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

Build yourself up by paying attention to your fruitage of the spirit, and at the same time help in making Jehovah’s New World society grow. Christians must be at unity with one another, showing oneness “like a flock in the pen, like a drove in the midst of its pasture.” Feed with Jehovah’s sheep and keep at unity, for “in the house of the righteous one there is an abundant store, but in the produce of the wicked one there is troublesomeness.”—Prov. 15:6.

Now my dear friend, you’ve been trustworthy and constant in reading this book until now, thank you so much for your unwavering patience and mental strength. I’d like to applaud and congratulate your vehement support and compatible spirit. I’m very glad and cheerful of you. Now, as the next turn in conversation, let’s try to answer some of these questions: Why has Jehovah permitted his servants to suffer violence from the time of Abel down to our day? Into what compromising situations has persecution of professed Christians forced many? Is it possible to keep integrity behind the Iron Curtain? What does it take to defeat persecution?

It should not surprise us to find Christians suffering persecution in this twenty-first century. Why not? Because in spite of all its claims to Christian civilization the fact remains that Satan is still the “god of this system of things.” He still walks about “like a roaring lion, seeking to devour someone.” And full of wrath, he wages war on those “who observe the commandments of God and have the work of bearing witness to Jesus.”—2 Cor. 4:4; 1 Pet. 5:8; Rev. 12:17, NW.

Besides, are there not still with us religious leaders whose hatred of the light—because it exposes the errors of their teachings and their selfish practices—and whose envy of the prosperity of Jehovah’s servants blind them to the justice of freedom of worship? And are there not still oppressive political powers, totalitarian governments, who resent the Christian’s giving his allegiance to Jehovah God and their being told that they will be replaced by God’s kingdom? Yes, there certainly are, and these and others of like selfish mind combine to bring persecution upon Jehovah’s servants today even as did their counterparts in the days of Jeremiah, Christ Jesus and the apostles.

Of course, we can avoid persecution by compromising. Shortly after World War II a United States official interviewed many of the clergy in Germany endeavoring to ascertain their justification for co-operating with Hitler and his Nazis. In answer to their excuses he reminded them of the fearless course taken by Christ Jesus. Replied one bishop: “Yes, but look what they did to him!”

Organized religion likewise found it convenient to compromise in Japan in connection with the worship of the emperor cult. Although Shinto was the state religion they blithely presumed to believe that it was purely a political matter and that therefore Christians could take part in such rites. How one could bow down to the emperor without bowing down to him as a descendant of the gods when his political office was based on his religious claims, was a question that did not seem to bother their religious consciences.

In Russia, as soon as the avowedly godless government showed a little favour to organized religion by appointing a churchman to an official position, back in 1942, “churchmen vied with one another in sending cordial messages to Stalin.”—Saturday Evening Post, September 11, 1954.

In East Germany organized religion gave such support to the Communists’ peace propaganda, “even though the movement took on a political and strictly secular character,” that it was easy to identify Jehovah’s witnesses by their refusing to have anything to do with it.

In Poland some 2,000 Catholic priests at mass meetings urged all priests to join the Communists’ National Front, and in a memorandum dated May 8, 1953, the bishops of Poland admitted having leaned over backward in supporting Communists’ policies even when such were contrary to church interests saying: “We are seeking a positive solution, which would benefit both the Church and the State. Nothing is farther from our minds than to introduce dissension.”

But to avoid persecution by compromising is being lukewarm, and Christ warns that all lukewarm ones he will vomit out of his mouth.—Rev. 3:16, NW.

PERSECUTION CAN BE DEFEATED!

In striking contrast with all such compromising is the course of action taken by Jehovah’s witnesses throughout the world. The fearless record they made in Nazi Germany, where 10,000 entered the concentration camps and 8,000 returned from them, is well known to all. They lived to see the end of their tormentors. And in Canada, where the work was banned during the greater part of World War II, the end of the ban saw twice as many witnesses as there were when the ban was first imposed. Certainly that was defeating persecution!

In French Equatorial Africa two natives came in touch with the Kingdom message and began preaching to others about Jehovah. The government refused to allow either missionaries or printed literature to enter the country. Yet, in spite of this ban and much persecution, in six years those two ministers increased to 666 in April of 1954; an increase all the more remarkable in view of racial and language barriers.

At the time the Dominican Republic proscribed the work of Jehovah’s witnesses, back in 1949, they had a peak of 274. Though many were imprisoned, the witnesses there have not compromised but have fearlessly kept on preaching underground. As a result, in 1954 a peak of 371 took part in the preaching work, this amounting to an average yearly increase of seven per cent. No question about their defeating persecution.

In 1950 upward of 20,000 witnesses were regularly preaching the good news in Eastern Germany when the Communists banned the work and took into custody all the brothers serving at the headquarters office at Magdeburg, the traveling representatives and the local overseers. In all, more than 2,000 were arrested and at the present time there are 1,283 in prisons. In spite of the increased difficulties of preaching under ban, the threat of imprisonment being always present, their ranks have again filled in so that today there are again upward of 165,000 active witnesses in Germany. Many are the expressions of joy coming from the witnesses in Eastern Germany, both from those inside and those outside prisons.

The fearless course of Jehovah’s witnesses in Eastern Germany arouses the admiration of many. For example, after the New World society conventions in 1953 the house-to-house activity was stressed in Eastern Germany. In one congregation twenty took part in this work, completely covering their town. Two of them, while engaged in this campaign, happened to call upon the mayor. Asked if they were Jehovah’s witnesses, they countered by asking who he thought Jehovah’s witnesses were. The mayor then frankly stated: “I know that you are, but you do not need to be timid. I marvel at your zeal and courage.” The two witnesses were able to give good testimony regarding their beliefs and work and made arrangements to call further on him. Many such experiences could be related showing how Jehovah’s witnesses are defeating persecution in Eastern Germany.

In Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Poland and Yugoslavia, where the work of Jehovah’s witnesses has been banned for years, we see a like defeating of persecution. In 1946 there were 11,131 Christian witnesses of Jehovah active in those lands; in 1950 their numbers had increased to 28,183, and in 1954 there were how many? Almost four times as many as in 1946, that is, 42,767.

DEFEATING PERSECUTION IN RUSSIA

But perhaps of greatest interest is the record of Jehovah’s witnesses’ defeating persecution in Russia. In 1946 there were 6,000 witnesses in Russia; in 1949 there were 10,000. How did they get there? Some became witnesses because of having been witnessed to while serving with the Russian army in Germany, others because of meeting Jehovah’s witnesses in German prisons and concentration camps. Most of them, however, came to be within Russia because of Russia’s taking over the Baltic States and parts of Poland, Hungary, Romania and Czechoslovakia.

However, to what extent they were defeating persecution was not known, due to the effectiveness of the Iron Curtain, and so year after year since then the witnesses of Jehovah in other parts of the world looked in vain in their annual Yearbook for reports regarding the witness in Russia. In 1951 the president of the Watch Tower Society met a radioman in Vienna, Austria, who had been a prisoner in Russia and who had met many witnesses of Jehovah while in prison. In December, 1953, one of Jehovah’s witnesses, who had been sent to a Russian prison camp in 1948 because of having witnessed to two Russian soldiers, was released on account of ill health, being over sixty years of age. He told of his witnessing to the Russians while at the camp and of meeting some witnesses there who were overjoyed to meet him.

Then, in February, 1954, several articles appeared in The Observer, London, England, on conditions in Russian work camps, written by a German journalist, Frau Brigette Gerland, who had just recently been released from one of them. She had been arrested in 1946 in Germany and sentenced to seven years at forced labor in Communist prison camps. Eventually she was sent to Vorkuta, capital of Arctic Russia, where there are some half million prisoners.

She gave a fine report of the prisoners at Vorkuta. Among those she described were “the believers, who, refusing to work for the state on grounds of conscience, had, after years of bitter struggle, forced the camp administration to respect their scruples and so employed them only in work that was for their fellow prisoners. Their success proved that resistance was possible within the camp.”

She made special mention of one woman believer, a trained technician who had once been a member of the Communist Youth movement but was not contented. Accidentally stumbling across a “New Testament,” she was converted thereby to Christianity. At her job in a factory she met a young woman who believed in the gospel and who introduced her to others that likewise did. The two young women abandoned their jobs and went to Central Asia, Siberia, where they worked in a hospital and preached the Bible. The secret police heard of their activity and sentenced them to fifteen years of hard labour for religious agitation. Says Frau Gerland regarding them: “The story of their conversion [preaching activity] and arrest is typical of the fate of hundreds whom I met and of thousands of others, and it is a story of a movement that is still alive outside the camps.”

In reply to an inquiry regarding Jehovah’s witnesses in Russia, Frau Gerland replied: “I met a lot of them in the Arctic camps. Most of them had been Western Ukrainians [formerly Polish] or people of the Baltic States, but there were among them also Russians and other Soviet peoples, even Tartars and Armenians. I think that in the camp district of Vorkuta alone there must have been more than two thousand, maybe even three thousand. They have been very kind and helpful people and all the prisoners liked them. By the camp chiefs they were not bothered because of their beliefs.”

The foregoing record of Jehovah’s witnesses’ defeating persecution in Russia calls to mind the confidence expressed regarding them in the 1950 Yearbook, that, “regardless of where they are, they continue to preach the good news. Jehovah’s witnesses everywhere will offer prayers to Jehovah to the end that he will bless and guide and direct these faithful brothers that they too may have a share in the vindication of Jehovah’s name by maintaining integrity despite the distressing times they endure. Their outstanding faith is a stimulus and inspiration to all of Jehovah’s witnesses, for they are faithfully continuing in the service of Jehovah.”

And what does it take to defeat such persecution today? First of all, knowledge. Without knowledge of Jehovah and his attributes, purposes and will for them and why he permits them