SUNDAY, AUGUST 3, 1958, at 3 p.m., D.S.T., at Yankee Stadium and the nearby Polo Grounds (connected with the stadium by wire and sound-amplification system), in New York city, the greatest assembly in the history of Christianity took place. From more than 123 countries and islands of the sea 253,922 persons came together to hear the public address "God's Kingdom Rules -Is the World's End Near?" delivered by the president of the Watch Tower Bible & Tract Society of Pennsylvania. This unparalleled audience expressed its appreciation with many applauses throughout the address. At the conclusion 500,000 copies of the address in printed form were distributed to the audience free, a copy to each one in attendance, together with an extra copy to give to a friend.
Out of regard for the continuing importance of this mighty message, the address has been reproduced herein and is being translated into scores of other languages also. By reading this message you will prove to yourself from Bible and fulfilled Scripture prophecy that God's kingdom rules- and the beginning of a righteous new world for men of good will is near.
THE PUBLISHERS
Abbreviations of Bible versions quoted or cited in this booklet
AS -American Standard Version, by the American Committee of Revision
AV - Authorized or King James Version of 1611
RS - Revised Standard Version, by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America
In quoting Scripture verses we give first the name of the Bible book, then the number of the chapter, then the number of the verse. Any quotation not followed by any specific abbreviation is from the New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures. The questions at the bottom of the page are for individual or group study.
1958
PUBLISHERSWATCHTOWER BIBLE AND TRACT SOCIETYOF NEW YORK, INC.INTERNATIONAL BIBLE STUDENTS ASSOCIATION Brooklyn, New York, U.S.A.
Made in the United States of America
Gods Kingdom Rules - Is the Worlds End Near?
ONLY the best government in the universe is good enough for this earth. That is the way that the earth's Creator feels about it. For this, all men of good will can be glad. We can be thankful that the Creator does not ignore his creation, even though this earth is so tiny in comparison with the universe. We can be happy that he respects this tiny creation as the work of his own hands and desires to dignify it with the best form of rulership. He wants it to reflect credit to him just the same as all the rest of the universe does. "The heavens are declaring the glory of God, and of the work of his hands the expanse is telling." - Psalm 19:1.
2 It is evident that government of the earth by man has not been the best form of rulership. Today we have the accumulated results of man's government of the earth and its inhabitants, and those results are not good. We cannot lightly dismiss the matter, we cannot excuse the results by saying that man's government has been better than no government at all. The fact remains that government of the earth by man has resulted in
1. Only what government is good enough for the earth, and why?2. What fact is evident concerning government of the earth by man, and why?
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a terribly divided world, and the race of mankind faces self-destruction by the inhuman weapons of its own manufacture. Government of the earth by man may have produced today a United Nations of eighty-two members, but it has not produced a united mankind, a loving, peaceful brotherhood of all races, colors, languages and families. Not only has it failed to do away with death from merely natural causes, but it speeds up for all humankind a possible sudden, violent destruction by man's own political, military governments, not to speak of an Armageddon of destruction by man's Creator. Nothing is more evident, nothing is more undeniable than that government of the earth by man and by the many gods of man has failed.
3 In view of the glaring failure it is time for man to draw some conclusion and decide upon the wise course of action. If political rulers refuse to take the right lead for the people, then the people must individually do so for themselves. The political rulers lay plans and make arrangements to carry on their national governments into the unlimited future. They are not convinced of man's failure but are stubbornly making further efforts to make a success of it and show to the universe what they can do. They prove that they do not know or care to know or do not have any faith in the purpose of the Creator concerning his own earth. They have faith only in themselves. They thus betray that they have learned nothing from man's recorded history. They are proud. They have not learned the wisdom and the rightness of the inspired advice of long ago: "Do not put your trust in nobles, nor in the son of earthling man, to whom no salvation belongs. His spirit goes out, he goes back to his ground, in that day his thoughts do perish."-Psalm 146:3, 4.
3. Despite failure till now, what do political rulers do, and what must people do individually?
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4 Unless first a third world war overtakes them, all the rulers of this critical day will go the way of all previous political nobles and rulers. They will all breathe out their last breath, their lifeless bodies will go back to the ground, their misused powers of thought will perish with them, and mankind will be no better off for their failure in attempts at government. Therefore what each one of us has to decide is whether we will let ourselves go on suffering just because of the foredoomed efforts of mortal man to govern.
5 When we make a personal decision to avoid suffering the final disastrous consequences of government by human rulers, it does not mean we will stir ourselves up to revolt against them or will start a revolution or become anarchists. Carrying out a peaceful or a violent revolution would mean we would merely substitute the government by other men with a government by ourselves. The end result would be no different; it would still be government by men, by ourselves. The Communist system of government, which started with a violent revolution and seizure of political power, is an example of this. However, if we turn away from government of the earth by man, even by ourselves, to whom, then, can we turn for good government that will not be a failure? There is only one to whom to turn for successful rulership, and that is to earth's Creator, man's Creator. That is, to God. "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." So the opening words of the Holy Bible of sacred scripture read.
6 Turn to God the Creator for earth's government! Is that practical? Most certainly; just as
4. If not overtaken by world war, what is certain to befall the rulers, and therefore what do we have to decide? 5. What does making such a personal decision not mean, and to whom only can we turn for good government? 6. Is turning to that One practical, and why?
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much so as our turning to man for government of the earth has proved impractical by the results that man has reaped today. Letting God govern his earth according to his divine way is not only most practical but the most reasonable, because it is the most beneficial, lastingly beneficial. This is all the more true now, for God's kingdom now rules - it has already begun to reign over our earth. All who want to enjoy endless life in peace, health and happiness must bow to it willingly. That is the practical result of turning to God for our government.
7 Since when has God's kingdom begun to rule? More than six hundred years before the Christian era the prophet Jeremiah said: "Jehovah is in truth God. He is the living God and the King to time indefinite." (Jeremiah 10:10) Yes, the true God, whose name is Jehovah, has always been King. He has always been in control; he has always governed. He is the Sovereign of the universe, and none of his creatures have been able to overturn his sovereign rule, not even the Devil. Yet for almost six thousand years now very few men have acknowledged him as King and desired his kingdom. Even when his time came for his kingdom to rule this earth directly, mankind, almost as a whole, gave no welcome to a government by him. They have yielded no sovereignty to his kingdom; they have rendered no allegiance and loyalty to his kingdom. Nationalism rules.
8 The man who acknowledged most the kingship of Jehovah God and desired most his heavenly kingdom to govern this earth was Jesus Christ. Nineteen hundred years ago he was the one that
7. For how long has Jehovah been King, and how so? And yet what has been mankind's reaction toward this fact? 8. Who acknowledged God's kingship most, and what does the prayer that he taught prove concerning God's kingdom?
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taught his disciples to pray to the King of heaven: "Our Father in the heavens, let your name be sanctified. Let your kingdom come. Let your will come to pass, as in heaven, also upon earth." (Matthew 6:9, 10) The very fact that Jesus taught his disciples to pray for the heavenly Father's kingdom to come proves that the kingdom was not then governing the earth. The Roman Empire, not God's kingdom, was then dominating the inhabited earth. Every informed person knows that it was the Roman governor at Jerusalem who, at the insistence of the religious leaders of Jerusalem, had Jesus put to death on a torture stake outside the city walls. Yes, indeed, Rome of the Caesars was then governing as a world power; God's kingdom was not then ruling. It had yet to come in answer to the prayer that Jesus taught. The question was, When was God's kingdom to begin to rule?
NOT THROUGH THE POLITICIANS OF CHRISTENDOM
9 The religious clergy of Christendom have long taught that God's kingdom came when the Roman Emperor Constantine the Great claimed to become a Christian and when he took religious bishops of the popular Christianity of that day into government service. They have taught further that God's kingdom would come and rule through governmental politicians as these became Christians, subject to the religious clergy. When, finally, all the politicians in power became Christian and all the human governments became Christian, then God's kingdom would fully be come. Thus God's kingdom would not be a direct government from heaven. But this teaching of the religious clergy of Christendom is false. It has served the clergy well
9. What have Christendom's clergy long taught concerning the coming of God's kingdom, and why is the application of this teaching obnoxious to God?
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as an excuse for meddling in the politics of this world. Any attempt to establish the kingdom of God by means of the politicians of this world must fail. It is an attempt to make messiahs, Christs, out of the politicians of this world. This is most obnoxious to earth's Creator, for it is a rejecting of his kingdom.
10 More than twenty-five centuries ago God the Creator furnished all mankind the proof that His kingdom would not come through human governments or through politicians of this world. In the twelfth century before Christ the Israelite chiefs, like most men of today, thought that it was impractical to have the God of heaven rule them directly as a nation. God had delivered them from slavery in the land of Egypt and had located them in a land of milk and honey in the Middle East. He had given them the most remarkable set of laws known to man. Through the prophet Moses he had given them the Ten Commandments, together with hundreds of other laws. He had proved to them that he was God Almighty and that his name is Jehovah. The first of his Ten Commandments to them declared: "I am Jehovah your God, who have brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slaves. You must never have any other gods against my face." (Exodus 20:2, 3) He built them up into a nation and brought them into a solemn contract or a covenant with him to be their God of blessing and to have them as his people. He was their invisible King. (Deuteronomy 26:17-19) However, those Israelites lost faith. They cultivated the desire to have a visible human king like all the non-Jewish nations around them. So they came to Jehovah's prophet Samuel and said: "Now do appoint for us a king to judge us like all the nations." -1 Samuel 8:5.
11 That request for a human ruler was no, light
10,11. With whom did God show that his kingdom would not come through human governments, and how?
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thing. It was not the expression of democracy that deserved to be recognized and complied with. It was a rejection of God as King, and he told them so. The Bible record says: "Then Jehovah said to Samuel: 'Listen to the voice of the people as respects all that they say to you, for it is not you whom they have rejected but it is I whom they have rejected from being king over them.'" (1 Samuel 8:7) For this, Jehovah did not reject them and at once throw them away as his people. He granted them their desired kind of king, because he mercifully held fast to the covenant that he had made with them.
12 Did that kingdom prove practical? Did that Israelite government of human kings succeed? Why do not the Israelis of today have as much land in the Middle East as their forefathers had in Samuel's day? Why do they not have a God-given human king over them? We merely have to go to the sacred Hebrew Scriptures to learn the answer, which the Israelis themselves cannot contradict They have no human king today because the experiment of their worldly-wise forefathers with a human king failed, disastrously. It failed in spite of the fact that God anointed as king over them the faithful shepherd David of Bethlehem and established a dynasty or line of rulers in David's family. It failed in spite of the fact that those kings of the house of David reigned at the city of Jerusalem, where God had chosen to put his name Jehovah, and those kings sat on a throne called the "throne of Jehovah" and reigned as his visible representatives. That Israelite experiment with human kings failed despite the fact that the entire Jewish nation and its king were in a special covenant with Jehovah their God and had his own laws and prophets.
12. What about the practicalness of that kingdom, and in spite of what advantages was this so?
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13 God mercifully allowed them a little more than five hundred years to experiment with their human king, who sat on the so-called "throne of Jehovah," at Jerusalem. Finally God himself, who had yielded to their asking for a human king, became so provoked with the nation and their royal government that he overturned the government in the year 607 B.C. by the armies of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon. Seventy years later Jehovah brought a faithful remnant back from their exile in the distant land of Babylon; but His throne was not set up again at Jerusalem. To this very day it has not been set up there. It never will be set up there again.
14 What, then, about God's kingdom that Jesus Christ preached and that he taught his disciples to pray for? In the light of the Jewish experiment, is there any historical reason, not to speak of Bible prophecy, for believing and teaching that God's kingdom will come through the politicians of Christendom, together with the help of the pope of Vatican City and the religious clergy of Protestantism? No! Can we reasonably think for one moment that the all-wise God, who foreknows all his works from long ago, has launched out on another experiment like that with the Jewish nation? No! God's own Word answers No! The Son of God, Jesus Christ, answers No! But Christendom's politicians, instructed and supported by the clergy, Catholic and Protestant, have decided that that is the way God's kingdom should come and rule. So they have proceeded to govern on the theory of the divine right of kings or on the theory that, as the "higher powers" "ordained by God,"
13. For how long did God let the Israelites experiment with their human king, and what now about the "throne of Jehovah" at Jerusalem? 14. As regards the coming of the kingdom that Jesus taught, what does the Jewish experiment with kingship argue, and how do Christendom's politicians proceed?
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they represent God to every soul subject to them. Yet they sit on no "throne of Jehovah."-Romans 13:1.
15 From the days of Emperor Constantine the Great till now the rulers of Christendom have had over sixteen hundred years, or more than three times as much time as the Israelite kings had. But have they had more success than the Jewish kingdom had with its capital at Jerusalem, the holy city? Besides having more time than the kings of the house of David, they have had more than the mere Jews' religion. They have had the complete Holy Bible and its teachings of Christianity, as a greater aid. Yet, with all this advantage, have they succeeded? Through Christendom's clergy-backed politicians is God's kingdom nearer now than it was in the days of Emperor Constantine? Is God's kingdom ruling today by the kings, presidents and governors of Christendom? No! Since 1914 two world wars have been started right in the heart of Christendom, and the whole system of things throughout the earth is in a worsening state of disorder. The ungodly Communist giant has risen up. By this year he has gained control of one third of the earth with a population of 944,900,000. Desperately Christendom fights to check the giant not only from making further inroads into Christendom but also from swallowing up the non-Christian neutral nations of the world. Because of claiming to be Christian and to be in a new covenant with God through Christ, Christendom has had greater opportunities and heavier responsibilities. So in failing, Christendom is more reprehensible before Jehovah God than the ancient kingdom of Judah that was in the old law covenant through Moses.
15. What advantages above the Jews have Christendom's rulers had, and what now shows whether God's kingdom is nearer than in Emperor Constantine's day?
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COUNTERFEIT OF GOD'S KINGDOM
16 One big thing counting heavily against Christendom is its part in the United Nations, now in its thirteenth year, the international organization established in 1945 to guarantee world peace and security. When the United. Nations started functioning in January of 1946, the physical properties of the dead League of Nations were turned over to the U.N. as its successor. Back in January of 1918, in the very throes of World War I, the American president, Woodrow Wilson, proposed the League of Nations. The very next month Jehovah's witnesses, as represented by the president of the Watch Tower Bible & Tract Society, began preaching the startling message, "The World Has Ended - Millions Now Living May Never Die." Early in the following month prominent witnesses of Jehovah began to be arrested in America for preaching God's kingdom as the one and only hope for all mankind, and in the course of months the sentencing of them to long imprisonment followed. The issue was then plainly before the American churches of Christendom: God's kingdom or the League of Nations - which should professing Christians choose?
17 World War I ended with victory for the democratic Allies, but with the foremost witnesses of Jehovah in prison. The Paris Peace Conference was due to begin in January of 1919. The leading churches of Christendom in America declared their choice, but they confused the issue in order to make a compromise. On December 12, 1918, the executive committee of the Federal Council of Churches of Christ in America held their annual
16. To what is the present United Nations the successor, and so what became the issue following World War I, and how so? 17,18. In endorsing what proposal did leading churches of Christendom show their choice, and what statements in their Declaration show that they compromisingly mixed matters?
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meeting and endorsed President Wilson's plan for a League of Nations with a Declaration that contained the following remarkable statements:
18 "The war crisis of the world has passed, but a world crisis is upon us. . . . The time has come to organize the world for truth and right, justice and humanity. To this end, as Christians we urge the establishment of a League of Free Nations at the coming Peace Conference. Such a League is not a mere political expedient; it is rather the political expression of the Kingdom of God on earth. . . . The heroic dead will have died in vain unless out of victory shall come a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness. The Church has much to give and much to gain. It can give a powerful sanction by imparting to the new international order something of the prophetic glory of the Kingdom of God. . . . The Church can give a spirit of good-will, without which no League of Nations can endure. . . . The League of Nations is rooted in the Gospel. Like the Gospel, its objective is 'peace on earth, good-will toward men.' Like the Gospel, its appeal is universal.... We call upon all Christians and upon all believers in God and lovers of man, to work and pray with whole souls, that out of the ashes of the old civilization may rise the fair outlines of a new world, based on the Christ ideal of justice, co-operation, brotherhood and service."
19 A special commission made up of the president of the Federal Council and other representative leaders of the churches was appointed to convey that Declaration to the Paris Peace Conference in 1919. This special commission of churchmen is on record as having presented this Declaration to officials of the government in Paris,
19. What was done with this Declaration, and in the following May of 1919 what did the Federal Council of Churches pledge?
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France.* Next, in May of 1919 the said Federal Council of Churches passed a resolution pledging their support in securing ratification of the League of Nations by the American Senate and pledging their devotion to make the League of Nations a success.**
20 Later, an American organization*** that advocated the League of Nations came out with the slogan: "In a world dark as this, why blow out the only light there is?" But in 1939 the Nazi Leader Adolf Hitler blew out that "only light," and the League of Nations disappeared in the abysmal darkness of World War II. The efforts of all the churches of Christendom to make the League of Nations a success had failed, their prayers for it had gone unanswered from heaven. What the churches' Federal Council called the "political expression of the Kingdom of God on earth" had failed, and the heroic dead of World War I had died in vain because, out of the military victory that they had helped to win, a "new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness" had not come forth. What, then, is there to say honestly about the actions and attitudes of the churches of Christendom toward the League of Nations? This: The Holy Bible denounces those religious organizations as guilty of blaspheming and as setting up the idolatry of a vain scheme through associating God's kingdom with the League of Nations. They grossly deceived all mankind by advocating an abominable counterfeit for God's true kingdom,
* See Federal Council Bulletin as of January, 1919, pages 12-14; also the Council's annual report for the calendar year of 1919, page 11.** See Federal Council Bulletin as of June, 1919, page 94.*** The League of Nations Association, Inc., formerly having national headquarters at 6 East 39th St., New York, N.Y., Raymond B. Fosdick, president.
20. How was the so-called "only light there is" blown out, and so what is there to say regarding Christendom's churches in connection with the League of Nations?
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and they brought great reproach upon the Most High God.
21 Thank God, however, that the Kingdom of God did not fail with the League of Nations. Though the League died an eternal death, God's kingdom has continued to rule. From 1920 onward Jehovah's witnesses exposed the League of Nations as being the "abomination of desolation" foretold by Jehovah's prophet Daniel and mentioned by Jesus Christ in his prophecy on the end of this world. (Daniel 11:31; 12:11; Matthew 24: 15) Jehovah's witnesses dissociated the League of Nations from God's kingdom and declared that the League would fail. They devoted themselves to carrying out Jesus' prophetic command: "This good news of the kingdom will be preached in all the inhabited earth for the purpose of a witness to all the nations." (Matthew 24:14) That kingdom has no "political expression" on earth, not even in the United Nations of today. Let Christendom's churches, Catholic and Protestant, co-operate now with the United Nations as much as they will, and pray for its success in staving off a third world war. The U.N. will no more have success, it will no more have the blessing and co-operation of God's kingdom than its predecessor did, the blasphemous, abominable League of Nations.
THE GENTILE TIMES ENDED
22 Little do the people of the world appreciate that all these things are historical evidence that God's kingdom rules and has been ruling since the autumn of the year 1914. Toward the climax of World War I a number of well-known British
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