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1914 a Marked Year!The Watchtower—1952 | May 1
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God calls him to question by saying, “Where have you been?” indicates that Jehovah had the upper hand. Satan in fear was being put on the spot, so to speak. The further fact that Satan complains of the “hedge” put around Job indicates that he was nettled at Jehovah’s displays of superior power not only in defense of his true worshipers on earth, but also on special occasions, such as, for example, at the Flood, where with no difficulty God washed away Satan’s angelized earthly civilization; at Babel, where God confused the speech of Satan’s first earthly kingdom; and in Egypt, where Jehovah brought the first world power to its knees to deliver the Israelites with a high hand. (Gen. 7:21-24; 11:7-9; Ex. 14:8) Finally Jehovah placed a limitation as to how far Satan could go in his testing of Job’s integrity. (Job 1:12) Notice, too, that Satan displayed due respect for Jehovah’s power by complying with that order. He was taking no chances in needlessly arousing Jehovah’s far superior forces. All this was reducing the sham sovereign to a helpless inferior and demonstrated that his control on earth was not all-embracing. In fact, he merely controlled those parts where he had blinded the inhabitants with his false religions and had kept them in line by means of his various makeshift governments. Never has he enjoyed undisputed control and power over all mankind, because at all times there have been those who have clung to the true worship of Jehovah God and who have looked forward to a restoration of a divine, sovereign-empowered government over all the earth.—Heb. 11:10.
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Determining the Year by Fact and BibleThe Watchtower—1952 | May 1
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Determining the Year by Fact and Bible
1, 2. (a) To what territory was Jehovah limiting the contest as to domination? (b) What typical government did Jehovah organize, how was it brought into being, and what finally happened to it?
AS WE have seen, for about 2,500 years from Abel to Moses Jehovah had provided angelic protection for his individual true worshipers. Now the time came for him to demonstrate on a small scale what he had in mind eventually to provide for earth’s inhabitants on a global scale, namely, the restoration of His rightful sovereign control by means of a loyal theocratic government. In the development of the issue for earth-wide domination God marked out a sample territory in Palestine with four boundaries and which became called the “Land of Promise”. (Heb. 10:1; Gen. 15:18-21; Ex. 23:31; Deut. 34:1-4; Heb. 11:9) As a redeemer in 1513 B.C. Jehovah purchased Israel as his people, delivered them out of Egypt and organized them under a typical theocratic government which he empowered from his sovereignty, and he also became their invisible ruler. (Ex. 6:6; 19:6; Deut. 33:2-5; Isa. 33:22) He brought his people into the Promised Land to possess it in the year 1473 B.C. After six years they had largely expelled and subdued the former inhabitants who had had no legal right to the land, being merely squatters. In this way Jehovah’s sovereign control legally and in fact was established over this territory of contest.
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