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The Crucial Time for Staying AwakeThe Watchtower—1958 | December 15
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for us. In this way we can “stay awake” forever and can enjoy living in God’s everlasting new world.—Compare Revelation 3:3-6.
32. How will the watchful ministers be rewarded as regards the matter of worship?
32 As a reward for staying awake, ever on the watch at the temple against what is unclean and harmful, we have a joyful share in maintaining on earth the true religion, “the form of worship that is clean and undefiled from the standpoint of our God and Father.” We thus share in loyally vindicating the worship of the only true and enduring God, Jehovah, thus clearing his holy name of reproach. His is the only worship that will continue in practice under divine approval clear through the “war of the great day of God the Almighty” and be practiced in the new order of things under God’s kingdom by Jesus Christ. In harmony with this, the approved watchful ministers will have the reward of forever worshiping and adoring the victorious King of eternity, and joining with the “living creatures” throughout the universe in ceaselessly saying: “Holy, holy, holy is Jehovah God, the Almighty, who was and who is and who is coming.” (Rev. 4:8) The approved watchful ministers will thus fulfill the highest purpose of their living, which is to glorify and magnify God the Creator forever.
33. In the face of the great privilege that it is now, in what way will it be a privilege to wear our God-given outer garments when “Jehovah’s day” comes as a thief?
33 How glorious and honorable it is to serve Jehovah God at his spiritual temple now! What inexpressible happiness there is even now amid this dark, evil world in serving God by proclaiming the good news of his Messianic kingdom! What a privilege it is to wear our God-given outer garments worthily as his ministers! What a privilege it will be thus to wear these garments of the ministry when “Jehovah’s day” comes “exactly as a thief in the night” and destroys Christendom’s hypocritical temple of God and overthrows the symbolic dragon and wild beast and false prophet and all the “kings of the entire inhabited earth” whom the demon-inspired propaganda and policies are now gathering to Armageddon for their destruction! (1 Thess. 5:2, 3; 2 Pet. 3:9, 10; Rev. 19:19 to 20:3) The ministerial watchmen found awake then and actively on duty will see Jehovah’s eternal victory over these foes of his true religion and of his only rightful government of all the universe.
34. In place of nakedness and shame, into what will the worthy ministers enter and when is the crucial time for them to stay awake?
34 Thus in place of nakedness and shame they will survive and enter into beauty and honor as worthy ministers of the Most High God of the universe in his wonderful new world. They will each be found to be a “vessel for an honorable purpose, sanctified, useful to his owner, prepared for every good work.” (2 Tim. 2:21) Happy indeed is the reward of those staying awake at the spiritual temple of Jehovah God. But the crucial time for staying awake is NOW!
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Scientific InvestigationThe Watchtower—1958 | December 15
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Scientific Investigation
Professor R. D. Wilson writes in A Scientific Investigation of the Old Testament, p. 213: “Whenever there is sufficient documentary evidence to make an investigation, the statements of the Bible in the original text have stood the test. . . . The chronological and geographical statements are more accurate and reliable than those afforded by any other ancient documents; and the biographical and other historical narratives harmonize marvellously with the evidence afforded by extra-Biblical documents.”
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