Modern Gideons in French Equatorial Africa
GIDEON of old is primarily remembered for being used by Jehovah to bring deliverance to the Israelites from the oppressive yoke of the Midianites with his little band of three hundred warriors, each armed with only a trumpet, a pitcher in which was a light, and a war cry, “Jehovah’s sword and Gideon’s!” But before he was used to bring that deliverance he served as a witness for Jehovah’s true worship by tearing down his father’s altar for Baal worship and by cutting down the sacred pole alongside it in obedience to instructions given to him by Jehovah’s angel.
His work of destroying false worship foreshadowed a like work being done today in all parts of the earth by Jehovah’s witnesses. A literal case in point is contained in the following from Jehovah’s witnesses in French Equatorial Africa:
“The work here continues to increase. New fields open up and the persons of good will interested in the Kingdom message start to worship Jehovah in spirit and in truth. Every day the witnesses associated with the Bangui congregation are finding new ‘other sheep’ of the Lord who join themselves to the New World society.
“During the preaching from house to house, one of Jehovah’s witnesses told about the hope of the new world after Armageddon to a married couple known to ‘invoke and worship demons.’ Moved by the powerful and happy message, the couple asked the witness to return and tell them more about it. He called back and gave them a further witness on the theme: Be reconciled with the Creator your God, before it is too late. Casting knowing glances at each other, the couple then asked the witness to unburden them of their fetish gods. The witness complied, it taking three trips to carry all their idols to the river in which he threw them.
“A neighbor noting what was going on scratched the witness on the back and said to him in a whisper: ‘I want you to take our fetishes also, but my wife would be opposed. But come anyhow.’ The witness followed the neighbor into his house. The neighbor then said to his wife: ‘This man would like to get permission to throw away our fetishes; what do you think about that?’ His wife replied, ‘I have no objection.’ So the man and the witness filled a big basket with the fetishes and brought it to the river, where a large crowd was watching and who even assisted in throwing the fetishes into the river, thinking thereby to help bring woe upon the witness and the man, in that the fetishes would avenge themselves upon these. Today we have a regular Bible study with these once worshipers of fetish gods and they have dedicated their lives to Jehovah and also symbolized this by water immersion.
“In another section an old woman of sixty years, also a fetish worshiper, had been invoking the demons since her early childhood. A few months before she died her son-in-law, one of Jehovah’s witnesses, talked with her about the good news of Jehovah’s kingdom and she manifested a keen interest in the message. Though gravely ill she called the witness, who conducted a congregation Bible study in the neighborhood and told him that she had one of the most dreaded and formidable fetishes and that she was afraid to destroy it because of fear that it would bring harm to her children. She therefore said to the witness: ‘Please destroy this fetish in the name of your God Jehovah.’ The witness exhorted her and then, after the prayer, he and a group of other witnesses with pickaxes uprooted the fetish plant and the altar of the demon god, to the consternation of the neighbors all around, as they considered this fetish to be the most dangerous one in the whole country.”
Yes, today men of good will in French Equatorial Africa can say to the fetish worshipers as Joash, the father of Gideon, said to the Baal worshipers in his day: “If he is God, let him make a legal defense for himself.” (Judg. 6:31, NW) Such iconoclastic activity on the part of the witnesses of Jehovah in French Equatorial Africa resulted in an increase of 183 per cent in the number of worshipers of Jehovah during 1953 over 1952.