A Guide With Impressive Credentials

Will you make him your guide?

THE sun that warms our earth is just one of the billions of suns in our Milky Way. Our Milky Way is just one of the billions of galaxies in the universe. All these trillions of stars are hurtling through space, but each in its assigned orbit and each on a schedule of split-second timing. Can men guide them? No. This fact Jehovah God called to Job’s notice, asking: “Can you bring forth the Mazzaroth constellation in its appointed time? And as for the Ash constellation alongside its sons, can you conduct them?”​—Job 38:32.

Birds migrate for thousands of miles, flying day and night, without map or compass, on a journey they have never made before, yet they arrive at their destination safely and on time. Can man guide the birds on their migratory flights? No. Again, God queried Job: “Is it owing to your understanding that the falcon soars up, that it spreads its wings to the south wind?”​—Job 39:26.

Jehovah guides the stars by his laws of motion and gravitation. Man can’t guide them. Jehovah guides migrating birds by giving them instinctive wisdom. (Proverbs 30:24) Man can’t guide them. Man can’t even guide himself. One look at the state of this world’s affairs proves that. “It does not belong to man who is walking,” the prophet Jeremiah said, “even to direct his step.” (Jeremiah 10:23) The stars heed God’s laws. Migrating birds follow his guidance. But people do not accept as guides the precepts he provides for them. As God’s Word says: “The stork in the sky knows the time to migrate, the dove and the swift and the wryneck know the season of return; but my people do not know the ordinances of the LORD.”​—Jeremiah 8:7, The New English Bible.

God, capable of guiding the stars by natural law and birds by instinct, has impressive credentials as a guide for man by his Word. As the inspired psalmist says: “Your word is a lamp to my foot, and a light to my roadway.”​—Psalm 119:105.

It is a sound guide in matters of marriage. Moral cleanness is commanded: “Let marriage be honorable among all, and the marriage bed be without defilement, for God will judge fornicators and adulterers.” (Hebrews 13:4) The relationship is to be loving and respectful: “Let each one of you individually so love his wife as he does himself; on the other hand, the wife should have deep respect for her husband.” (Ephesians 5:33) The kind of love here meant is defined at 1 Corinthians 13:4-8: “Love is long-suffering and kind. Love is not jealous, it does not brag, does not get puffed up, does not behave indecently, does not look for its own interests, does not become provoked. It does not keep account of the injury. It does not rejoice over unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails.” Neither will a marriage based on this kind of love fail.

It is a sound guide in family matters. “Children, be obedient to your parents in union with the Lord, for this is righteous. . . . And you, fathers, do not be irritating your children, but go on bringing them up in the discipline and mental-regulating of Jehovah.” (Ephesians 6:1-4) It recommends keeping open at all times the lines of communication between parent and child, especially in the teaching of godliness: “You must inculcate them in your son and speak of them when you sit in your house and when you walk on the road and when you lie down and when you get up.”​—Deuteronomy 6:7.

It is a guide for those who rule over others. For example, the king in Israel was to have a copy of God’s law and “it must continue with him, and he must read in it all the days of his life, in order that he may learn to fear Jehovah his God so as to keep all the words of this law and these regulations by doing them; that his heart may not exalt itself above his brothers and that he may not turn aside from the commandment to the right or to the left.” No special privileges for rulers. No bribes, either: “You must not be partial or accept a bribe, for the bribe blinds the eyes of wise ones and distorts the words of righteous ones. Justice​—justice you should pursue.” (Deuteronomy 17:19, 20; 16:19, 20) The condition of the ruled reflects the quality of the rulers. “When the righteous are in power the people rejoice, but they groan when the wicked hold office.”​—Proverbs 29:2, NE.

There are many other fields in which the Bible offers guidance. It guides in eating, not so much in what we eat as in how much, forbidding gluttony. It guides in drinking, not so much in what we drink as in how much, forbidding drunkenness. It would reduce quarreling, advising that a soft answer turns away rage. It would halt much evil at the outset, telling us not to return evil for evil but to conquer the evil with the good. It forbids that great troublemaker in human relations, the gossiper and talebearer. It would eliminate class distinctions and the racial prejudice that now disgraces mankind, advising that we all came from one man, that with God there is no partiality, and that in his kingdom “there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor freeman, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one person in union with Christ Jesus.”​—Galatians 3:28; Proverbs 15:1; 23:21; Romans 12:17, 21; 1 Timothy 5:13; James 2:4; Acts 10:34; 17:26.

The guiding principles in God’s Word were summed up simply by Christ Jesus: “‘You must love Jehovah your God with your whole heart and with your whole soul and with your whole mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. The second, like it, is this, ‘You must love your neighbor as yourself.’” And in the Sermon on the Mount he gave what has become known as the golden rule: “All things, therefore, that you want men to do to you, you also must likewise do to them; this, in fact, is what the Law and the Prophets mean.”​—Matthew 22:37-39; 7:12.

Are these principles practical guidelines? Certainly following an opposite course has not proved practical. It is true that imperfect humans cannot apply these divine guidelines perfectly at all times, but through sincere effort the bulk of mankind’s troubles could be eliminated. It has happened for many today just as it did for the early Christians: “Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men kept for unnatural purposes, nor men who lie with men, nor thieves, nor greedy persons, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit God’s kingdom. And yet that is what some of you were. But you have been washed clean.” (1 Corinthians 6:9-11) Then in the paradise new earth under God’s kingdom all those living will attain perfection in their application of these divine guidelines.

That kingdom will be a government of God, by God, and for the worshipers of God, and it will not perish from the face of the earth but will continue as long as the sun shines and will give an abundance of peace as long as the moon endures. The King, Christ Jesus, will have previously judged among many people and rebuked strong nations, and swords will have been beaten into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks, and nations will no more be lifting up sword against nation, neither will they be learning war anymore. That kingdom will be an everlasting kingdom, and his dominion will endure throughout all generations. He will then open his hand and satisfy the desire of every living thing, because then every living, breathing thing will be praising Jehovah God the Creator. He will bring in health and cure for the people, and wipe every tear from their eyes, and death will be no more, neither will mourning nor outcry nor pain be anymore. Nothing will hurt or destroy in all that blessed new order, because the former things of this present old world will have passed away and have been forgotten, for by then Jehovah will have made all things new.​—Psalm 72:7; 145:13; 150:6; Isaiah 2:4; 11:6-9; Revelation 21:3-5.

Would you like to be guided into everlasting life in that paradise earth of God’s making, just as surely as the stars are guided in their orbits? Then make their guide your guide. Would you like to be guided as surely as the birds are guided in their migrations? That’s possible. Make their guide your guide. Would you like to be guided in your preparations to pass through the symbolical winter of Armageddon just as surely as birds and animals and insects are guided in their preparations to pass through literal winters? It’s simple. Make their guide your guide. Their guide has impressive credentials, amazing successes. Be among these successes. Make Jehovah God and his Word, the Bible, your guide during these troublous last days of this old system of things.

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Trillions of stars hurtle through space, each in its own orbit and on split-second timing. Can men guide them? No

[Blurb on page 14]

Man can’t even guide himself. One look at the state of this world’s affairs proves that

[Blurb on page 15]

Would you like to be guided into everlasting life in a paradise earth, just as surely as the stars are guided in their orbits and the birds in their migrations? Then make their guide your guide

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Birds migrate thousands of miles, flying day and night, without map or compass, yet reach their destination. Can men guide them? No