True Love is Practical - A PERFECT BOND OF AMIABLE UNION

 Dwelling as brothers in unity in the New World society also refreshes us, revives us, like the dew of Mount Hermon of the lofty Lebanon range, Hermon's perpetually snow-streaked top caused the night  vapors to condense upn Zion's mountains far to the south, where Jehovah had placed his name. The dew thus falling was a saving factor for vegetation of the Promised Land during the hot, rainless season from Ma to September.  How so?  Recently it has been discovered that when plants wilted from the dry  heat they recovered from wilting more rapidly when dew formed on their leaves at night than when the ground was watered, and that so much dew was taken up that the plants  functioned normall during the next day without any watering of the ground. It had not been suspected how large an amount of water was absorbed from dew later excreted through the roots into the soil and stored there without loss by evaporation. The amount of water thus put into underground storage by tghe plant was found to be measured in mililiters even in the case of small plants and occasionally to equal the entire weight  of the plant itself. Doubtless this was the way most of the vegetation of hte earth was watered from the third creative day down till the flood of Noah's day, when God had not yet made it rain upon the earth but vapor went up continually from the earth and it watered the entire surface of the ground. (Genesis 2:5, 6, NW) So the dew that the snowy top of Mount Hermon induced to fall upon the sacred mountains of Zion was like that refreshing, life-sustaining moisture, to keep things green, attractive. - JUDGES 6:36-40. 

As with typical Zion in Palestine, so with the antitypical Zion, God's Kingdom, should lie the blessing for us, even life for evermore, he cause the typical Zion of old to be bathed daily with dew during the hot, wilting season, as a prophetic picture. Our dwelling as brothers in amiabler unity is like that abundant dew, refreshing amd the persecutive heat of this world and conducint to our life for evermore in Gods new world.  It is because our dwelling this wins the favor of our reigning King Jesus Christ:  "The king's wrath is as the roaring of  a lion; but his favor is a dew upon the grass." (Proverbs 19:12) To this restored spiritual Israel Jehovah God has promised: "I will be as the dew unto Israel"; and he causes this word to trickle down upon them like dew for their unfailing refreshment. - HOSEA 14:4, 5, AS; DEUTERONOMY 32:2, NW.

By forsaking the gathering of ourselves together and by failing to keep  in unity as a New World society we should deprive ourselves of this life-sustainig dew.  Can we afford to be without such sorely needed refreshment amid this hostile old world?  No!  We need it to be always fresg fo rout foretold work among the people of good will; as it is written: "The remnant of Jacob [spiritual Israel] shall be in the midst of many peoples as dew from Jehovah, as shower upon the grass; that tarry not for man, nor wait for sons of men." (Micah 5:7, AS)  We shall not be suited to be like dew to the parched people unless we ourselves  have this spiritual refreshment first.  Our keeping unified  as a New World society will supply it to us, keeping us cool and calm and pleasant for God as well as his own people to look at.  The all-essential thing to our keeping thus united is that fruitage of the divine spirit, love.  It is a love, not merely in word or with the tongue, but in deed and truth, for true love is practical.

Next time: "You Must Love  Your Neighbor as Yourself"

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