withstand the final assault from Satan’s world, which even now heaps scorn and persecutions on their heads! “Happy are you when people reproach you and persecute you and lyingly say every kind of wicked thing against you for my [Jesus’] sake. Rejoice and leap for joy, since your reward is great in the heavens.”—Matt. 5:11, 12.

20. (a) What association should be maintained under persecution? (b) How were our German brothers blessed in this? (c) What association must now be sought, with Armageddon in view?

²⁰ Even when persecutions come, keep up those associations with others of like precious faith, whether it be in private homes, in underground cellars, in concentration camps or in the open fields. Remember how our German brothers maintained their entity of organization while they were being compelled to flee from the Sachsenhausen concentration camp at the climax of World War II. Amid shootings, machine-gunnings, pillagings and death by exhaustion, our 230 brothers marched out in theocratic order, the one group in all that confusion of death and warfare that trusted in Jehovah God. Did Jehovah answer their united prayer for guidance? Did he lead and protect that small group of his worshipers? The report says: “From our troop of about 230 brothers and sisters none, not even the weakest, was lying on the road, despite the fact that we had some brothers from 65 to 72 years of age. They were all standing faithfully.”a During future trials, and through Armageddon’s battle itself, the New World society of Jehovah’s witnesses expects to keep standing faithfully, in the one united, theocratic order. Now is the time to seek that association, so that you also may find joy in saying: “In Jehovah I have trusted, that I may not wobble. My own foot will certainly stand on a level place; among the congregated throngs I shall bless Jehovah.”—Ps. 26:1, 12.

21. (a) How may we now take a firm hold on the real life? (b) What course will bring the reward of “riches and glory and life”?

²¹ “The joy of Jehovah is your stronghold.” (Neh. 8:10) The joy of knowing Jehovah God, of understanding his glorious purposes of creation, of serving as his witnesses at the world’s end—this all adds up to a superabundant joy! What a lot the people of the old world are missing! They are also missing the opportunity for everlasting life. Make sure that you take a firm hold on the real life. Having found that joy, never let it go! “Always be rejoicing. Pray incessantly. In connection with everything give thanks. For this is the will of God in union with Christ Jesus respecting you.” (1 Thess. 5:16-18) Rejoice that you may have a part, if ever so small, in doing God’s will at the time when he is creating “new heavens and a new earth.” Forge an unbreakable link with his organization on earth. Serve humbly and with implicit trust in Jehovah, knowing that “the result of humility and the fear of Jehovah is riches and glory and life.”—Prov. 22:4.

What Country Can Be Called Christian?

● “People are asking,” says B. A. Tobin in the Victoria Times, “if we should call a country a ‘Christian country’ if only a small fraction of its inhabitants really believe the doctrines of that religion. H. L. Mencken once wrote that ‘Christendom is that part of the world in which, if a man stand up and say he is a Christian, all his auditors will laugh.’ That was thirty years ago. Today, they aren’t even interested enough to laugh.”