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True Christians Defeat PersecutionThe Watchtower—1955 | January 15
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done. Their unequivocal stand was: “We must obey God as ruler rather than men.” With the stoning of Stephen violent persecution broke out against the Christian congregation at Jerusalem, scattering all save the apostles. But far from being overwhelmed by such persecution, “those who had been scattered went through the land declaring the good news of the word.” Jesus had told them to rejoice if persecuted, and the record shows that they did just that.—Acts 5:29, 41; 8:1, 2, 4, NW; Matt. 5:11, 12.
And what violent persecution the apostle Paul defeated! He was repeatedly imprisoned, and “by Jews I five times received forty strokes less one, three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned,” and left for dead. In spite of it all he kept on preaching. (2 Cor. 11:23-25, NW) Nor have examples of true Christians defeating persecution been wanting down through the years. Whether forced underground by pagan emperors or by “Christian” swords of the Roman church they refused to compromise but held fast to their integrity, continuing to “preach the word.”—2 Tim. 4:2.
Jesus had forewarned, “in the world you will have tribulation,” and Paul, in his second letter to the young minister Timothy, wrote: “All those desiring to live with godly devotion in association with Christ Jesus will also be persecuted.” (2 Tim. 3:12, NW) What about our day? Are Christians in this mid-twentieth century suffering like persecution and, if so, are they defeating it? How? For answers to these questions see the next succeeding article.
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Defeating Red Persecution TodayThe Watchtower—1955 | January 15
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Defeating Red Persecution Today
Why has Jehovah permitted his servants to suffer violence from the time of Abel down to our day? Into what compromising situations has persecution of professed Christians forced many? Is it possible to keep integrity behind the Iron Curtain? What does it take to defeat persecution?
IT SHOULD not surprise us to find Christians suffering persecution in this twentieth century. Why not? Because in spite of all its claims to Christian civilization the fact remains that Satan is still the “god of this system of things.” He still walks about “like a roaring lion, seeking to devour someone.” And full of wrath, he wages war on those “who observe the commandments of God and have the work of bearing witness to Jesus.”—2 Cor. 4:4; 1 Pet. 5:8; Rev. 12:17, NW.
Besides, are there not still with us religious leaders whose hatred of the light—because it exposes the errors of their teachings and their selfish practices—and whose envy of the prosperity of Jehovah’s servants blind them to the justice of freedom of worship? And are there not still oppressive political powers, totalitarian governments, who resent the Christian’s giving his allegiance to Jehovah God and their being told that they will be replaced by God’s kingdom? Yes, there certainly are, and these and others of like selfish mind combine to bring persecution upon Jehovah’s servants today even as did their counterparts in the days of Jeremiah, Christ Jesus and the apostles.
Of course, we can avoid persecution by compromising. Shortly after World War II a United States official interviewed many of the clergy in Germany endeavoring to ascertain their justification for co-operating with Hitler and his Nazis. In answer to their excuses he reminded them of the fearless course taken by Christ Jesus. Replied one bishop: “Yes, but look what they did to him!”
Organized religion likewise found it convenient to compromise in Japan in connection with the worship of the emperor cult. Although Shinto was the state religion they blithely presumed to believe that it was purely a political matter and that therefore Christians could take part in such rites. How one could bow down to the emperor without bowing down to him as a descendant of the gods when his political office was based on his religious claims, was a question that did not seem to bother their religious consciences.
In Russia, as soon as the avowedly godless government showed a little favor to organized religion by appointing a churchman to an official position, back in 1942, “churchmen vied with one another in sending cordial messages to Stalin.”—Saturday Evening Post, September 11, 1954.
In East Germany organized religion gave such support to the Communists’ peace propaganda, “even though the movement took on a political and strictly secular character,” that it was easy to identify Jehovah’s witnesses by their refusing to have anything to do with it.
In Poland some 2,000 Catholic priests at mass meetings urged all priests to join the Communists’ National Front, and in a memorandum dated May 8, 1953, the bishops of Poland admitted having leaned over backward in supporting Communists’ policies even when such were contrary to church interests saying: “We are seeking a positive solution, which would benefit both the Church and the State. Nothing is farther from our minds than to introduce dissension.”
But to avoid persecution by compromising is being lukewarm, and Christ warns that all lukewarm ones he will vomit out of his mouth.—Rev. 3:16, NW.
PERSECUTION CAN BE DEFEATED!
In striking contrast with all such compromising is the course of action taken by Jehovah’s witnesses throughout the world. The fearless record they made in Nazi Germany, where 10,000 entered the concentration camps and 8,000 returned from them, is well known to all. They lived to see the end of their tormentors. And in Canada, where the work was banned during the greater part of World War II, the end of the ban saw twice as many witnesses as there were when the ban was first imposed. Certainly that was defeating persecution!
In French Equatorial Africa two natives came in touch with the Kingdom message and began preaching to others about Jehovah. The government refused to allow either missionaries or printed literature to enter the country. Yet, in spite of this ban and much persecution, in six years those two ministers increased to 666 in April of 1954; an increase all the more remarkable in view of racial and language barriers.
At the time the Dominican Republic proscribed the work of Jehovah’s witnesses, back in 1949, they had a peak of 274. Though many were imprisoned, the witnesses there have not compromised but have fearlessly kept on preaching underground. As a result, in 1954 a peak of 371 took part in the preaching work, this amounting to an average yearly increase of seven per cent. No question about their defeating persecution.
In 1950 upward of 20,000 witnesses were regularly preaching the good news in Eastern Germany when the Communists banned the work and took into custody all the brothers serving at the headquarters office at Magdeburg, the traveling representatives and the local overseers. In all, more than 2,000 were arrested and at the present time there are 1,283 in prisons. In spite of the increased difficulties of preaching under ban, the threat of imprisonment being always present, their ranks have again filled in so that today there are again upward of 20,000 active witnesses in Eastern Germany. Many are the expressions of joy coming from the witnesses in Eastern Germany, both from those inside and those outside prisons.
The fearless course of Jehovah’s witnesses in Eastern Germany arouses the admiration of many. For example, after the New World society conventions in 1953 the house-to-house activity was stressed in Eastern Germany. In one congregation twenty took part in this work, completely covering their town. Two of them, while engaged in this campaign, happened to call upon the mayor. Asked if they were Jehovah’s witnesses, they countered by asking who he thought Jehovah’s witnesses were. The mayor then frankly stated: “I know that you are, but you do not need to be timid. I marvel at your zeal and courage.” The two witnesses were able to give good testimony regarding their beliefs and work and made arrangements to call further on him. Many such experiences could be related showing how Jehovah’s witnesses are defeating persecution in Eastern Germany.
In Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Poland and Yugoslavia, where the work of Jehovah’s witnesses has been banned for years, we see a like defeating of persecution. In 1946 there were 11,131 Christian witnesses of Jehovah active in those lands; in 1950 their numbers had increased to 28,183, and in 1954 there were how many? Almost four times as many as in 1946, that is, 42,767.
DEFEATING PERSECUTION IN RUSSIA
But perhaps of greatest interest is the record of Jehovah’s witnesses’ defeating persecution in Russia. In 1946 there were 6,000 witnesses in Russia; in 1949 there were 10,000. How did they get there? Some became witnesses because of having been witnessed to while serving with the Russian army in Germany, others because of meeting Jehovah’s witnesses in German prisons and concentration camps. Most of them, however, came to be within Russia because of Russia’s taking over the Baltic States and parts of Poland, Hungary, Romania and Czechoslovakia.
However, to what extent they were defeating persecution was not known, due to the effectiveness of the Iron Curtain, and so year after year since then the witnesses of Jehovah in other parts of the world looked in vain in their annual Yearbook for reports regarding the witness in Russia. In 1951 the president of the Watch Tower Society met a radioman in Vienna, Austria, who had been a prisoner in Russia and who had met many witnesses of Jehovah while in prison. In December, 1953, one of Jehovah’s witnesses, who had been sent to a Russian prison camp in 1948 because of having witnessed to two Russian soldiers, was released on account of ill health, being over sixty years of age. He told of his witnessing to the Russians while at the camp and of meeting some witnesses there who were overjoyed to meet him.
Then, in February, 1954, several articles appeared in The Observer, London, England, on conditions in Russian work camps, written by a German journalist, Frau Brigette Gerland, who had just recently been released from one of them. She had been arrested in 1946 in Eastern Germany and sentenced to seven years at forced labor in Communist prison camps. Eventually she was sent to Vorkuta, capital of Arctic Russia, where there are some half million prisoners.
She gave a fine report of the prisoners at Vorkuta. Among those she described were “the believers, who, refusing to work for the state on grounds of conscience, had, after years of bitter struggle, forced the camp administration to respect their scruples and so employed them only in work that was for their fellow prisoners. Their success proved that resistance was possible within the camp.”
She made special mention of one woman believer, a trained technician who had once been a member of the Communist Youth movement but was not contented. Accidentally stumbling across a “New Testament,” she was converted thereby to Christianity. At her job in a factory she met a young woman who believed in the gospel and who introduced her to others that likewise did. The two young women abandoned their jobs and went to Central Asia, Siberia, where they worked in a hospital and preached the Bible. The secret police heard of their activity and sentenced them to fifteen years of hard labor for religious agitation. Says Frau Gerland regarding them: “The story of their conversion [preaching activity] and arrest is typical of the fate of hundreds whom I met and of thousands of others, and it is a story of a movement that is still alive outside the camps.”
In reply to an inquiry regarding Jehovah’s witnesses in Russia, Frau Gerland replied: “I met a lot of them in the Arctic camps. Most of them had been Western Ukrainians [formerly Polish] or people of the Baltic States, but there were among them also Russians and other Soviet peoples, even Tartars and Armenians. I think that in the camp district of Vorkuta alone there must have been more than two thousand, maybe even three thousand. They have been very kind and helpful people and all the prisoners liked them. By the camp chiefs they were not bothered because of their beliefs.”
The foregoing record of Jehovah’s witnesses’ defeating persecution in Russia calls to mind the confidence expressed regarding them in the 1950 Yearbook, that, “regardless of where they are, they continue to preach the good news. Jehovah’s witnesses everywhere will offer prayers to Jehovah to the end that he will bless and guide and direct these faithful brothers that they too may have a share in the vindication of Jehovah’s name by maintaining integrity despite the distressing times they endure. Their outstanding faith is a stimulus and inspiration to all of Jehovah’s witnesses, for they are faithfully continuing in the service of Jehovah.”
And what does it take to defeat such persecution today? First of all, knowledge. Without knowledge of Jehovah and his attributes, purposes and will for them and why he permits them to suffer they could not have resisted the Red terror. And that knowledge must result in a living faith, for one ‘can have strength for all things’ if he has faith, for it all is “according to your faith.” And it also takes hope, for hope is to the Christian what an anchor is to a ship and a helmet to a soldier, namely, a protection in time of danger.—Phil. 4:13; Matt. 9:29; Heb. 6:19; Eph. 6:17, NW.
To defeat persecution also requires Jehovah’s holy spirit, for it cannot be accomplished by human might or power. (Zech. 4:6) And, above all, it requires love, for without love we are nothing. Besides, “there is no fear in love, but perfect love throws fear outside.” (1 John 4:18, NW) Yes, true Christians can and do defeat persecution even as is demonstrated by the witnesses of Jehovah throughout the world.
[Picture on page 37]
Bowing to whatever is currently expedient
Organized Religion
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Why Many Church Pews Are EmptyThe Watchtower—1955 | January 15
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Why Many Church Pews Are Empty
FOR a month in a certain California newspaper appeared the following advertisement: “WANTED men, women and children to occupy slightly used pews, Sunday morning, 10 to 12, at Armona Methodist Church, corner of 14th Ave. and Hanford-Armona Hwy.” The following experience may throw some light on why the pews of this church were unoccupied Sundays.
“I attended this church for twenty-five years and each time a minister asked the question, Why are the churches failing? I would feel more convinced that something was wrong with the churches. A year and a half ago I asked the minister, who had placed the above advertisement in the paper, to explain Armageddon to me and also parts of Revelation. Both he and his wife, who is also an ordained minister, told me they did not know, nor were they interested in Revelation, as we were not supposed to know. I was also told that I would lose my mind if I studied with Jehovah’s witnesses, as they are the worst false witnesses in the world.
“I had been studying the Bible for a few months with a young witness of Jehovah who had called at my door and she assured me that I would not lose my mind if I kept studying with her. After four months I was baptized, and it is amazing the progress I have been able to make, starting at the age of fifty-four as a Bible illiterate. Now with the help of Jehovah I am able to preach from door to door and conduct Bible studies. At my very first door I obtained a subscription for The Watchtower. I feel that it has been worth every bit of the tests, criticisms, etc., that I have had to go through. Incidentally, the minister and his wife, who had told me I would lose my mind if I studied with Jehovah’s witnesses, had to leave their church because of friction. P. S. My mind actually has been much improved!”
No wonder church pews are empty! Why take the trouble to go to church if we are not supposed to understand the Bible? And if we are, it is apparent that we must look elsewhere than to the places of worship where such ministers hold forth.
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Something Hard to Understand?The Watchtower—1955 | January 15
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Something Hard to Understand?
Do you find an occasional article in this magazine that seems a little deep for you, a little difficult to understand? Did you ever stop to think why that material is there? The apostle Paul stated the principle to the Hebrews: “For everyone that partakes of milk is unacquainted with the word of righteousness, for he is a babe. But solid food belongs to mature people, to those who through use have their perceptive powers trained to distinguish both right and wrong.” (Heb. 5:13, 14, NW) Thus the mature Christian must use his perceptive powers, must meditate upon and discuss difficult matters. So do not ignore an article because it is difficult, but take advantage of it to aid your progress toward spiritual maturity.
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