THAT assignment could not be accomplished in a matter of a few days, weeks, or months. Without the slightest hesitation, however, the disciples began to preach. But they did not lose interest in the subject of restoration. To a large crowd gathered in Jerusalem, the apostle Peter spoke about it, saying: “Repent . . . and turn around so as to get your sins blotted out, that seasons of refreshing may come from the person of Jehovah and that he may send forth the Christ appointed for you, Jesus, whom heaven, indeed, must hold within itself until the times of restoration of all things of which God spoke through the mouth of his holy prophets of old time.”​—Acts 3:19-21.

These “times of restoration” were to usher in “seasons of refreshing” from Jehovah. The foretold restoration was to come in two stages. First, there would be a refreshing spiritual restoration, which is now under way. Second, this would be followed by the establishing of a physical paradise on earth.

An extensive campaign was undertaken to teach people of all nations to observe the things Christ had commanded his followers to do. (Matthew 28:20) How refreshing it was to see some who had formerly displayed animallike characteristics change their outlook! They stripped off the old personality, which produces such traits as “anger,” “abusive speech,” and “obscene talk,” and put on the new personality, “which through accurate knowledge is being made new according to the image of [God] who created it.” In a spiritual sense, the words of the prophet Isaiah are being fulfilled even now: “The wolf [a person who formerly displayed wolflike characteristics] will actually reside for a while with the male lamb [a person manifesting a meek disposition], and with the kid the leopard itself will lie down, and the calf and the maned young lion and the well-fed animal all together.”​—Colossians 3:8-10; Isaiah 11:6, 9.