-
Part 7—“Your Will Be Done on Earth”The Watchtower—1959 | February 1
-
-
was done? “Jehovah God put him out of the garden of Eden to cultivate the ground from which he had been taken. And so he drove the man out and posted at the east of the garden of Eden the cherubs and the flaming blade of a sword that was turning itself continually to guard the way to the tree of life.”—Gen. 3:22-24.
22. What would trying to get back into the Paradise sanctuary have meant, and what shows whether there was anything that happened to remove the sentence from Adam and Eve?
22 In any attempt to get back into the Paradise sanctuary Adam would have been blocked by those cherubs. Since he could not make his way back into the earthly Paradise because of those cherubs, much less could he make his way into the greater sanctuary of heaven, where many more cherubs would be ready to block him. Any trying to make his way to the tree of life in the middle of the garden to gain life on earth forever would have meant walking into destruction by the flaming blade of that revolving sword. Yet even outside the sanctuary Adam lived for hundreds of years. During all those centuries was there anything that happened that removed the death sentence from Adam and Eve? No; there was no change in the estrangement from God. “So all the days of Adam that he lived amounted to nine hundred and thirty years and he died.” (Gen. 5:5) Adam earned the wages that sin pays—death.—Rom. 6:23.
(To be continued)
-
-
Pursuing My Purpose in LifeThe Watchtower—1959 | February 1
-
-
Pursuing My Purpose in Life
As told by James O. Webster
JUNE 12, 1934, still looms up as the first Big Day in life for me, because that is the day when I (along with my parents and two brothers) symbolized my dedication to serve Jehovah. My father had been a “Bible Student” since 1918, the year of my birth. At the age of seven I was taken by him to hear a “pilgrim” who talked about the “prophet Jonas.” That started me off, and never again did I return to the Baptist Sunday school. I preferred to stay at home and listen to my father read the Bible and answer my questions.
But my progress was slow, due to our living on a farm thirty-five miles from town. In those days of northern Montana’s bad roads Jehovah’s witnesses visited us only once or twice a year and it was not until after finishing grade school that I finally had enough knowledge and courage to make a public declaration of my faith and preach from door to door. Dedication was to me a serious step, and I knew what it meant. From then on, pursuing my purpose in life, service for God was on my mind.
In late 1933 we left Montana for southern Missouri and there we passed two happy years. My father took up the “sharpshooter” work (equivalent of today’s part-time field ministry) and we boys became very active in the service. On foot or hitchhiking to towns and farms for miles around, we kept on witnessing. Though a serious young fellow, I wasn’t sad; I was getting something out of life and it moved me when I saw now and then some fruits for my labor.
At the age of seventeen, upon returning
-