Their Prayers Were Answered

‘I PRAYED FOR HOURS’

At a circuit assembly of Jehovah’s witnesses in Tennessee, this heartwarming experience was related:

“Last summer while working in the ministry in rural territory we began going from house to house on a side road that we had previously decided not to work that day. Two of us called at one house just as a man was leaving. At first he was quite gruff but then allowed me to continue. In a few moments a girl about nineteen years old came out of the house holding a copy of the New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures.

“She told us that a number of years ago she sat in on several sessions of a Bible study that was conducted by a Witness. It was at that time that she had obtained her Bible.

“Her next remarks really startled us. ‘I know that you are Jehovah’s witnesses. I knew it as soon as I saw you coming up the driveway. This is an answer to my prayer. I stayed awake several hours last night praying to Jehovah that he would send someone to study the Bible with me, and here you are.’ You can imagine our reaction to such a statement.

“We were elated and made arrangements to call back and start a study. Seldom have I seen anyone have the lessons so well prepared. She has every paragraph practically committed to memory. Both she and her father started coming to congregation meetings and are progressing well in learning Bible truth.”

‘I PRAYED FOR HELP’

This interesting experience related by a Witness in Maryland should encourage us to pray earnestly for God’s direction as we seek to aid sheeplike ones:

“Several months ago I started to study the Bible with a lady who loves and deeply appreciates God’s Word. However, her knowledge of it is quite limited. She reads the New World Translation and has her King James Bible beside it and compares the two. One day she called me on the telephone and she was quite upset and excited. She said that she came across several verses in Matthew that were omitted in the New World Translation. I told her that I would come as soon as I could collect together some reference material. I came to her home armed with the large-print ; edition of the New World Translation with its copious footnotes, the Emphatic Diaglott, the Moffatt translation and the book ‘All Scripture Is Inspired of God and Beneficial.’

“Her attitude was completely changed and she was almost frantic. I tried to calm her down but she kept saying: ‘This has really changed my mind about Jehovah’s witnesses. I cannot imagine why anyone would deliberately remove scriptures from the sacred Bible.’ I turned to Jehovah and sincerely prayed for help in this matter, asking him to direct my mouth to speak correctly so that I could help this sincere person in the proper way.

“I asked her to let me use her Bible, for I forgot to bring mine in my haste. She told me that the only one she had was an old family Bible and that I probably would not want to use it because it was so large and bulky. However, I insisted three times that she get it, and finally she did.

“I asked her to look up the first scripture, at Matthew 17:21, and to read it. In the meantime, I was trying to find it in the large, old Bible, but it was not there. We simply could not believe it. I looked again to make sure and noticed that the last word in verse twenty referred me to a marginal reference. There in bold print, it stated almost word for word what the large-print edition New World Translation footnote stated, namely, that various important manuscripts omit this scripture. We looked up all the other verses and found that the same answer applied to each of them. She was speechless. I then showed her the chart listing the sources of the texts used in the New World Translation, as found on pages 308 and 309 in the book ‘All Scripture Is Inspired of God and Beneficial.’ She was very much impressed by all this.

“Yes, God answered my prayer for wisdom to help this lady, because never before had I insisted on using anyone’s family Bible. It was as though something was pushing me to keep on asking her to get it for me. I thank Jehovah for this privilege of vindicating the integrity of his Word and organization.”