated with THEOCRACY, which means “God’s rule”. They are not the words of man, even though uttered by the Hebrew prophet Moses. They are the words of God. The God whom the Hebrews worshiped is named “Jehovah”, and these words are a part of His law to them. It is Jehovah God who is the great Liberator and the great Proclaimer of liberty for the people. The spirit of true freedom comes down from Him. Just as one of his proclaimers of liberty wrote under inspiration: “Now Jehovah is the spirit; and where the spirit of Jehovah is, there is freedom.”—2 Cor. 3:17, NW; Ps. 83:18.

So the new-born man-made American Republic in 1776 merely adopted the historic words of liberty, but it did not carry out the real meaning of the words. The Republic used the words merely as a slogan to further its rebellion against the sovereignty of the British government. It mixed up these words with a political revolution, a change from a colonial status to independence as a responsible government among the family of nations. A sanguinary revolution followed, which finally made independence secure. However, our proclaiming of liberty throughout all the earth in these uneasy days is not meant to stir up any such things as those political events of 1776. When we examine the words in their original setting, we see they were the words of liberty gained by obedience to the Most High God, liberty through peaceful procedure. We see that this liberty was sounded throughout the land, not by ringing a man-made bell, but by blowing a ram’s horn, the trumpet of Jubilee.

Let me quote the original words and context according to a modern translation: “You must hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants; it is to be a jubilee for you, when each of you shall return to his own possessions, and each of you shall return to his own family. The fiftieth year shall be a jubilee for you, when you must not sow, nor reap any aftergrowth in it, nor gather grapes from the undressed vines in it; for, being a jubilee, it is to be sacred for you; you must eat its produce out of the field. In this year of jubilee each of you shall return to his own possessions.”—Lev. 25:9-13, AT.

In the sixteenth century before our common era or our Anno Domini period, the prophet Moses handed that down as God’s law to his chosen people, the nation of Israel. That law is not being kept today, and so it would have nothing more than a passing historical interest for us in these troublous years if it were not for the fact that that Jubilee law was prophetic in its meaning. It was a good thing for that ancient nation of Israel, and it was a shadow of substantial good things to come in the then distant future, but a future which is now close upon us today.

God, whose name alone is Jehovah and who is the great Liberator, was there making a picture of a great liberation to come, not merely to people of the nation of Israel, but to all mankind. One of his inspired proclaimers of liberty tells us this in plain words, saying: “The Law has a shadow of the good things to come.” (Heb. 10:1, NW) Also the man with whom the great movement of real liberation began referred to that ancient Jubilee prophecy and indicated that it foretold the work he was going to do. That man was a son of God, and he had come down from heaven to earth to live for thirty-three and a half years as a man in order that he might begin this liberation movement and its proclamation. His name was Jesus Christ, who was born in the royal line of David, the king of Jerusalem for many years. This Jesus Christ began the proclamation and laid the foundation for the great liberation nineteen hundred years ago. So now his true followers today must take up the joyful proclamation and must boldly sound it as with a trumpet blast to all races, peoples, nations and languages.

Toward the beginning of his proclamation work or preaching, Jesus gave a public talk in the religious meeting place of his home town, Nazareth, in the land of Palestine. On that occasion the attendant of the Jewish synagogue handed him the scroll containing the book of the prophecy of Isaiah. The prophet Isaiah had also made some reference to the Jubilee year of release for Jehovah’s people. So now Jesus found this passage of Isaiah’s prophecy and read it, saying: “Jehovah’s spirit is upon me, because he anointed me to declare good news to the poor, he sent me forth to preach a release to the captives and a recovery of sight to the blind, to send the crushed ones away with a release, to preach Jehovah’s acceptable year.” Then Jesus said to his listeners: “Today this scripture that you just heard is fulfilled.” And with that introduction he gave them a talk that made them all marvel. (Luke 4:16-22, NW) In this way Jesus Christ set out on a work of release or liberation which was to spread beyond the Jews or nation of Israel and to reach all peoples. His work of release was a work greater than that done by the ancient prophet Moses. The Law given through Moses foreshadowed this great benefit to all mankind through Jesus Christ. In fact, Jesus Christ was a Greater Moses, and the ancient prophet Moses himself foretold that Jehovah God would raise up a Prophet like Moses but greater than him. That Greater Prophet was Jesus Christ, and he brings a liberation to mankind which was prefigured by the Jubilee law of release.—Deut. 18:15-19; Acts 3:19-23.

ANCIENT PATTERN OF LIBERATION

Let us then briefly examine that ancient Jubilee law and see how it means the grandest of things for us today. For more than eighty years the people of Israel, to whom the prophet Moses belonged, had been slaves under cruel, exhausting labor in the land of Egypt. Backed by mighty military power, the oppressive government was trying to wipe out these Israelites. Then Almighty God, Jehovah, sent the prophet Moses to his people and, by means of marvelous miracles, delivered the Israelites from wicked Egypt and brought them to Mount Sinai in the land of Arabia. Jehovah God promised to give them the land of Palestine, and now he was leading them there. But before bringing them into the Promised Land he gave them his laws, theocratic laws, for their government when they were finally established in the Promised Land. Among the laws was this one to celebrate the Jubilee every fifty years, and it is set out in detail in Leviticus, chapter 25.

Among the great problems facing mankind today are the distribution of the land, the preservation of the land in good condition, and the wiping out of poverty among all the people, and the putting of all members of human society on an equal level. The Jubilee law illustrated how these vital problems will be solved by the all-wise God whose name is Jehovah. He is the Author of the Jubilee law and also of its grand fulfillment upon all mankind. It was a just law. It worked no injustice and hardship even to those who up till the Jubilee year had become rich. By a miracle Jehovah God brought the Israelites into the Promised Land, and by further miracles he freed that land of the wicked, devil-worshiping people who had no right in the land. This took years, and then the distribution of the land to the Israelites took further years, fourteen years all together