Mankind’s Greatest Leader
MEN have been following human leaders for thousands of years in search of liberation. Jehovah God touched the keynote of true deliverance in Eden. After humanity’s fall to sin and death, God pointed ahead to a Seed to be produced from the womb of his organization who would restore justice, peace and life. (Gen. 3:15) In the meantime politics, militarism and science have filled the world with champions and heroes to be hailed while living, and after death to be memorialized each year on their anniversaries.
But for all the glory men would accord their great ones, the Bible rule remains: “Rely not upon great men—mere mortals who can give no help; when their breath goes, they return to the dust, and on that very day their projects perish.”—Ps. 146:3, 4, Mo.
Some of the most worthless men have been accorded posthumous praise. Man’s first king, Nimrod, though worshiped after death as a god, was a wanton spiller of blood in his lifetime. He reviled the true God and encouraged worship of the state. Though claiming to be the promised seed of deliverance, he brought only slavery to creature worshipers.—Gen. 10:8-10.
When holidays are declared in honor of such “great men”, how hollow the usual procedures followed. Usually it is a time for rowdyism and general debauchery to reign. The one whose birth provides the excuse for such reveling cannot hear the noisemakers, and if he was an honorable man in his lifetime, he probably would not want to if he could. It is worse than when the ancient priests of Baal gashed themselves and wailed all day long in an effort to make their “god” hear them when Elijah called their bluff. At least they admitted that they were heathen!—1 Ki. 18:20-40.
But why, especially at this season, make so much of these matters? Because just now all of Christendom is making a great show of commemorating the birth of Jesus Christ, the mighty ‘witness, leader and commander to the people’. (Isa. 55:4) Certainly we will not deny that man owes recognition to this only truly great leader ever given him. Beyond question, Jesus meets every requirement for leadership in the perfect sense. His invincible military prowess he will demonstrate in crushing the Devil to defeat at the “battle of that great day of God Almighty” or Armageddon. (Rev. 16:14, 16) Then the government of this “Prince of Peace” will introduce the most blessed and peaceful rule ever known, amid conditions of contentment and prosperity. (Isa. 9:6, 7; Mic. 4:1-5) And no scientist or doctor ever lived who came near to matching what Christ has given humanity. Instead of burdening his subjects with sin and death, his life has furnished a ransom “in order that everyone exercising faith in him might not be destroyed but have everlasting life”. (John 3:16, NW) Moreover, life under his government is promised to uplift the race to perfection.
But now in view of these facts it should be apparent that no “mass for Christ” or “Christmas” is necessary for this great Leader. This conviction is deepened in noting that the Bible nowhere records a celebration of Jesus’ birth by either himself or his disciples. Nor does the Bible become any more explicit on the exact date of its occurrence other than that it was in the early fall, about October 1. Where then did the December 25 date originate? Protestants took it from the Catholics, who had appropriated it from the pagan religions so plentiful in the Roman empire of the fourth century. In turn, ancient heathen peoples had kept it since the time of the early Babylonians, who on that date annually commemorated the birth of Nimrod!
And just as the date is wrong, so is everything connected with it. By burning the pagan yule log, Nimrod’s death was anciently observed on December 24. Then on the 25th, the presence of an evergreen tree depicted the belief of his worshipers that “god Nimrod” had been changed into divine or to immortality. Furthermore, while Christendom is filled to overflowing with such heathen lip service to its professed Leader, it is empty of all the virtues he required of his true followers.
Jesus held to the premise of one true worship and branded all others false roads leading off into destruction. But Christendom’s unity is shattered by no less than 265 sects in the United States alone. Clergy hypocrisy that capitalized on acts of public charity and loud prayers he condemned. This world’s clergy’s love for headlines in accompaniment to their charity and their praying at public functions where politicians kiss the Bible and they add a benediction—all this is well known. That his followers might not be divided and destroyed by barriers of national pride, Jesus advocated rendering to Caesar his due; but stressed that God must be given his as well, and that God came first. Yet twice in one generation, professed Christians the world over have been torn by global war in which Catholic killed Catholic and Protestant, Protestant.
Throughout the ministry of Christ there shone the theme of the Lord’s prayer: “Your kingdom come.” Christendom’s sermons are weighted with fair-haired promises of a better world by human ingenuity, collective security schemes, a United Nations as man’s hope, etc. Jesus gave “a new commandment, that you love one another”. (John 13:34, NW) Worldly religion hatches constant political intrigue and frequent violence against true Christians who are separate from the world, thus reflecting strife, envy and hate.
Truly Christendom is an empty shell of vanity and paganism. When she calls to her gods on the same holidays and in the same way as the heathen of old, the results are naturally the same. The gods for whom such celebrations were originally established cannot answer. Thus Nimrod is forever dead despite all the evergreen trees of antiquity and of those that now may be displayed on December 25. Demons intercept the praise to God and continue to lead the nations to Armageddon.
True Christians seek to move their lips in intelligent praise to Jehovah the true and Almighty God and to his Son. (Heb. 13:15) Their doing so, preaching the good news of his kingdom, helps more and more persons to appreciate the meaning of the peace he brought to “men of good-will” and the blessings ahead for this earth under his rule. (Luke 2:14, NW) They make his God their God, his kingdom their hope. How uplifting! What a truly great Leader and Commander he is!