Breaking Away from Image Worship

◆ A college student in Japan was brought up in a family that worshiped the Buddhist god Jizo, guardian deity of children. This student was surrounded by images, for his father is a stonecutter, engaged principally in chiseling out Jizo “gods.” His older brother received a gift subscription for the Awake! magazine from a former friend who is one of Jehovah’s witnesses. But it was he, the younger brother, who eagerly read and reread the magazines.

When the Witness called at their home later, this young man eagerly accepted the free six-month course of Bible study offered him by the Witness. By the end of four months, the young man made a complete break from the lifeless Jizo and his fellow gods of stone, and he was telling others about the living God, Jehovah, in the door-to-door Christian ministry.