WHAT is the inspired decision concerning the time in which we are living from and after A.D. 1914? Listen to a voice from centuries behind us. "After this opened Job his mouth, and cursed his day." (Job 3:1) What a way to break the silence on the matter of vital importance to us all today! It shows how much of comfort it really brought Job to have the three visitors first break out in loud weeping, then rip their garments, and throw dust on their pates, and finally sit around him seven days and nights like an investigating committee, observing him studiously and saying nothing, like mummies, but only killing time. In place of consoling Job, this religious procedure caused Job to curse his day. "Cursed," here in the dramatic record, is in the original tongue a different expression from that used by Satan and
by Job's wife. (Job 1:11; 2: 5, 9) Young's translation renders the record: "Job opened his mouth, and revileth his day."
These are the "last days" of Satan's world. The present-day counterparts of Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar and their agents are here. Their course causes Jehovah's witnesses to identify these days as indeed fulfilling the prophecies concerning the "last days" or "perilous times" and as corresponding with the violent days of Noah just before the end of that old world of the ungodly. By divine commission and command Jehovah's witnesses curse the day as Job did. That is to say, they pronounce the Scriptural condemnation upon this day in which the "remnant" have come into existence and in which day they are permitted to suffer such things at the hands of the demons and their religious dupes and other tools on earth. Jehovah's witnesses warn that these are the best of times for only those who love and take their stand for The Theocracy, but for the opposers thereof these are "the worst of times". Such are given the warning that these are the days of doom for organized religion and all its allies; in fact, for all antichrists, including "the king of the north" and "the king of the south" and their latest creation, "the abomination of desolation." This day is "cursed" for the persecutors that bring this grievous public appearance upon Jehovah's witnesses. To those "goats"
the King of The Theocracy, who now sits on the throne judging the nations, says: "Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels." (Matthew 25:41) Also out of the distant past, just before the destruction of unfaithful Jerusalem which fell victim to religion, there comes the prophetic command to Jehovah's remnant in the midst of "Christendom": "Son of man, prophesy, and say, Thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Wail ye, Alas for the day! For the day is near, even the day of Jehovah is near; it shall be a day of clouds, a time of the nations." — Ezekiel 30: 2, 3, Am. Rev. Ver.
Why has God permitted evil or wickedness to prevail? has been the question before man's mind in all periods, in all lands. Of a truth, God is supreme and all-powerful and nothing comes except by God's permission, but why permit it? The more perplexing, yet more proper question, has been, Why has God permitted his faithful, devoted servants, who apparently should deserve good treatment at God's hands, to suffer most severely? Only the clearing up of the primary issue, namely, UNIVERSAL DOMINATION together with the vindication of God's name in answer to the Devil's challenge, has provided us the heart-satisfying understanding of the mystifying question. Job did not understand it, and yearned for the answer. Only since A.D. 1918, with the coming of the
Lord Jesus Christ to the temple, has the great Father of Lights illuminated the question to the remnant and their companions. Now the remnant rejoice to have a part in the vindication of God's name by preserving their integrity toward God under affliction from Satan, his demons and human agents.
Lucifer rebelled and became Satan, and thus Satan became invisible overlord over humankind. Ever since then it has been a cursed day on earth, and during that day the class like Job and beginning with Abel has been born, to serve for the vindication of God's name and to silence the great accuser. The greatest of these to be born or brought forth from God's universal organization or "woman" was and is Christ Jesus. After waiting out the allotted time at God's right hand Christ Jesus was enthroned, in 1914. The Theocracy was thus born, and "Christ Jesus began the "war in heaven" and cast Satan and his demon organization out of heaven. In 1918 Christ Jesus came to the temple for judgment, and the faithful remnant of his body members was born or came forth from the judgment as approved and as in line for a place in the heavenly Theocracy, as part of God's elect class. This day of the end of Satan's world wherein the remnant was brought forth shall perish at Armageddon. It is a night upon humankind, a day stained by darkness and by the shadow of death for them. — Job 3:2,3; Isaiah 60:1,2.
Applying to that "remnant" Job's question, "Why died I not from the womb? . . . then had I been at rest" (Job 3:11-13), God's own word by Christ Jesus answers, that "for the elect's sake" the days of tribulation were shortened by stopping the World War in 1918, and those of the remnant were spared from death that they might be a "people for God's name". Satan, because now restrained to earth, has great wrath against God's "woman" and especially the "remnant of her seed" on earth. Upon these he makes war. (Revelation 12:17) It is as hard upon them as it was upon Job. Job longed for death if he could not be serving Jehovah or if his living would seemingly be a reproach upon God's name. As Jesus himself prayed: "If it be possible, let this cup pass from me!" (Matthew 26: 39) Now his remnant keep covenant with God and maintain their integrity to him in the face of the brutal war of the demons. Why? Just to participate with Christ Jesus in vindicating Jehovah's name and proving Satan a liar in his reproachful charge against God's servant, the Job class. Likewise now the Lord's "other sheep", the steadfast companions of the remnant, are privileged to suffer and endure side by side with them and let their unbroken integrity also be for a vindication of God's name. And as God did not let Job be touched unto death, so, too, Jehovah will bring the remnant class and the "other
sheep" class through the end of the test at Armageddon and into the new world.
4 Religious Eliphaz the Temanite led the attack on Job. He had not been displeasing to Satan, else that wicked one would not now use Eliphaz as his shock trooper against God's man of integrity. There was no test case to make with Eliphaz as there was with Job. It is likewise true of the religious leaders today. By the howls of objection and the demands to do something to stop the house-to-house work of Jehovah's witnesses in publishing his Kingdom message, the clergy of all denominations have been forced to admit to Jehovah's servants, "Behold, thou hast instructed many, and thou hast strengthened the weak hands. "(4:3) Then by all un-Christian means those clergymen, under Roman Catholic dominance, bring Jehovah's witnesses into public disrepute and argue therefrom that this unpopular condition exposes "thy fear [of Jehovah], thy confidence, thy hope, and the uprightness of thy ways" which Jehovah's faithful ones claim to have, and that it proves them hypocrites. (4: 6) For a psychological effect, the clergy ask: "Remember, I pray thee, who ever perished, being innocent? or where were the righteous cut off?" (4:7) Where? Why, in the cases of Abel, Jesus Christ, and all the martyred prophets and apostles; whereas Jehovah has permitted Satan and the over-
whelming majority of wicked ones to remain till this present and to exercise power. Unto Armageddon as the limit does God reserve them. Meantime, persecution from Satan and his religious, political and commercial elements is no proof that the Job class is in God's disfavor. Directly to the contrary; for those three elements are the ones that are the enemies of God.
Eliphaz brags that "a spirit passed before my face; . . . and I heard a voice, saying, Shall mortal man be more just than God? . . . Behold, he put no trust in his servants; and his angels he charged with folly." (4:15-18) This proves that the religionists are under demon, evil-spirit influence and teach "doctrines of devils". It bears out the clergy's claim to have special mysterious powers and revelations from the "other world" which make the "laity" absolutely dependent upon the clergy for divine favors. Eliphaz, and his modern imitators, deny that God chose Job to serve in this prophetic drama because Jehovah God trusted in Job to maintain his integrity. As for Jehovah's highest angel, "The Word," who became Christ Jesus, Eliphaz' spirit revelation is not true, that Jehovah "charged [Him] with folly". The worldly-wise Temanite's argument backs up Satan's lie that Jehovah God cannot put men on earth who during the demon rule will keep their blamelessness toward God.
5 Eliphaz taunts Job, "Call now," and denies that God's angels or "saints" (holy ones) act for Jehovah's persecuted ones on earth and have to do with answering their prayers at God's due time. (5:1) Feeling "holier than thou", the religionists have "cursed" the organization of Jehovah's witnesses and condemn them as wicked sinners and advise them: "I would seek unto God, and unto God would I commit my cause." (5: 8) The clergy urge the witnesses to lay off on the war against religion, and then their sufferings will stop and they will come into good standing and respectability with this world and will have nothing to fear: "Thou shalt come to thy grave in a full age, . . . Lo this, we have searched it, so it is; hear it, and know thou it for thy good." (5:17-27) But only until Armageddon shall it be "good" for those who follow the clergy. Then those who have abandoned religion and clergy guides will be the only survivors.
6 Job replies that his outcries are not against God as though God were unjust, but are due to his great suffering and pain which cause expressions to escape his lips at times. His outcries are not without reason: "Doth the wild ass bray when he hath grass?" or is it when he is pained with hunger? (6:5) Jehovah's witnesses have the right to cry out in objection to those religionists causing the persecutions and to appeal to the authorities for a measure of relief because such are
sworn to uphold the law and to maintain order and restrain violent persecutors. Job longed for the vindication of Jehovah's name. He expressed the desire to die rather than be the means of bringing reproach and misunderstanding upon the name of that Holy One. Job declares he had not concealed, or (Am. Rev. Ver.) "denied", God's word (6:10); hence to be cut off in death with this sureness that he had been a faithful and true witness for Jehovah would be a privilege, unless there is further work now to do on earth. The test is to be faithful unto the death.
Job then speaks out an indictment of religion. He finds the clergy like the "rich men" who hold back the wages of sympathy and of co-operation which are due to Jehovah's witnesses for the Bible educational work they are doing among the people, but which work the clergy have failed to do. (James 5:1-6) The clergy are like deceitful brooks that dry out; they fail at this dry time to give the people who come to them, whether merchantmen, militarist, or other "children of the church", the waters of truth. They are friends of religion, but have dealt deceitfully with the friends of Jehovah God. Job asks, "Is there iniquity in my tongue?" (6:30) Jesus said to the religionists: "Which of you convinceth me of sin?" (John 8:46) The demon religionists caught the prophet Daniel for no fault, but only concerning the law of his God which con-
flicted with the law of worldly men. (Daniel 6: 4,5) Today such men frame mischief by a law to get those like Job. — Psalm 94: 20.
7 For those who are God's servants and his good soldiers against religion He has his appointed times. Exactly on His time God's "strange work" with them shall end and his "strange act" at Armageddon shall begin. Clergymen accuse Job here of not expressing belief in the resurrection of the dead. Job did so believe. Here, however, he spoke as if he expected no resurrection, because he knew that if he had been unfaithful and God was truly wroth with him it meant destruction for him and no part in the "better resurrection". It shall be so with all who fail or refuse to keep covenant and integrity toward God, and the death and resurrection of Christ Jesus does not alter the case for such. Job's words are against the religious idea of "deathbed repentance" as saving from destruction.
Why does God watch the Job class? (7:12) Not because such are dangerous, like a raging sea or a whale, nor is it to magnify man as being of importance and deserving of special observation and treatment. It is because the test of endurance is put upon devoted men of integrity due to Satan's challenge which affects God's name and universal domination. Their keeping integrity under test must be for the vindication of his word and name and in support of God's domina-
tion universally. Such faithful ones were born sinners, like all other offspring of Adam; as Job said: "I have sinned." (7:20) But if it were a mere matter of God's punishing man for sin, all this attention to the Job class would not be called for, since ordinary human sin does not harm God and he could immediately destroy man by His power. But not merely God's power is at issue.
BILDAD THE SHUHITE
8 Quarrelsome Bildad now takes sides with religious Eliphaz against Jehovah's witness. He accuses God of sending the windstorm and justly killing Job's children as for their sins. He goes by the circumstantial evidence with which the demon forces had framed Job. Sourly he tells Job that if Job's service of God had been so pure and upright, then God would have come to his relief long before this and his latter end should change for the better. He argues that Job had forgotten God and is a hypocrite, an evildoer and cast away of God, because, says Bildad, "Behold, God will not cast away a perfect man, neither will he help the evil doers." (8:20) Bildad's difficulty was that he did not consider those faithful witnesses before Job, namely, Abel, Enoch, Noah, Melchizedek, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph, all of whom were tested for their faith in The Theocracy. Bildad looked to and relied on the "fathers" of a "former age" as his
teachers (8:8), just like the cardinal who wrote the book The Faith of Our Fathers and who, when unable to find Scripture proof for "Purgatory", said: "This is not my opinion. It is the unanimous voice of the fathers of Christendom." The examples which Bildad gives to back up his accusation against Job do not fit. They do not apply without exception to the wicked, hypocritical forgetters of God during this present evil world during which Jehovah permits Satan and his organization to remain, until the final end at Armageddon.
9 Job, in reply, admits that he is not sinlessly perfect, but he is not willfully wicked. He cares not how worldly men and religionists judge him. How God judges him is all-important, and he desires such judgment at the bar of God. Job's question, "How can man be just with God?" (9:2, A.R.V.) is not meant to deny that his distant kinsman Abraham had been justified or counted just and righteous by reason of his faith and obedience toward God. (Genesis 15:6) Job meant, How can a mortal man, with limited powers and faculties, be equally just with God? for God is perfect and all-sufficient in wisdom, power, justice and love. God is almighty and can do and does things in heaven and earth beyond man's abilities, "great things past finding out," and for which things God needs not give an account to man. (9:10) At Armageddon He will shake Sa-
tan's "heavens" and "earth" and remove them and establish the "new earth" under "new heavens". He shall tread down and remove the "sea" of peoples who are estranged from God; and shall not withdraw his anger until the proud are made to stoop and bite the dust in death. Till then "the earth is given into the hand of the wicked". — 9: 24.
Job therefore deemed it wise to wait, not offering his own reasonings and not questioning God's righteousness in letting the wicked stay until the end of the world and meantime permitting His servants of integrity to suffer at the hands of demons and wicked men. (9:20) Self-justification is nothing of value; it is in fact abominable before God. (Luke 16:15) Justification with God by his provisions through Christ Jesus alone counts. However, the blessing of such justification by faith and obedience does not mean that one is immediately released from being persecuted by Satan and his hordes. While the wicked one bears rule the people mourn. The "perfect" or men of integrity as well as the wicked suffer therefrom, but the "perfect" suffer for their integrity. (9:22) This continues until the "time of the end", when God's Judge or "daysman" comes to the temple for judgment of the "house of God". In that judgment he separates the "wheat" from the religious "tares". He also begins the judgment of the
nations and separates the "sheep" from the "goats".
The days in which the "wheat" class and the "sheep" class must longer suffer are passing more swiftly than the eagle flies to his prey. The Job class must "work out [their] own salvation with fear and trembling" and must be anxious against indulging in "secret faults" and "presumptuous sins", such as God can detect in the careless and the self-righteous ones who think they can wash themselves by so-called "character development". (Philippians 2:12; Psalm 19:12,13) The wise person rightly fears to speak in judgment of God concerning His dealings which man does not understand; but when Jehovah's "daysman" or "umpire", Christ Jesus, comes to the temple and illuminates God's Word, then he lays his hand or power of the truth upon the faithful remnant and restrains them from putting forth their hand unto iniquity with the religious schemers of today. Thereby Jehovah God restrains himself from destroying the remnant, that is, if they continue faithful and answer him in favor of His Theocracy by giving a bold witness to his name and his Kingdom before all nations. — 9: 32-35.
10 "My soul is weary of my life," says Job. It is because of being the chief target of the demons and their religionists on earth, who give no cheer and encouragement to Jeho-
vah's devoted servants. Only the "joy of Jehovah" in which they may have a part by sharing in the vindication of his name is their strength to live and keep on as his witnesses. (Nehemiah 8:10) "Seest thou as man seeth?" (10: 4) The remnant and their companions are comforted that no matter how disgraceful the demons make them to appear in the eyes of "Christendom", yet Jehovah does not see or view them as wicked, but continues to bless them with his truth and service. He was the One that founded Jehovah's witnesses, and to his remnant he says: "Ye are my witnesses, saith Jehovah, . . . the people which I formed for myself, that they might set forth my praise." (Isaiah 43:10,12,21, Am. Rev. Ver.) That answers the question: "Wherefore then hast thou brought me forth out of the womb?" (10:18) According to God's will they wrestle not with flesh and blood, but against the demons:" Changes and war are against me." (10:17) For God's covenant people to cease this warfare in the desire to be free from the false witnesses and the daily attacks of the demons and their agents would mean to go into destruction whence they should not return and their days would yet be few, being limited solely to this present existence with no hope of a future. It would mean to go into spiritual darkness now and destruction thereafter, without a lightray of hope.
ZOPHAR THE NAAMATHITE
11 "Liar!" bursts out Zophar, unable longer to keep his peace at Job's words. (11:3) To Job he raises the same complaint as made today by religionists when unable to answer Jehovah's servants with scriptures: 'You think that you are the only people that are right and have the truth, and that everybody else is wrong!' Then Zophar bluntly says Job is worse than the lenient amount of punishment visited upon him would show. 'You deserve more than you're getting!' (11:6) The spirit of a "goat" indeed! Zophar contends that God is punishing Job and thereby trying to convince Job that he is wicked, but that Job refuses to be convinced and disputes God's judgment and pits his own judgment against God's. Then Zophar belittles the knowledge of the truth that Jehovah's witnesses may gain of God. He shows his own ignorance by arguing that godliness now, during demon rule, carries inseparably with it ease, freedom from assault, and popularity with the world. By his Inquisitional method he tries to convert Job to religion, and warns him of the dire consequences to himself if he refuses to give in to religion: "The eyes of the wicked shall fail, and they shall not escape, and their hope shall be as the giving up of the ghost." (11: 20) Does Job yield to this terrorizing scare-doctrine of religion?
