Communist Leaders Fear Bible Truth
WILL WORLD’S MOST WIDELY READ BOOK CONTINUE UNDER SOVIET BAN?
TRUTH originates with JEHOVAH. He speaks the word and it never returns to him void. Lies he does not originate, for “it is impossible for God to lie.” Falsehoods are plentiful and cheap; they do not last. As time passes, man-made imaginations, reasonings and lies fade, wither and vanish, but “the truth of Jehovah endureth for ever.” “Your word is truth,” said Jehovah’s faithful Son, Christ Jesus. To the Jews that believed him Jesus also said: “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” This truth now written in the Bible the Russian leaders fear.—Isa. 55:11; Heb. 6:17-20, NW; Psalm 117, AS; John 17:1-17; 8:31, 32, NW.
“There is no God,” insisted leaders of Soviet communism when they, after 1917, first set themselves to rule millions, yes, and in years to come billions of earth’s inhabitants. (Ps. 14:1; 2:1-12) To prove they could get along without God one of their first acts under their newly made state was to ban the Bible, the world’s most widely read book.
“Ever since the Bolshevik revolution, the only new Bibles seen in Russia have been a few smuggled into the country from abroad—mostly in foreign languages,” reported the United Press foreign news editor last December. He added: “Since the revolution, a Bible—worn and tattered though it may be—has been a cherished possession to many a Russian family.”
Since 1917 the Soviet leaders have had nearly forty years to show what they could do with their theory of government; and as the years have flown by, those dictators have piled up a mountain of proof against themselves as haters of God, haters of people who choose to worship Almighty God with spirit and truth; yes, those Soviet leaders have proved themselves shallow, unreasonable, more and more covetous, senselessly oppressive, domineering, and even ruthless murderers in the name of their “state.” True, they have tried to do many things on a grand scale in a vast section of this little earth. And today, smiling, chuckling and gloating, they proudly boast of their achievements, their deeds in advancing themselves, in serving their god, their own belly.’—Phil. 3:19.
At whose expense have they been doing all their “achieving,” all their “advancement”? Glimpses behind their “iron curtain” have been few and far between. But now, little by little, the glimpses are piling up. A few weeks ago a Dutch correspondent wrote:
“Among the big cities of the Soviet Union one will find various very extensive communities that have never been named. The travelers visit Leningrad, Moscow, Kiev, Odessa, Tashkent. But who knows the name Vorkuta, in the far north of European Russia, on the map southeast of Nova Zembla; or Norilsk in northwest Siberia; or the names Karaganda and Iwdjel? Still in these places we have to deal with extensive barrack-cities. The population of Vorkuta is estimated at 120,000 men and women; that of Norilsk at 400,000; that of Karaganda at 150,000.”
These are a few of Russia’s many labor camps, penal institutions, where the undesirable are put to work. Here godless communism has its slave labor. These humans are not all prisoners of war, by any means. Hundreds of thousands of them are the people of Russia, born there, who thought it not too wrong to do a little thinking of their own and express it. Here they are by the millions, punished by being put to work in mines, clearing woodlands, building little villages for the Communist government to settle them with more desirable citizens, who will support and advance the communistic regime. Even Russia cannot keep all its captives imprisoned forever. Now, from time to time, some taken captive during the war are returning from these Russian camps to freer lands. Through their words the picture of the life millions are living in such barrack cities becomes much clearer.
But our story has to do with the most widely read book—with those who are seriously interested in the Bible. Even today’s Russian leaders may feel they have practically killed belief in God, or have so fully advanced their state that thought is no longer given to the worship of the living God. Now the Russian section of their Orthodox Church bows to the wishes of the Soviet leaders, so they have the required co-operation of Russian Orthodox clergy in Russia. How about those not of the Russian Orthodox system; for example, what about Jehovah’s witnesses?
In the summer of 1955 while an officer of the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society was in Europe he talked with the Dutch correspondent above mentioned. By persons who had returned from Russia that writer had been told that as far as Jehovah’s witnesses were concerned they showed unusual solidarity in Soviet prison camps. They even gained the sympathy of some of the guards and officials. He added that these witnesses of Jehovah were known as very serious Bible students; that in these camps they were proclaiming the invisible presence of Christ and the doom of this present system of things; that while not all of them were in prison camps, they had to live underground in Russia and they had a very strong following. This gentleman further stated that during a certain time a whole isolated village was closed off and everyone within that village was captured and sent to camp, because they had all become known as Jehovah’s witnesses.
Additionally, the Dutch writer emphasized that millions of persons in Russia who do believe in the Orthodox patriarch and the metropolitan consider that those clergymen are only servants of today’s atheistic Soviet regime; hence, the official Russian Orthodox Church has fallen into disfavor with many people. On the other hand, the teachings of Jehovah’s witnesses are being caught up by more and more people in Russia.
Meek persons will always seek the truth, and their oppressors are in fear of what will happen if the meek ones get together. Jesus said: “Happy are the mild-tempered ones, since they will inherit the earth.” (Matt. 5:5, NW) However, these mild-tempered ones know it is dangerous to preach in Russia, but Jehovah’s witnesses are doing it, and they are flourishing. Among many there is a noticeable awakening as to spiritual need. Many have had enough of communism, and not all minds have been smothered with the foolish teaching. (Ps. 53:1) In fact, there seem to be millions who believe in a Supreme Being when they consider the land, the sky, the trees, the grass, the flowers and the vegetation. Such natural evidence even the Soviet dictators have not wiped away.
TO SLAVE CAMPS WITH THEM!
Although the Soviet leaders with their secret police still try to search out Jehovah’s witnesses in order to put them in their slave camps, even inside such camps the witnesses continue to preach Jehovah’s established kingdom. (Dan. 2:44; Matt. 6:9-13) When believers in God’s Word are taken away from their own homes to lands where labor camps are situated, as soon as they arrive in these institutions they are immediately received by other lovers of the Bible, God’s Word, and they are comforted and come under their protection, because these know the method of the camp, and it is not long until they are strengthened to the point of witnessing to still other prisoners. Their zeal is not destroyed because they are in prison. They use the situation to do greater works of ministry.
On another occasion in 1955 the Watch Tower Society’s president talked with one of Jehovah’s witnesses recently released from these Russian prison camps. There he had lived a lifetime in six years. His story was that of one of a pure heart filled with zeal, and it was touching. He being a devout student of the Bible, it made no difference to him whom he talked to, slave or free, or even to one wearing a communistic uniform. For preaching God’s Word to Russian soldiers who requested information in Communist-occupied territory outside Russia, he was arrested, taken to Russian commanders and questioned time after time. The only thing they could find against him was that he talked the Bible to those Russian soldiers who had come to him and asked him about the Word of God. Because he helped those soldiers read the most widely read book, he was sentenced to ten years’ hard labor in Russia. His trip to Russia was indescribable. He and other prisoners were transported in cattle cars, and for days were treated worse than cattle, without any relief. During his six years in Russia he had been transferred from one camp to another, and had worked in more than fifty different camps, including some in Siberia. In every one of these prison camps he had found from ten to fifteen and more Jehovah’s witnesses.
One time there were brought into a camp forty-eight Russian prisoners, men and women. They had been hunted out and arrested in Russia and now were assigned to the camp he was in. By telling them the many good things he had learned about Jehovah’s Word before he was taken to Russia, it was his pleasure to help these, new in the truth, to continue in their faithful course. From them he was happy to learn that the truth that had reached the western part of Russia in the early years of Soviet rule was now penetrating deep inside Russia; in fact, it had reached across the whole land. This brought great joy and encouragement to keep on faithfully in Jehovah’s service no matter where he was.
Meeting other Russians who were Jehovah’s witnesses, he learned how Jehovah’s witnesses were hunted by the police, just like rabbits. He learned firsthand how Communist leaders feared the Bible truth and tried to crush it. For preaching God’s kingdom, for which Jesus taught his disciples to pray, many have been sentenced to twenty-five years in prison. He told that three small villages had been circled by the secret police at 3 a.m., and that every one of Jehovah’s witnesses had been ferreted out and taken away in the darkness of night, to disappear forever, as far as those villages were concerned.
In one of the camps to which he had been transferred he met a Bible-owning Ukrainian, who somehow had smuggled a Bible into the camp. The book was well worn. He had been used to reading it secretly at night, not letting even this witness of Jehovah see what he was reading, until one night the witness caught a glimpse of the pages. He turned to the Ukrainian and asked: “Do you know what you are reading?” The Ukrainian said: “How do you know what I am reading?” And the answer was: “I know you are reading the Bible, but do you understand what you read?” (This recalls Philip’s inquiry to the Ethiopian who was reading the book of Isaiah and confessed he needed help to understand it, and Philip kindly helped him.—Acts 8:26-39.) So this prisoner from a far country, taken into the depths of Russia, had the opportunity of helping this Ukrainian to come to a knowledge of the truth about Jehovah’s established kingdom.
A number of weeks after they had studied quietly together (in their beds, which were the upper bunks) and had read from the Bible under cover, the commander of the camp caught them reading the Bible. In fact, for a number of evenings this camp commander had listened behind the bed to what these two men were saying one to the other about God’s purposes and the wonderful hope held out in the Scriptures for humans seeking to do Jehovah’s will. Then the commander revealed himself and told the men they should be far more careful to keep the Bible better hid, for it was unlawful to read and discuss the Scriptures. He did not take the Bible away from them, but warned them to take more cautious measures, because he himself might not always be there, and neither would they; for it would not be long before they would be transferred to some other camp. It was Jesus who said: “Happy are those hungering and thirsting for righteousness, since they will be filled.”—Matt. 5:6, NW.
This stalwart servant of Jehovah God, who has now been released from the Russian camp and returned home to his native land, pointed out that when the prisoners of war or condemned ones from Russia or its satellite countries were first taken into these camps they were put on a starvation diet and made to work until they would practically die on their feet. It had been the Soviet policy thus to kill off these prisoners. In recent years, however, things have changed. Those at the head of government have found out that they have some good slave labor here; and now they are offering premiums to the workers in the camps to do more work and serve better. Better food and care are being given the prisoners, because slave labor is cheap, even cheaper than communistic labor.
The Soviet government is really fearful of its slave labor. These Russian prison camps are surrounded by barbed wire and watched by guards who always have angry dogs on a leash. Death road is a strip of land three meters wide, all around the camp. Anyone who steps on that ground is soon dead, either by being shot immediately, without being asked any questions, or by having mad dogs run him down. Russians and those seized in other countries and taken to Russia are slave laborers, serving the state. In many instances they have done Russia no harm and have never said a word about the Soviet government, nor have they entered into espionage against it. They had minded their own business in the lands where they had lived before being taken to Russia. But the Communists needed men and women, slaves to build up a degraded nation; and at the same time they are afraid of their slaves. They have no love for their slaves, nor have the slaves love for their masters.
Russia is a country living in fear, even fear of its own concentration camps. As in the case of this one witness of Jehovah, so with all Russian prisoners: they are kept no longer than three or four months in a camp, then are moved on to another. In a camp of some 4,000 people, 200 of them will be taken away every few days to other prisons and new persons will be brought in to take their places. The Russian leaders fear the forming of some internal organization among these great masses of untrusted people, who, someday, might be able even to overpower the guards and take possession of some of their territory. What a way for rulers to live—in fear of man, not Jehovah God! How true the Word of God, the book they hate: “He that oppresseth the poor reproacheth his Maker.”—Prov. 14:31, AS.
When this witness of Jehovah had finally served his sentence and was released a few years early because of an amnesty, he returned home to find that his wife had died of grief a few months after he had been seized. His children had been taken away and put in other homes. But he rejoiced to come back to brothers still devoted to the service of Jehovah’s kingdom. All that he wants to do now is to preach this good news of Jehovah’s kingdom; for he knows there is no hope for this old world or for any part of it. The Communists are afraid of Bible truth, but the truth made this brother free even all the years he was in a Russian slave camp. Jesus said: “Happy are those who have been persecuted for righteousness’ sake, since the kingdom of the heavens belongs to them.”—Matt. 5:10, NW.
MUCH GOING ON INSIDE RUSSIA
Inside Russia Jehovah’s witnesses must carry on their work as early Christians worked among Jews and Romans. “Happy are you when people reproach you and persecute you and lyingly say every kind of wicked thing against you for my sake. Rejoice and leap for joy, since your reward is great in the heavens; for in that way they persecuted the prophets prior to you.” (Matt. 5:11, 12, NW) The persecuted ones’ faith in Jehovah God and in his kingdom keeps them going, and they would rather die than compromise with any part of this old world.
Back in 1948 several of Jehovah’s witnesses in Russia were mimeographing The Watchtower and printing material based on Bible teaching, then distributing this throughout the land to the best of their ability. But the Communist leaders fear Bible truths, and their secret police traced these ministers down. All their printing apparatus, paper, ink and other materials were seized and the men were arrested and taken off to slave camps.
The big question that the secret police were asking was, “How can we get rid of Jehovah’s witnesses?” Everywhere they found them—not bad people, just people who wanted to read and talk about the most widely read book in the world, The Holy Bible. The Soviet officials were able to disband and disorganize Jehovah’s witnesses for a while, but it was not long before Jehovah’s witnesses were again organized within Russia and had set up new publishing centers, there to mimeograph and send out the truth as they received it. Communist leaders were set on getting all the circuit servants and congregation servants, and when some of those were found they were given twenty-five-year sentences and imprisoned.
During the years following the second world war it was practically impossible for the brothers to hide The Watchtower or any of the Society’s publications, or even the Bible. The secret police were on the search for everything Christian, and when they found out that a person was one of Jehovah’s witnesses or accused of being one, they would search his home, dismount stoves, tear off the roof, even destroy the whole house, to discover the hiding place for the Bible or Bible literature in order to have evidence of Christian propaganda, and then they would send him away to a slave camp. In those years it was impossible for the brothers to meet in daylight. They carried on their family Bible studies mostly in cellars, in the woods, and other inaccessible places. Brothers seldom had opportunity to study with others in their own home. Group study of The Watchtower was impossible, but a regular study was held in homes where the family could get together, all windows and doors being closed and locked. But what a happy family! They could talk about truth, God’s Word, and worship Jehovah, the Sovereign Ruler of the universe, even in a dictatorial country like Russia. The truth made these people free, even though they lived under an oppressive state. “Happy are those who are conscious of their spiritual need, since the kingdom of the heavens belongs to them.”—Matt. 5:3, NW.
Because of the love of truth on the part of many, from 1948 to 1951 Jehovah’s witnesses continued to grow throughout all Russia, and this to the great disturbance of the Communist leaders. Recently reports have come out of Russia stating that in 1951, on April 1, 7 and 8, the Communists carried out a great purge. These are dates unforgettable by Jehovah’s witnesses in Russia. On these three days all of Jehovah’s witnesses that could be found in Western Ukraine, White Russia, Bessarabia, Moldavia, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia—more than seven thousand men and women—were arrested and carried off. They were not allowed to take with them clothing or food. Whole families were loaded in carts, carried to railroad stations and there put in cattle cars and sent far away. All these arrests were made at night, and if the gathering of Jehovah’s witnesses had not been completed by 7 a.m., they waited until dark on that day. Then came the exodus! Thousands of Jehovah’s witnesses were moved across country and hundreds of thousands of supposedly free Russians heard Jehovah’s witnesses singing songs of praise to Jehovah and talking the truth as their trains passed. This great group of Jehovah’s witnesses was taken away to forests for the clearing of the land, and for the first winter they had to live on roots and nuts. Being distributed over a wide guarded forest area, they were told: “Clear the forest; build houses; remain here forever; work if you want to live.” Their spirit was not diminished. They worked; they are living; their faith is strong and they continue to preach the good news of Jehovah’s established kingdom.
Today, in the vast country of Russia, truly every man’s hand is against his neighbor. There everyone has been taught to watch the person next to him, and especially to fight against Jehovah’s witnesses. No matter who you are, you are under surveillance; and when mail for you comes to a post office it is read by the postal clerks. The only way Jehovah’s messages of comfort and truth can go from one to another is by personal carrier. When Jehovah’s witnesses are found they are given a trial. They go to a courtroom and before a judge, but it does no good to hire a lawyer to defend one. In many instances the government appoints a lawyer to defend a person, but even one so appointed for a witness of Jehovah takes the role of accuser rather than defense lawyer; for if he does otherwise and puts up a good case, he himself might be sent to the slave camp. So the Soviet system metes out justice.
If there is a witness of Jehovah in some territory, he is known far and wide, because there is a great deal of undertow. People talk. Not everyone squeals to the authorities, because many hope that someday they themselves will be free from this ruthless reign. With their own Russian Orthodox Church failing them, since it is a state church, they seek out lovers of truth. “Happy are those who mourn, since they will be comforted.”—Matt. 5:4, NW.
FROM COMMUNIST TO CHRISTIAN
In Russia now there is a woman, a witness of Jehovah, who, after much suffering, is still preaching the good news of Jehovah’s kingdom. Her story since 1942 is typical of hundreds of others. In 1942, when an active Communist, she was deported by the Nazis to Germany, together with other Russian civilians. There she worked with a market gardener and in a manufacturing plant, spreading her communistic ideas. Soon Hitler’s Gestapo found her. She was sent to a Nazi concentration camp. Here, out of contact with her fellow Communists and alone, she began to lose faith in the Communist organization because it had failed her. She began to think about God, talked to some people, and finally met Jehovah’s witnesses. While in the Nazi camp she was baptized and became a very diligent student of the Scriptures. After learning the truth she began to talk to other Russian women. One day the camp commander came to see these Russian women and to this woman he said: “Who are you?” She answered, “I am one of Jehovah’s witnesses.” The commander insisted that that was not true: “You are a Russian.” Then to this Nazi the sister, with emphasis, said: “God is not only God of the German people but of all people.” She was let go unpunished, and this strengthened her to preach even more diligently among the Russian women. Finally a group of these women learned the truth in their own language.
After the war had ended in 1945 and Hitler’s concentration camps had been broken up, this woman, with many other Russian women, returned to Russia. Now a prayer of a German sister, told to them while they were in the Nazi camp, became the prayer of each one of these witnesses of Jehovah, liberated Russian women: “I thank you, Jehovah, Father, that you have given me what I desired, to speak to the Russian people.”
It brought them joy to be released and go back to Russia; but it was not long before the Communist secret police were on their trail. They were found, and because they preached the kingdom of God, pointing out to others the comforting words from the Bible, these women were sentenced to twenty-five years in slave camps. But even there today these Russian sisters, who had learned the truth in German concentration camps, are still preaching in the prison camps of Russia, where they now live, all to the honor and glory of Jehovah’s name. This particular former Communist woman, now a witness of Jehovah, is still a regular Kingdom publisher; now, of course, in the slave camp of the Soviet government she had once served. Why? Because she believes God’s Word as written in His book, the Bible. She dared to preach its good news in Russia. For that she is doing building work in the forest, as a slave, helping to transform the forest into settlements that later will be turned over to Communist people. When finished with that task she will be removed to another place of hard labor.
In one of these many camps throughout all Russia where Jehovah’s witnesses are located the truth has been preached so much that even some of the guards have taken it up. People who have worked in offices that control these camps have also gained a knowledge of the truth. Their having received the truth impels them now to preach the good news. In time even some of such guards and office workers have been put into prison, being sentenced fifteen years and ten years. For what? Because they studied the Bible; they talked the truth; they declared themselves to be Jehovah’s witnesses. All of these convicted persons have been separated into different camps and sent to different parts of Russia, so that they could not form a strong group of their own.
DEPORTATION SCATTERS PREACHERS
Jehovah’s witnesses in Russia say that because they are scattered throughout all of these camps (and we know for a certainty that they are in more than fifty different camps, according to the report previously set out in this article) the Kingdom good news is being constantly preached in all parts of this vast country of Russia. They, by no form of imagination, could know where to find money to travel 10,000 kilometers (more than 6,000 miles) to preach the Kingdom message. But now the Communist government itself has sent them from one end of the country to the other to work in these slave camps; and, as they see it, the government has paid their fare to new territories to preach the Kingdom message. In all parts of Russia Jehovah’s witnesses are working; some, the greater number indeed, in work camps, others in isolated sections that they are not allowed to leave. Still others continue working in cities and villages, uncaught up to this moment. Remember how ‘Saul [of Tarsus] dealt outrageously with the congregations of Jehovah’s people, invading one house after another, and, dragging out both men and women, he would turn them over to prison.’ “However, those who had been scattered went through the land declaring the good news of the word.”—Acts 8:3, 4, NW.
Our brothers in Russia have not been at all backward in trying to get greater freedom for the preaching of the Kingdom message, and they have given the Communist government opportunity to recognize Jehovah’s witnesses as a religious organization. In 1948 they sent a petition through the minister of the interior to the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet Council of the U.S.S.R. This petition described the work of Jehovah’s witnesses in Russia. They received no answer; so a small delegation of three brothers went to the Ministry of the Interior at Moscow and presented the petition in person. Questioned as to where they came from, they said: “From the Ukraine.” Therefore they were advised to go to the Ministry of the Interior of the Ukraine, Soviet Socialist Republic, at Kiev. The brothers went from Moscow directly to Kiev and presented the petition to the minister of the interior. There it appeared that the officials of the Ministry had been prepared for their coming, for after presenting the petition these three witnesses of Jehovah were offered certain proposals by the government: Will Jehovah’s witnesses serve in the army? Will you participate in the elections of the Soviet government? Will you submit to every decree of the state and collaborate with other religious organizations? To all three questions the brothers answered in the words of Jesus’ apostle Peter: “We must obey God rather than men.” (Acts 5:29, AS) The representatives were allowed to walk out of the office of the Ministry of the Interior, but within a few days their homes were raided; they themselves were searched and later sentenced to long terms of imprisonment.
In one place in Russia it was possible for 120 persons to be present at a Memorial celebration. This is the exception. A few years ago there were seven publishers in Moscow, but they were all deported. Moscow is one of the few capitals in the world where there is not one single witness of Jehovah. But the truth is known there. The Communist government has been informed of Jehovah’s witnesses; they have made too many of them their slave laborers not to know them. In every country behind the iron curtain the Communist organization is trying to fight, beat down and wipe out Jehovah’s witnesses—in Poland, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Hungary, East Germany and in Russia itself. But they cannot destroy them or their message. The truth has made these people free, and they will continue to be free and preach this good news of Jehovah’s established kingdom for a witness to all who hear.
In Russia it is impossible for an individual to live his own life and just serve God and love his neighbor as himself. No, he must become a slave to the state; he must hail the state; he must worship the state. But not Jehovah’s witnesses! They have turned to God’s Word and prefer to follow in the footsteps of Christ Jesus. (1 Pet. 2:21) When Jesus was upon earth he told the rulers that he was in the world but no part of it. (John 18:36, 37) And that is the way Jehovah’s witnesses look at life today. (John 17:13, 14, 16) We are in the world, but we are no part of it. The world carries on its own business in the way it pleases. Jehovah’s witnesses do not interfere and they will not. As long as Jehovah God allows man-made nations to remain and operate, there is no reason for Jehovah’s witnesses to interfere with their ways of life, and they will abide by all man-made laws unless those laws conflict with God’s law.
Regardless of what country Jehovah’s witnesses are in they have the assignment to be ministers of Jehovah’s kingdom, representatives of Christ Jesus. (Isa. 43:10-12; 52:7, 8; 61:1-3; Matt. 24:14; 2 Cor. 5:20) So, even in Russia, with their Bibles they press on preaching the good news inside and outside prison camps. (Matt. 24:9; 28:19, 20; Mark 13:9-11; Luke 21:12, 13; Rev. 2:10) They celebrate the Memorial, privately or together, in cellars, in woods, in camps, isolated. They are ready to meet any obstacle and try to overcome it, but they will not compromise with this old world.—Joel 2:4-9; Phil. 1:28.
The Bible is in Russia to stay. Jehovah’s witnesses use it; and while the United Press last year reported that the most widely read book in the world will be “available again in Russia next month [meaning January, 1956],” it has been under ban by the Communists for thirty-eight years. Even now, as United Press pointed out, only a few Bibles will be printed: “The type had been set, and priests in the Moscow patriarchate were reading the final proofs. The first printing, set for January, will be small, since the church has to buy the paper and pay the government for the printing; but in time the church hopes to distribute the new Bible all over the Soviet Union.”
Will the Bible be released in great quantity throughout Russia?
When it is, Jehovah’s witnesses will explain it to the people. As long as the Communist leaders and their supporters are afraid of the truth, this new Bible of theirs, in the Russian language, may get only a limited distribution while the communistic regime continues. Certainly it will not be released to Jehovah’s witnesses, for in their hands it is like dynamite. So it continues under ban to them.
Will the world’s most widely read book be widely read in Russia before Jehovah’s war at Armageddon?—Rev. 16:13-16; Jer. 25:32, 33; Isa. 34:1-4; Zeph. 2:1-3; Acts 2:19-21.
Now only those who seek Jehovah, hungering for truth and righteousness, yes, only those who want to fight “the right contest of the faith” (1 Tim. 6:12, NW), only those who are willing to lay down their very lives for truth (Rev. 12:11), are the ones that will ever see and understand the Bible, not only in Russia but in all the rest of the world.
(Be sure to read in our next issue the firsthand story of a man who was one of the seven thousand turned into the woods in Russia, mentioned on page 214 of this issue. His personal story is titled, “I Lived in Exile in Siberia.” Don’t miss it!)