shield. Keep walking in the equipment of the good news of peace to protect you from the hardness of the road. Buckle about you the belt of the truth for strength to bear the load and to hold out. Keep your head helmeted with the right hope which leads to no disappointment. Strengthen your grip on the sword of the spirit, God’s Word. Now that we have come to close grips with the enemy, learn to brandish this sword. With it turn aside every hostile thrust and drive this two-edged weapon into the vitals of the enemy’s propaganda, traditions, philosophies and deceptive arguments.

33. Can we thus fight and pray while under detention? How so?

³³ If we are thus armored, we need never back down before our assailants, and the Devil and all his hosts of demons cannot do us one bit of spiritual harm. We may be killed as a result of their invisible influence on their earthly agents, but God will safeguard and preserve our inheritance of life in the new world, granting us a resurrection in his due time. We may be in prison or concentration camp because of demonized men and governments, but our enemies cannot take our spiritual armor off us. We can still retain this armor and fight in it there in detention, for Paul himself was wearing this armor in prison at Rome when he wrote us to wear it. And as we fight in it we can keep in communication with God and his invisible organization by means of prayer, every form of prayer, praise, thanksgiving, appreciation, petitions, and earnest supplications, for ourselves and for our brothers, our fellow fighters. Prayer makes us feel divine aid near.

34. What place, then, must we give God’s Word, and with what outcome?

³⁴ All considered, then, we cannot underestimate the value, importance and power of God’s Word. We must give it a continual place in our lives, ahead of the words and commandments of any men who would make God’s Word null and void, even under persecution. For our guide Psalm 119:161 (AS) says: “Princes have persecuted me without a cause; but my heart standeth in awe of thy words.” Hence we cleave to God’s written Word and obey it. By taking heed to his Word we can cleanse our path and keep it pure and clear through this dirty world. His Word taken into hearts and heads can make our minds over, and in this way can transform our lives away from all imitating of this corrupt system of things over to a course acceptable to God, in full harmony with him and leading us to eternal life in his new world.—Rom. 12:1, 2, NW.

Religious Respectability and Decay

● “The power of Christian Society cannot be measured by the number of its members who are listed in Who’s Who.” That was the point put across recently by Elton Trueblood, professor of philosophy and religion at Earlham College, Richmond, Indiana. He wrote in Presbyterian Life: “In many localities the initiative has moved away from the places marked by cushioned pews, fine organs and professional singers to the poor little store-front churches. Small but vigorous bands of Jehovah’s witnesses meet in their modest quarters called Kingdom Halls, and Alcoholics Anonymous meet wherever they can. But the lack of impressive surroundings seems to hinder them not at all.” Referring to early Christians, he continued: “But they were the ones who won, while most of the respectable people of that time are now forgotten. . . . We may as well face the fact that, in so far as our religion is represented exclusively or even chiefly by the attendance of well dressed, upper-middle class people at an impressive church for one hour on Sunday morning, we are already in decay.”