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The Kingdom Issue to the Fore!The Watchtower—1983 | January 1
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11 “When the Son of man arrives in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit down on his glorious throne. And all the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another, just as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. And he will put the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on his left. Then the king will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who have been blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the founding of the world.’”—Matthew 25:31-34.
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The Kingdom Issue to the Fore!The Watchtower—1983 | January 1
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14. (a) What personal question now confronts each one of us? (b) How may one gain the King’s favor? (c) In what positive ways do the “sheep” give support to the King’s “brothers”?
14 That is how the nations as political entities have shown where they have taken their stand on the Kingdom issue, with which they have been confronted since 1914. But the personal question confronting each one of us is, ‘Where do I, myself, stand on the Kingdom issue?’ Is your stand the same as that of the symbolic “sheep” gathered at the right hand of the reigning King, Jesus Christ? This pastoral King tells us how a person may be considered fit to be separated to the side of divine favor in contrast to the goatlike people. It is by doing good to those yet remaining on earth of the spiritual “brothers” of the reigning King, who are in line for a seat with him on his heavenly throne. The doing of such good things means that they approve of the Kingdom witnessing done by the spiritual “brothers” of the King. They give support to it in every way that they can, not being ashamed of these proclaimers of the good news of the Kingdom even when these are imprisoned, but trying to help them to get out of such confinement, as was the case back in the postwar year of 1919. More positively than that, they directly share with the anointed remnant in preaching “this good news of the kingdom,” just as Jesus foretold at Matthew 24:14. They do this publicly and from house to house.
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