Chapter Twenty-Six/The Sacred Secret-It's Glorious Climax! - Continue

 When the sounding of the seven trumpets got underway in 1922, the Bible Students' convention at Cedar Point, Ohio, featured a talk by the president of the Watch Tower Society, J.F. Rutherford, based on the scripture "The kingdom of heaven is at hand." (Matthew 4:17, King James Version) He concluded with these words: "Then back to the field, O ye sons of the high God! Gird on your armor! Be sober, be vigilant, be active, be brave, Be faithful true witnesses for the Lord. Go forward in the fight until every vestige of Babylon likes desolate. Herald the message far and wide. The world must know that Jehovah is God and that Jesus Christ is King and Lord of lords. This is he day of all days. Behold the King reigns! You are his publicity agents. Therefore, advertise, advertise, advertise, the King and his kingdom." God's King by Christ Jesus was brought to the fore, and that set off the great surge of Kingdom preaching that has included the judgments heralded by the sounding of all seven of the angelic trumpets.

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Chapter Twenty-Six/The Sacred Secret-It's Glorious Climax! -Continue

 But how did "the kingdom of the world . . . become the kingdom of our Lord, "Jehovah? Has not Jehovah God always been King? That is true, for the Levite Asaph sang: God is my King from long ago." And another psalmist proclaimed "Jehovah himself has become King! . . . Your throne is firmly established from long ago; you are from time indefinite." (Psalm 74:12; 93:1, 2) In his wisdom, though, Jehovah has allowed other sovereignties to exist one earth. Thus the issue raised in Eden as to whether man can govern himself without God has been fully tested. Man-made rule has failed miserably. True, indeed, are the words of God's prophet: "I well know, O Jehovah, that to earthling man his way does not belong. It does not belong to man who is walking even to direct his step." (Jeremiah 10:23) Ever since the defection of our first parents, the entire habited earth has been under the domination of "the original Serpent, Satan. (Revelation 12:9; Luke 4:6) It is time now, for a dramatic change! To vindicate his rightful position, Jehovah begins to exercise his sovereignty over the earth in a new way, through his designated Messianic Kingdom. 

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Chapter Twenty-Six/The Sacred Secret-It's Glorious Climax! -Continue

 The sacred secret comes to its happy climax! Gloriously, magnificently, it is brought to a triumphant finish in 1914 when the Lord Jehovah enthrones his Christ as associate King. Acting for his Father, Jesus Christ takes over active rulership in the midst of an enemy world of mankind. As the promised Seed, he receives Kingdom power in order to bring to nothing the Serpent and his brood and restore paradisaic peace to this earth. (Genesis 3:15; Psalm 72:1, 7) As Messianic King, Jesus will thus fulfill Jehovah's Word and vindicate his Father, "the King of eternity," who must rule as Sovereign Lord "forever and ever." - 1 TIMOTHY 1:17. 

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Chapter Twenty-Six/God's Sacred Secret-It's Glorious Climax!

 Do you recall the sworn declaration by the strong angel recorded at Revelation 10:1,6,7?  "There will be no delay any longer; but the days of the sounding of the seventh angel, which is about to blow his trumpet, the sacred secret of God according to the good news which he declared to his own slaves the prophet is indeed brought to a finish."  Jehovah's due time has arrived for the sounding of that final trumpet! How is it, then, that the sacred secret is brought to a finish? John is truly overjoyed to inform us! He writes: "And the seventh angel blew his trumpet, and loud voices occurred in heaven, saying: "The Kingdom of the world did become the King of our Lord and of his Christ, and he will rule as king forever and ever.' " (Revelation 11:15) Those angelic angels hosts have reason to speak loudly, even in thunderous tones!  For this historic announcement is of universal importance. It is of vital concern to all living creation.

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Chapter Twenty-Five/Reviving the Two Witnesses -Raised Again! - Continue

 But how did the rest [of Christendom] give glory to the God of heaven? Certainly not by abandoning their apostate religion and becoming servants of God. Rather, it is as explained in Vincent's Word Studies in the New Testament, in discussing the expression "gave glory to the God of heaven." There it is stated: "The phrase signifies not conversion, nor repentance, nor thanksgiving, but recognition, which is its usual sense in scripture. Compare Joshua vii. 19 (Sept.) John ix. 24; Acts xii 23; Romans iv. 20." To her chagrin, Christendom had to acknowledge that the God of the Bible Students had performed a great act in restoring them to Christian activity. 

It may be that the clergy gave this acknowledgement only mentally, or themselves. Certainly, none of them went on record as publicly acknowledging the God of the two witnesses. But Jehovah's prophecy through John helps us to discern what was in their hearts and realizing the humiliating shock that they experienced in 1919. From that year onward, as the "seven thousand" left Christendom despite her determined effort s to hold on to her sheep, the clergy were forced to recognize that God of the John class was stronger than their god. In later years they would realize this even more clearly, as many more of their flock would depart, echoing the words of the people when Elijah triumphed over the Baal religionists at Mount Carmel: "Jehovah is the true God! Jehovah is the true God!" - 1 KINGS 18:39. 

But listen! John tells us: "The second woe is past. Look! The third woe is coming quickly." (Revelation 11:14) If Christendom is shaken by what has happened so far, what will she do when the third woe is announced, the seventh angel blows his trumpet, and the sacred secret of God if finally finished? - REVELATION 10:7. 

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Chapter Twenty-Five/Reviving the Two Witnesses - Raised Again! - Continue

 The expression "a tenth of the city" reminds us that Isaiah prophesied regarding ancient Jerusalem that a tenth would survive the destruction of the city as a holy seed. (Isaiah 6:13) Similarly, the number 7,000 reminds us that when Elijah felt that he alone remained faithful in Israel, Jehovah told him that there were, in fact, still 7,000 who not bent down to Baal. (1 Kings 19:14, 18) In the first century, the apostle Paul said that these 7,000 pictured the remnant of the Jews who had responded to the good news about the Christ. (Romans 11:1-5) These Scriptures help us to understand that the "seven thousand" and the "the tenth of the city" in Revelation 11:13 are those who respond to the restored two witnesses and abandon the sinful great city. They die, as it were, to Christendom their names are taken off her membership roles. They no longer exist as far as she is concerned. 

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 Christendom tried and tried again to repeat her triumph od 1918. She resorted to mob action, legal maneuvering, imprisonment, even executions-all to no avail! After 1919, the spiritual domain of the two witnesses was of out of her reach. In that year Jehovah said to them: 'Come on up here,' and they had ascended to an elevated spiritual state where their enemies could see them but not touch them. John describes the shocking effect their restoration had on the great city: "And in that hour a great earthquake, and the rest became frightened and gave Glory to God of heaven." (Revelation 11:13) There were truly great convulsion in the realm of religion. The ground seemed to move under the leaders of the established churches as the body of revivified Christians got to work. One tenth of their city, figuratively 7,000 persons were so profoundly affected that they are spoken of as being killed. 

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Chapter Twenty-Five/Reviving the Two Witnesses -Raised Again! - Continue

 What a shock for those persecutors! The corpses of the two witnesses were suddenly alive and active again. It was a bitter pill for those clergymen to swallow, the more so since the Christian ministers whom they had schemed to put in prison were free again, later to be fully exonerated. The shock must have been even greater when, in September 1919, the Bible Students held a convention in Cedar Point, Ohio, U.S.A. Here the recent president of the Watch Tower Society, J.F. Rutherford, stirred conventioneers with his talk "Announcing the Kingdom, based on Revelation 15:2 and Isaiah 52:7. Those of the John class began once again to "prophesy," or preach publicly. They advanced from strength to strength, fearlessly exposing Christendom's hypocrisy. 

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Chapter Twenty-Five/Reviving the Two Witnesses -Raised Again!

 The public press joined the clergy in vilifying God's people saying: "The finis of the Finished Mystery has been given."  Nothing, though, could have been further from the truth! The two witnesses did not stay dead. We read: "And after the three and a half days spirit life from God entered into them, and they stood up on their feet, and great fear fell upon those beholding them. And they heard a loud voice out of heaven say to them: 'Come on up here.' And they went up into heaven in the cloud, and their enemies beheld them." (Revelation 11:11, 12) Thus, they had an experience similar to that of the dry bones in the valley that Ezekiel visited in vision. Jehovah breathed upon those dry bones, and they came to life, providing a picture of the rebirth of the nation of Israel after 70 years of captivity in Babylon. (Ezekiel 37:1-14) These two prophecies, in Ezekiel and Revelation, had their striking modern-day fulfillment in 1919, when Jehovah restored his "deceased" witnesses to vibrant life. 

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Chapter Twenty-Five/Reviving the Two Witnesses - The Two Witnesses Are Killed - Conclusion

 John gives us some clues. He says that Jesus was impaled there. So we immediately think of Jerusalem. But he also says that the great city is Sodom and Egypt. Well, literal Jerusalem was once called Sodom because of her unclean practices. (Isaiah1:8-10; compare Ezekiel 16:49, 53-58.) And Egypt, the first world power, sometimes appears as a pictures a defiled a "Jerusalem" that claims to worship God but that has become unclean and sinful like Sodom, and a part of this satanic world system of things, like Egypt, it pictures Christendom, the modern equivalent of unfaithful Jerusalem, the organization whose members had so much reason to rejoice when they silenced the disturbing preaching of the two witnesses. 

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