What Has Religion Done For Mankind?

CHAPTER IX

Establishing a National Worship Under Theocracy

ALL the nations of this world carry on forms of worship. The nations of Christendom today claim to worship and sacrifice to God. But the proof will show they are no exception to what the apostle Paul said: "The things which the nations sacrifice they sacrifice to demons, and not to God." (1 Corinthians 10:20, NW; AS) Ancient Egypt with its many gods, a prototype of this world, worshiped and sacrificed to demon gods. When the true God Jehovah sent Moses back to Egypt and made himself known to the suffering Israelites and also to the Egyptians, the Israelites renewed their worship of him as the God of their forefathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to whom the promises concerning the Seed had been made. Not only that, but at the demonstration of Jehovah's power over the demon gods of Egypt, many Egyptians showed honesty, turned to the God of Israel and associated themselves with the Israelites. They formed a "mixed multitude", a great crowd of many strangers. (Exodus

12:38, AS; AT; Fn) The twelve tribes of Israel were bound together by descent from common forefathers. But what furnished the main power to hold them together as a nation was the common worship of God according to the same faith shared by them as a result of His revelations. This is the only thing that can hold people of all nations, races, colors and tongues together.

² The divine purpose in liberating the Israelites from Egypt was that they might be free to worship him and that he might bring them into the land which he had promised to their forefathers. He must fulfill his covenant which he had made with Abraham concerning the land four hundred and thirty years previous. Nine ruinous plagues on Egypt had failed to soften Pharaoh into letting Israel take some holidays from slave labor in order to worship their God in the wilderness. Pharaoh, enraged, threatened to kill Moses if he tried to show his face to him again. So as Moses left, Jehovah inspired him to tell Pharaoh He would send one more plague upon Egypt, after which the Egyptians would beg them to leave the country. In this plague all the firstborn of Egypt's people and livestock would die, but again the Israelites would be spared.

³ Jehovah now set up among his chosen people an observance which was to mean much in the

clean, undefiled religion. It was the passover celebration, so called because, for faithfully observing it, the angel of death would pass over the homes of the Israelites and spare their firstborn. There must be a sacrifice to take the place of the Israelite firstborn children. The prophet Moses could not become that sacrifice, for he too was an imperfect descendant of Adam and his life must be preserved for him to lead his people out of the land of slavery. So on the tenth of the month Nisan every Israelite household was to select an unblemished male sheep, one year old, and on the fourteenth day, after sundown, they were to kill it. Its blood they were to splash with a bunch of hyssop against the doorposts and lintels of their houses. They were then to retire indoors for the night and celebrate a special supper with this lamb, roasted with not a bone of its body broken. With it they were to eat unleavened bread, with bitter herbs, while they stood at the table, with their staffs in hand, their feet shod, all ready to leave Egypt. In doing this they defied the sun-god of Egypt, Ra, who was said to visit the Egyptians occasionally under the form of a male sheep. Why, horrors, the sprinkling of the blood of the passover lamb upon the doorposts was an act of blasphemy against Ra! If Ra had the power, he would not spare the firstborn of the blasphemous Israelites but would protect the Egyptian firstborn who were dedicated as sacred to him. But who would prove superior in this matter, Jehovah or Ra? —Exodus 12:1-14.

⁴ The Israelite day of twenty-four hours began at sunset, or at six p.m. At midnight of this Nisan 14 the demon god Ra proved impotent to save his dear firstborn. With the speed of light Jehovah's angel of death flew through Egypt and struck dead every firstborn of Egypt, from Pharaoh's son on down to the firstborn of captives in the dungeon and firstborn of animals: "there was not a house where there was not one dead." Truly the Most High God had carried out his word: "Against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am Jehovah." All the demon gods had to bow before Him. But all the Israelite firstborn were delivered. —Exodus 12:12, 30, AS.

⁵ Amid the wailing of all Egypt broken-down Pharaoh sent word to Moses to leave Egypt instanter with all his people and to do so without cursing him. In fact, the Israelites were all ready to go. "On the morrow after the passover the children of Israel went out with a high hand in the sight of all the Egyptians, while the Egyptians were burying all their first-born, whom Jehovah had smitten among them: upon their gods also Jehovah executed judgments." Exactly four hundred and thirty years after God made his covenant with Abraham concerning the Seed the Israelites marched out of Egypt. But not without companions, for a mixed multitude of many strangers marched out in company with them. They were now believers in Jehovah as God, for as at

the flood in Noah's day Jehovah God had proved his universal sovereignty in the sight of the Devil's first world power of Egypt. He had exalted himself as the great Liberator of his people, at the expense of the oppressive enemies. As he later said to them: "I am Jehovah thy God, the Holy One of Israel, thy Saviour; I have given Egypt as thy ransom, Ethiopia and Seba in thy stead. Since thou hast been precious in my sight, and honorable, and I have loved thee; therefore will I give men in thy stead, and peoples instead of thy life." So let all opposers of Jehovah's people in this world today beware. What he executed upon ancient Egypt foreshadowed what he will do now to all religious opposers. —Exodus 12:29-41, LXX; Numbers 33:3,4, AS; Isaiah 43:3,4, AS.

⁶ God commanded the Israelites to celebrate a memorial of the passover every year afterward on the same date. This was because of what the passover symbolized. Egypt pictured this world filled with demon religion and which enslaves all mankind and tries to keep sincere worshipers from obeying and serving Jehovah God. Pharaoh of Egypt pictured Satan the Devil, who Jesus Christ said was the "ruler of this world". (Revelation 11:8; John 12:31,NW; 14:30) Pharaoh was worshiped as god by the Egyptians, and the apostle Paul says that Satan the Devil is the "god of this system of things" and is the "spirit that now operates in the sons of disobedience". (2 Corinthians 4:4 and Ephesians 2:2, NW) As for Moses, this

prophet represented Jehovah's only-begotten Son, the One who is primarily the Seed of God's woman. God said to Moses: "I will raise them up a prophet from among their brethren, LIKE UNTO THEE; and I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him." This Greater Prophet is the great Liberator who will crush the head of the Pharaoh of this world, Satan the Serpent. (Deuteronomy 18:15-18, AS; Acts 3:19-23) The sacrifice of the passover lamb pictured that this Seed of God's woman must die as a sacrifice to make mankind free from slavery to sin, death, and Devil. In due time this Son of God was pointed out as "the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world". —John 1:29, NW.

⁷ Sprinkling the lamb's blood on the doorposts pictures that we believe and publicly confess this Son of God's life to be the price for our liberation from this world. Moses' leading the Israelites out of Egypt after the passover pictured how the Seed of God's woman, resurrected from the dead and so recovered from the heel wound, leads the worshipers of Jehovah out of bondage to this world.

⁸ By a miraculous pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night Jehovah's angel led the Israelites under Moses to the shores of the Red sea. Pharaoh had now regretted letting his slave labor go free. So to restore the prestige of his humiliated gods he mustered his war chariots and

military forces and pursued the Israelites to drag them back to slavery. Jehovah's angel in the cloud moved to their rear and prevented the Egyptians from overtaking them. Then divine power miraculously parted the waters of the Red sea and let the Israelites pass through on dry land.

⁹ When the cloud pillar lifted, the Egyptian hosts saw their prey escaping through the sea corridor. In they sped after them. But as the last of the escapees climbed out on the other side, on Sinai Peninsula, Jehovah God let go and the dammed-up sea waters roared together over the chariots and horsemen of Pharaoh and drowned them all. Their frantic cries to the gods of Egypt for rescue proved vain. Moses and the Israelites jubilantly sang: "I will sing unto Jehovah, for he is highly exalted: the horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea. My strength and song is Jah, and he is become my salvation: this is my God, and I will glorify him; my father's God, and I will extol him. Who is like unto thee, Jehovah, among the gods?" (Exodus 15:1,2,11, Da) There Jehovah made a name for himself; as King David later said: "Who is like thy people, like Israel, the one nation in the earth that God went to redeem to be a people to himself, and to make himself a name, . . . before thy people, which thou redeemedst to thyself from Egypt, from the nations and their gods?" —2 Samuel 7: 23, Da.

¹⁰ The Israelite nation now definitely belonged

to the Most High God. By his sovereign power he had delivered them from perishing as slave laborers under Egypt's genocide policy. He was established as their Supreme Ruler, their King. So Moses rightly sang: "Jehovah shall reign for ever and ever." The last book of the Bible shows that a like song is sung today by His delivered people: "And they are singing the song of Moses the slave of God and the song of the Lamb, saying: 'Great and wonderful are your works, Jehovah God, the Almighty. Righteous and true are your ways, King of eternity. Who will not really fear you, Jehovah, and glorify your name, because you alone are one of loving-kindness? For all the nations will come and worship before you, because your righteous decrees have been made manifest.'" (Exodus 15:18, AS; Revelation 15:3,4, NW) Since God was the divine Ruler of his delivered people Israel, the government which he set up over them was a theocracy. It was a prophetic picture of the real Theocracy which he will establish in the hands of the Seed of his woman over all mankind. He was within his right in commanding that they worship him as a nation. He made them witnesses to the fact that he is the true, almighty God: "I, even I, am Jehovah; and besides me there is no saviour. I have declared, and I have saved, and I have showed; and there was no strange god among you: therefore ye are my witnesses, saith Jehovah, and I am God." —Isaiah 43:3,10-12, AS.

¹¹ It was therefore in harmony with the truth to worship him alone. It was true religion to serve

him. So Jehovah led them to Mount Horeb or Sinai to teach them right worship.

¹² En route God the Creator established the weekly sabbath day among them. This was at the time that he sent them miraculous manna from heaven in order to supply them bread in the wilderness. The sixth day of the week they gathered twice as much manna to carry them over the seventh day of rest. "And Moses said, Eat that to-day; for to-day is a sabbath unto Jehovah: to-day ye shall not find it in the field. Six days ye shall gather it; but on the seventh day is the sabbath, in it there shall be none." —Exodus 16:25, 26, AS.

¹³ Back in Egypt they had never celebrated a weekly sabbath day. As slaves to pagan Egyptians for more than eighty years it was out of the question for them to do so. The command to celebrate a sabbath rest on the seventh day of the week was not given to their forefathers. (Deuteronomy 5:2-15) Sabbath observance began with the Israelites, and there in the wilderness of Sinai. It was a sign of covenant relationship between Jehovah and those natural Israelites, and no others. "Six days shall work be done; but on the seventh day is a sabbath of solemn rest, holy to Jehovah: whosoever doeth any work on the sabbath day, he shall surely be put to death. Wherefore the children of Israel shall keep the sabbath, to observe the sabbath throughout their generations,

for a perpetual covenant. It is a sign between me and the children of Israel for ever: for in six days Jehovah made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested, and was refreshed." (Exodus 31:15-17, AS) The Israelite sabbath was a prophecy, foretelling the great sabbath of rest from the rule of sin and of Satan the Serpent under God's established kingdom. Then anyone that does not obey the Kingdom's rule will be put to death. God's only-begotten Son, the Seed of God's woman, is the Lord of that sabbath period.  —Matthew 12:8.

¹⁴ Sustained by the manna, the Israelites came to the mountain of God, Mount Horeb or Sinai, in the third Jewish month, which is the month Sivan. While they were there encamped Jehovah God proposed a national covenant or agreement with them, and he used his prophet Moses as the mediator in drawing up the agreement. Jehovah's angel came down on the top of Mount Sinai. "And Moses went up unto God, and Jehovah called unto him out of the mountain, saying, Thus shalt thou say to the house of Jacob, and tell the children of Israel: Ye have seen what I did unto the Egyptians, and how I bare you on eagles' wings, and brought you unto myself. Now therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be mine own possession from among all peoples: for all the earth is mine: and ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and a holy na-

tion. These are the words which thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel." —Exodus 19:1-6, AS.

¹⁵ By stating, "All the earth is mine," the Most High God asserted his universal sovereignty. Without injustice to anybody he can give any part of the earth to anyone he wants to, and he had promised to give the land of Canaan to the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, namely, to these Israelites. The Canaanites who were occupying that land were under the curse God inspired Noah to put upon his grandson Canaan. Hence Canaan's descendants were destined to become the servants of these Shemites, the Israelites. (Genesis 9:24-26) The land of Canaan was therefore the land which he had reserved for giving it to the Israelites. By keeping his agreement or covenant their days would be long upon that land.

¹⁶ The Israelites agreed to the terms of the covenant to be set forth by the great theocratic Ruler, their King and God. On the third day after that Jehovah, by his angel, caused a marvelous display of the forces of nature atop Mount Sinai; yes, the whole mountain quaked, so that the people stood far off in fear. Then they heard the voice of God's angelic spokesman delivering to them the fundamental laws of the covenant. The way those laws were stated showed they applied

to those natural Israelites, and not to the Egyptians and other non-Israelite peoples. The first four commandments showed the Israelites their supreme obligations to God. The remaining six showed their obligations, no, not to Caesar, but to their fellow Israelites. Caesar was not their ruler, and the law stated by Jesus Christ was not then proper: "Pay back, therefore, Caesar's things to Caesar, but God's things to God." There was no Caesar in control of Palestine until more than fourteen centuries after this. (Matthew 22:21, NW) This was a theocracy which Jehovah God was establishing over Israel. There were no outsiders like Pharaoh or any others ruling over them, and so there was no obligation at all owed to untheocratic rulers outside.

¹⁷ Remembering the demon gods of Egypt and their grotesque images, part human part animal, and also Pharaoh's defiance of the divine name, we can appreciate the fitness of the first three commandments, which set out Jehovah's right worship as the most important thing. We read: "And God spake all these words, saying, [1] I am Jehovah thy God, who brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have no other gods before me. [2] Thou shalt not make unto thee a graven image, nor any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: thou shalt not bow down thyself unto them, nor serve them; for I Jehovah

thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, upon the third and upon the fourth generation of them that hate me, and showing lovingkindness unto thousands of them that love me and keep my commandments. [3] Thou shalt not take the name of Jehovah thy God in vain; for Jehovah will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain." The Fourth commandment was a statement of the sabbath law for each seventh day. —Exodus 20:1-11, AS.

¹⁸ As Jehovah thus spoke his fundamental law of his covenant with the Israelites, they saw no shape or form of God. It is impossible for human eyes to see the glorious God and still live. Our minds cannot conceive what he is like. He is without equal. So to the Israelites it was commanded: "Take ye therefore good heed unto yourselves; for ye saw no manner of form on the day that Jehovah spake unto you in Horeb out of the midst of the fire; lest ye corrupt yourselves, and make you a graven image in the form of any figure, the likeness of male or female, the likeness of any beast that is on the earth, the likeness of any winged bird that flieth in the heavens, the likeness of anything that creepeth on the ground, the likeness of any fish that is in the water under the earth; and lest thou lift up thine eyes unto heaven, and when thou seest the sun and the moon and the stars, even all the host of heaven, thou be drawn away and worship them, and serve them." (Exodus 33:20; Deuteronomy 4:15-19, AS;

John 5:37) Since God would not let his people make an image supposed to be like him and worship it, he certainly would not let them worship any of God's creations or make images of these creations and worship these. To do so would be false demonistic religion, as in Egypt, which they had left.

¹⁹ The Fifth commandment of this Decalogue said: "Honor thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long in the land which Jehovah thy God giveth thee." (Exodus 20:12, AS) Honoring their natural parents did not include worshiping these earthly parents. Only Jehovah God the Creator was to be worshiped. Honoring the parents could therefore not allow for setting up ancestor worship, either by deifying them or by setting up little memorials of them and paying special reverence to such memorials. If we are not entitled to worship our parents while they are alive, then surely we are also forbidden to worship them after they are dead. They have not become gods by death. They are dead, powerless, unconscious, out of existence, and quickly fade from memory, and so they are unable to receive and enjoy any worship. "The soul that sinneth, it shall die." "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." (Ezekiel 18:4,20; Romans 3:23, NW) It is the demons who encourage false worship. In reality they receive such worship intended for dead ancestors. Instead of violating God's law

by worshiping the dead, we should comfort ourselves with the hope of the resurrection of them from the dead when God's kingdom by his Seed governs men.

²⁰ The remaining five of the Ten Commandments designate it as sin to murder, to commit adultery, to steal, to lie, and to covet or selfishly desire the property of one's fellow man. (Exodus 20:13-17) If the Israelites observed these commandments respecting their obligations toward one another, it would operate toward their doing of justice toward their fellow Israelites. It would make for a happy nation, in which the citizens got along with one another, and it would exalt them, not debase them. "Righteousness exalteth a nation: but sin is a reproach to any people." (Proverbs 14:34) The person contributing chiefly to their happiness would be the God whom they worshiped. He would bless them with the prosperity which he promised. "Happy is the people that is in such a case; yea, happy is the people whose God is Jehovah." (Psalm 144:15, AS) This illustrates that anyone who makes Jehovah his God and worships him according to his revealed religion is bound to be happy. "Happy is he that hath the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in Jehovah his God." (Psalm 146:5, AS) Hence Jehovah's Theocracy by his Promised Seed is the only government under which the peoples of all mankind can be blessed and happy forever.