1966
THE WORTH OF A GOVERNMENT is proved by its works, its accomplishments in behalf of its subjects. On this score, what can be said for God's kingdom since 1914?
But why do we check on God's kingdom since 1914 of our century? How old is this kingdom? Is it a mere heart condition of those who believe in it and advocate for it? Or, is it a real government having something tangible, practical, to show for its existence? Why does Christendom not have anything to do with it? Why should people of all races, nations, colors and languages interest themselves in it?
Answers to questions like these the reader will find in this searching booklet. We are. pleased to present it to you, for consideration with your copy of the Holy Bible and the facts of history.
— THE PUBLISHERS
WHAT HAS GOD'S KINGDOM BEEN DOING SINCE 1914?
THE year 1914 is now more than fifty years in the past. Yet it lives in the memory of millions of people today living. The first world war that began then and the train of events that has followed are part of the personal experience of those millions of living people. The year 1914 and what happened then is, for them, no mere human history that happened before their time. They have lived these things, they recall them, they can still tell about them to people born since. These millions are part of a generation of mankind that is destined to see even more wonderful things, things that will finally spell out correctly, without any danger of being misread, the real meaning of what has happened and of what began back there in the unforgettable year 1914. Not with any possibility of failure the greatest prophet of all time said nineteen centuries ago: "This generation will by no means pass away until all these things occur." — Matthew 24:34.
2 This earth has never been the same since the year 1914. We say this, not just because of the increasing number of earthquakes that have taken place since then and that have noticeably changed the face of the earth. Neither because of the wide-
1. Are the year 1914 and the train of events since then mere history of before the time of everybody living today, and what did the greatest prophet say of people of our generation?2. In what way has the earth never been the same since 1914, and what may be said for the future outlook?
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spread polluting of the air, sea and soil. We say this because of the changed conditions among the people on earth, in the political structure of things, in morals, in scientific thinking, in religion, in warfare, and, strange as it may sound, in superhuman invisible forces that are now playing upon mankind. Well has it been remarked by observant historians that 1913 was the last normal year of the modern world. Since then we have found ourselves in an age of violence, disturbance and unsettledness that is without parallel in all human history. There is a continual building up of threatening circumstances. What the outcome will yet be with this generation is something terrifying for those to imagine who have no sure guide for the future. Just why did our generation have to be the one to experience all this calamity, with worse yet to come?
3 However, let us not be so wrapped up in ourselves and in our own cause for worry as to overlook other things of importance in the big general picture of things. Not only earth and its inhabitants were keenly affected by what occurred in 1914, but also heaven was. We are not here speaking of the visible heavens, the planets in outer space that science engineers are hitting with rockets launched from the earth. We are speaking of the invisible heavens, beyond the reach and penetration of human science. These invisible heavens, where the God of all creation is seen by his spiritual creatures — even these heavens were radically affected by what took place in 1914. There can be no mistake about it that in 1914 the
3, 4. (a) Besides our earth, what else was affected by what took place in 1914? (b) What announcement of universal importance was due to be made in heaven that year?
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time came for a universally important announcement to be made and heard throughout the invisible heavens, the reverberations of which were finally to be picked up here at the earth, not by means of radio telescopes but by means of the invisible active force of God operating upon his people. No announcement could be greater than that announcement that was actually heard and then recorded in these inspired words:
4 "The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he will rule as king forever and ever."
5 Some time later there followed a related announcement: "Now have come to pass the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ, because the accuser of our brothers has been hurled down, who accuses them day and night before our God!" — Revelation 11:15; 12:10.
6 These announcements were first heard at the earth on the island of Patmos, off the coast of Asia Minor. They were recorded by the man who heard them, the Christian apostle John, who was undergoing a prison term on that penal island at the hands of the Roman Empire. He was commanded to write down these announcements that they might be preserved for our own generation, who would be living now in the time when these announcements should actually be made to describe the events taking place, events of importance both to heaven and to earth. According to time calculations quite generally accepted, the
5. What related announcement was due to be made later in heaven?6. (a) Who recorded these announcements, and why did he do so? (b) Why is our generation the one qualified to answer the question, "What has God's kingdom been doing since 1914?"
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apostle John recorded his prophetic vision and the things that he saw and heard in the year 96 C.E. God, who sent the vision, told John to write these things down because they foretold "things that must shortly take place." (Revelation 1:1) And now our generation, that has gone through the events of 1914 and the succeeding years, has been living in the awe-inspiring time when these things that John saw in miraculous vision were due to take place. What, then, can we say in answer to the question, "What has God's kingdom been doing since 1914?"
NOT THE FIRST MESSIANIC KINGDOM OF GOD
7 For two thousand five hundred and twenty years this kingdom of God and of his Christ was waiting to be established. How do we know that? Because this was not the first such kingdom of God to exist with reference to this earth. Bear in mind that the title "Christ" means "Anointed One" and corresponds with the Hebrew word "Messiah." Just as from the Greek word "Christ" we get the adjective "Christian," so from the Hebrew word "Messiah" we get the words "Messianic" and "Messianist." Every true Christian is a Messianist. Long ago the word "Christ" or "Messiah" used to apply to kings who reigned in Jerusalem down to the year 607 Before Our Common Era. That was the year of the overthrow of the last king of the long royal line that began with King David. In lamenting over him, the prophet Jeremiah said: "The very breath of our nostrils, the anointed one [the Messiah] of Jehovah, has been captured in their large pit, the
7. (a) Was the kingdom of God and of his Christ announced in 1914 the first such kingdom with reference to the earth? (b) To whom did the title "Messiah" or "Christ" use to apply?
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one of whom we have said: 'In his shade we shall live among the nations.'" — Lamentations 4:20; Hebrew text.
8 As for King David himself, he began to reign in Jerusalem in the year 1070 B.C.E. As he had been anointed at the command of Jehovah God to be king over his people, David was called the Anointed One or Messiah or Christ. Hence regarding Jerusalem, where David reigned, God said: "There I shall cause the horn of David to grow. I have set in order a lamp for my anointed one [Messiah]," (Psalm 132:17) At first Jehovah God himself had been the one King heavenly and invisible over David's people, even from the days of the prophet Moses, who sang: "Jehovah will rule as king to time indefinite, even forever." (Exodus 15:18) Consequently King David sat on the throne of Jerusalem as the visible human representative of Jehovah. The Holy Bible says that King David sat on "Jehovah's throne," as did also David's successor, King Solomon. (1 Chronicles 29:23) So, when the aged King David was abdicating his throne to his young son Solomon, he publicly prayed to God and said: "Everything in the heavens and in the earth is yours. Yours is the kingdom, O Jehovah." (1 Chronicles 29:11) Thus that was a kingdom of God and of his Anointed One.
FROM 607 B.C.E. TO 1914 C.E.
9 In that first kingdom of God and of his Christ or Anointed One at Jerusalem the visible kings
8. (a) So what title was applied to King David also, and on whose throne did he sit in Jerusalem? (b) To whom did King David acknowledge the kingdom to belong?9. (a) When was the royal house of David brought to a ruin, and why, and by whom? (b) What that was low was then put on high?
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were, of course, imperfect humans. Because of misrule that developed in that earthly kingdom, God himself overturned it, using King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon to do it in the year 607 B.C.E. When announcing its coming overthrow, God spoke by the mouth of his prophet Ezekiel and said to Jerusalem's last king: 'Remove the turban, and lift off the crown. This will not be the same. Put on high even what is low, and bring low even the high one. A ruin, a ruin, a ruin I shall make it. As for this also, it will certainly become no one's until he comes who has the legal right, and I must give it to him." (Ezekiel 21:25-27) At the ruining of King David's royal house in the summer of 607 B.C.E., the despised Gentile World Power of Babylon was put on high, and about October. 1 of that same year the site of Jerusalem and all the land of Judah were left desolate without even a local governor from among the royal relationship of King David.
10 Till then Jerusalem had stood for the kingdom of Jehovah God by means of his Anointed One or Christ. But now, from 607 B.C.E. onward, Jerusalem never again had a king of David's line. God's kingdom by his Anointed One or Christ began to be trodden down by the Gentiles. A long period of complete Gentile domination of all the earth without interference from any kingdom of God by Christ began. According to Ezekiel's prophecy, this period of Gentile domination was to keep on until the coming of the person with the legal right to the royal crown, at which time God would carry out his promise to give it to that
10. (a) What marked period of time began in that year of 607 B.C.E.? (b) Till whose coming was that period of time to continue?
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one. The Persian Empire, then the Grecian Empire, and next the Roman Empire took control of the rebuilt Jerusalem, but they allowed no kingdom of God by means of an Anointed One of David's family to be set up at Jerusalem.
11 "Right on time, during the reign of Tiberius Caesar of Rome, Jesus, a descendant of King David, was anointed at the Jordan River, not by a Jewish priest or prophet, but by Jehovah God, not with anointing oil from the olive tree, but with holy spirit from heaven. John the Baptist, who baptized Jesus in water, bore witness to this fact. He also declared Jesus to be the Son of God. (John 1:29-34) There Jesus became Jesus the Anointed One or Jesus Christ. He became the Promised One with the "legal right" to God's Messianic kingdom. But God did not give it to him back there in the year of his baptism in water.
12 Three and a half years later, near Passover time of the year 33 of our Common Era, Jesus Christ foretold the then impending, destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans and said: "When you see Jerusalem surrounded by encamped armies, then know that the desolating of her has drawn near. . . . and they will fall by the edge of the sword and be led captive into all the nations; and Jerusalem will be trampled on by the nations, until the appointed times of the nations are fulfilled." (Luke 21:20-24) By these words Jesus Christ indicated that the appointed times of Gentile domination of the whole earth without interference from God's Messianic kingdom were
11. (a) How did Jesus become the Christ or Anointed One, and when? (b) Did God give him the Messianic kingdom at that time?12. (a) In connection with what event did Jesus mention the "appointed times of the nations" or Gentile Times? (b) After 70 C.E. the very ground of Jerusalem continued to be trampled on by whom?
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to continue on beyond the year 70 C.E., when the Roman armies destroyed the Jewish-built Jerusalem and its holy temple. Sixty-one years later the Romans built a new city on the ruins of old Jerusalem, but not for any anointed king of David's royal line to rule in defiance of the Roman Caesar. Consequently, down to the year 1914 C.E. the very ground where the ancient Jewish-built city of Jerusalem used to stand was literally trampled on by the Gentiles, by the Romans, by the Mohammedans, by the Roman Catholic Crusaders and by the Turks, as history shows.
13 But are not the Gentile Times of world domination still in operation? Even since 1914, does not the walled city of Jerusalem continue to be trodden down by the Gentiles or non-Jews? Seemingly so, for the ancient Roman-built walled city of Jerusalem has indeed been trampled on by the non-Jewish nations since 1914, and no Messianic king of David's royal line has reigned there since 1914. Furthermore, even the modern Jerusalem built by the Jews to the west of the ancient walled Jerusalem has no Messianic king of David's family reigning in it. It is, rather, the capital city of the Republic of Israel. This Jewish Republic, instead of resting its hopes in the Messianic prophecies of Jehovah God, pins its hopes to the Gentile United Nations, of which it became the fifty-ninth member on May 11, 1949. Still all this does not mean that the Gentile Times did not end in 1914, about October 1. Why not? Because an earthly Jerusalem will never be the throne city of God's Messianic King, and so the
13. (a) Why does it seem that the Gentile Times of world domination did not end in 1914? (b) However, why do such affairs of earthly Jerusalem not prove that to be so?
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Gentile nations did not need to be pushed out of the earthly Jerusalem in 1914 for the kingdom of God by means of his Messiah to begin reigning.
14 Since the days of Jesus Christ the earthly city of Jerusalem is not what counts. Rather, the thing that counts is what the Jewish city of Jerusalem symbolized at the time that it was destroyed by the Babylonians in the year 607 B.C.E., when the Gentile Times began. Well, then, what had Jerusalem symbolized up till then? It had symbolized God's kingdom by means of his anointed one of the royal house of David. True, Jerusalem was rebuilt seventy years later, but what about the Messianic kingdom of God by means of an heir of David? This continued to be trampled on by the Gentile nations. Being thus out of existence for the length of the Gentile Times, the Messianic kingdom of God offered no interference to the Gentile nations dominating the whole earth. By God's own decree, he estopped himself from interfering with Gentile domination of all the earth till the year 1914 C.E.
15 However, at the appointed time Jehovah God himself brought the uninterrupted domination of the Gentile Times to an end. By his prophet Daniel as his mouthpiece Jehovah God fixed the very time for Messiah the Prince or Leader to make his appearance on earth as a man, and the time fixed for that was nineteen hundred years ago, in our first century C.E. (Daniel 9:24-27) The baptism of Jesus and the anointing of him
14. (a) What, then, was it that counted, the old walled city of Jerusalem, or what? (b) What, then, was it that did not interfere with Gentile domination of the earth, and why?15. (a) Who brought the Gentile Times to their end, and this at the time indicated by what prophet? (b) Who calculated in advance the date of those Times to end, and how were critics silenced?
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with holy spirit from God marked the exact time that the Messiah, the Christ, the Anointed One, appeared. By the same prophet Daniel, Jehovah God made known the length of the Gentile Times as being "seven times," or 2,520 years from their start in 607 B.C.E. (Daniel 4:16, 23, 25) This enabled Christian Bible students to find out in advance when the Gentile Times would end. More than thirty-five years in advance, by help of God's holy spirit, dedicated Bible students calculated the Gentile Times as due to expire in the early autumn of 1914, but the religious clergy of Christendom criticized them and mocked them for publishing such a Bible time schedule. But the events of 1914 silenced the critics, though they were not converted.
VERIFYING THE DATE 1914
16 Since autumn of 1914 was due to mark the end of the Gentile Times, what, according to God's will, was then due to take place? This, namely, the stoppage of the trampling of the Gentile nations on what was symbolized by the ancient Davidic city of Jerusalem. The kingdom of Jehovah God by means of his anointed one of the royal line of David was no longer to be trampled on in contempt by the Gentile nations. The beginning of those Gentile Times was in 607 B.C.E. and was marked by the ruining of the kingdom of God. In opposite fashion, the end of the Gentile Times in 1914 C.E. was to be marked by the revival, the rebirth, of God's kingdom in the hands of his anointed one or Messiah, Christ. It was the
16. (a) As opposite from what happened in 607 B.C.E., what was due to happen at the end of the Gentile Times in 1914? (b) From 1914 onward, what would the Gentile nations have to reckon with, never trampling on it again?
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time marked for the coming of the Anointed One with the "legal right" to the crown and the time for Jehovah God to give it to him. This Messianic kingdom of God would then be a divine government for the Gentile nations to reckon with henceforth. Never would they be able to trample on it victoriously, even though they kept up their selfish endeavors to hold onto the sovereignty of all parts of the earth. Why so?
17 It was because the Messianic kingdom of God that was due to be born in 1914 is a heavenly government. It is beyond the reach of the Gentile governments and their spaceships and rockets. The earthly Jerusalem has nothing to do with it. Since Jesus Christ was put to death on Calvary outside the walls of Jerusalem in the year 33 C.E., that city has no connection with God's Messianic kingdom.
18 Five days before his death Jesus rode into Jerusalem accompanied by a great crowd of joyful people. He offered himself to Jerusalem as her king. (Zechariah 9:9; Matthew 21:1-11) But the ruling factors of Jerusalem rejected him. No earthly kingdom was given him. However, he had not preached an earthly kingdom. He preached the good news of God's Messianic kingdom, and he and his disciples cried out: "The kingdom of the heavens has drawn near." (Matthew 4:17; 10:1-7) The long-foretold Messianic kingdom was to be a heavenly kingdom, a government whose seat was to be in what the Holy Bible symbolically calls "a city of the living God, heavenly Jerusalem." (Hebrews 12:22) With a view to the setting
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