MESSENGERS OF GODLY PEACE PRONOUNCED HAPPY

Conclusion of Identifying God's Messengers Today

Earlier in this century, there was powerful evidence that a Creator Cyrus was at work. Who was he? None other than Jesus Christ, enthroned since 1914 in the heavenly Kingdom. This great King showed goodwill toward his anointed brothers on earth when, in the year 1919, anointed Christians were freed from spiritual captivity and returned to their "land," their spiritual estate. (Isaiah 66:8; Revelation 17:4) Thus Ezekiel 11:17 had a modern-day fulfillment. In ancient times it took the fall of Babylon to open the way for Israelites to return to their land. In modern times the restoration of the Israel of God was evidence that Babylon the Great had experienced a fall at the hands of Greater Cyrus. This fall was announce by the second angel of Revelation chapter 14, when he cried out: "Babylon the Great has fallen, she who made all the nations drink of the wine of the anger of her fornication!" (Revelation 14:8) What a reversal for Babylon the Great, especially for Christendom! And what a blessing for true Christians!

At Ezekiel 11:18-20, we read the prophet's description of the happiness of God's people after their restoration. the first fulfillment of his words meant the cleansing of Israel in the days of Ezra and Nehemiah. The modern-day fulfillment meant something similar. Let us see how. Jehovah says: "They will certainly come [to their land] and remove all it disgusting things and all its detestable things out of it." Just as prophesied, starting in 1919, Jehovah cleansed his people and reinvigorated them to serve him. They began to remove from their spiritual environment all the Babylonish practices and doctrines that polluted them in his eyes.

Then, according to verse 19, Jehovah goes on to say: "And I will give them one heart, and a new spirit I shall put inside them; and I shall certainly remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh." In harmony with these words, in 1919, Jehovah united his anointed servants, gave them "one heart," so to speak,in order that they would serve him "shoulder to shoulder." (Zephaniah 3:9) Further, Jehovah gave his people holy spirit to invigorate them in the witness work and to produce in them the fine fruitage described at Galatians 5:22, 23. And rather than an unresponsive, stonelike heart, Jehovah gave them a soft, pliable, obedient heart, a heart that would respond to his will.

Why did he do this? Jehovah himself explains. We read at Ezekiel 11:20: "In order that they may walk in my own statutes and keep my own judicial decisions and actually carry them out; and they may really become my people and I myself my become their God." The Israel of God learned to obey Jehovah's law rather than follow their own ideas. They learned to do God's will without fear of man. thus, they stood out as different from the imitation Christians of Christendom. They were Jehovah's people. As such, Jehovah was ready to use them as his messenger, his "faithful and indiscreet slave." -Matthew 24:45-47.

Next time: The Happiness of God's Messengers

Watchtower, 1997