Jehovah's Witnesses, Ivano-Frankivsk (2026)

20/05/2026

If the law of a country requires people to do something that contradicts the law of God, then anyone who wishes to live must obey the law of God, regardless of the consequences that may follow from disobeying human law. The state may impose the most severe punishment on those who refuse to obey its laws, even though by refusing to obey human law, they are obeying the law of God. Therefore, a person must choose between the law of man or the state and the law of God. The state can destroy your body, but God can destroy your very being forever.
Do these words from Scripture mean that state officials are the “higher authorities” and that we must submit to them in order to be pleasing to God?
No! What Scripture says means something entirely different. You will notice that the passage is addressed to those who have chosen to do the will of God and whom God has called to holiness.
For them, the “higher authorities” are God Jehovah and Jesus Christ, the Redeemer of mankind; and these “higher authorities” have given the apostles certain authority and power over the church, that is, over those who have chosen to do the will of God.
Can a person outwardly obey the law of the country if that law violates the law of God, while still being obedient to God’s law in his heart? No! That is impossible, because it would be hypocrisy, and God hates hypocrisy. To outwardly obey human law only in order to please people, while inwardly knowing that you are not speaking what you truly believe, but are instead in agreement with God, is extreme insincerity. We may deceive people, but we cannot deceive Jehovah God. He knows all our innermost thoughts.
Brochure Loyalty 1935

09/05/2026

PULPITEERS AND WAR

The church as an organization, to her discredit, be it said, stood solidly by the war. Here and there ministers had the courage to stand by the principles of Christ, but for this they were, in most cases, unfrocked, persecuted, and drummed out of the "temple of the Nazarene".

In every land the church held special services, to petition their national god to give them victory over their enemies, and held thanksgiving services when a victory was announced.

Surely this is blasphemy indeed; surely its ministers could sink no further! In the words of Mark Twain, when they prayed for victory this is what they prayed for:

"O Lord, our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to battle. Be Thou near them!

With them in spirit—we also go forth from the sweet peace of our firesides to smite the foe.

"O Lord, our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the cries of the wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with their little children, to wander unfriended through wastes of this desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sport of the sun-flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it—for our sakes, who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet.

"We ask of One who is the Spirit of Love and who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset, and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Grant our prayer, O Lord, and Thine shall be the praise and honor and glory now, and ever. Amen."
(To be continued)

Golden Age — 1935, 22 May

04/05/2026

"WOMAN AND WAR"
(By Rose Henllerson, ex-judge of the Juvenile Court of Montreal)

We can approximate the number killed and
wounded; we can count the cost of making new garments, procuring food, furnishing implements of destruction; we may calculate the value of cities laid waste, crops ruined, the cost of constructing new homes, ships and railways, but who can measure, who describe, the suffering of the women and children whose homes are laid in ashes, who flee in terror before the advancing army, to hills and valleys, who crouch and shiver in ruins and dugouts, who forage on garbage heaps and feed off putrid flesh and roots, who are r***d and famished, but who may not die by the bullet, or the swift thrust of the sword.

Speak not to such as these, oh, ye hypocrites, ye befoulers of all that is holy and sacred, of the "glories of war"!

What a desecration of virtue! What a mockery of the home!

To the women of the masses, war is a grim reality.

It sinks its poisonous fangs deep into their quivering flesh and pulsating hearts; it desecrates the marriage vow, breaks up their home, and poisons, through venereal diseases, the very wellsprings of life.
(To be continued ...)

Golden Age—1935, 22 May

03/05/2026

For the women of the masses, however, who supply 93 percent of the army, the story is a different one.

The women of the masses, during the war, were used to do the meanest work.

They were flattered, cajoled, threatened.

While the blood of their menfolk was being coined into profits on the battlefields, their labor, s*x, and necessities were the object of profit, extortion, and barter at home.

In munition, garment, and packing factories they toiled incessantly, doing the work of men, but receiving "woman's pay".

"Ministers of the gospel" grew wrathful and demanded that they "do their duty to replenish the loss of war"; illegitimacy was winked at and excused as "one of the inevitable results of war".

Politicians tricked and deceived them with promises they never intended to carry out.

They were told to knit socks, scarfs, sweaters, and other garments "to keep the boys warm", but when they went to buy the yarn they found the price had soared.

They were advised by sleek, well-fed men and diamond-, fur-bedecked ladies not to forget the "dear boys fighting for our home and honor", to send them chocolates, ci******es, and fruitcake; but, alas, when after scrimping a few cents from the pay envelope or "patriotic allowance" they went forth to purchase these things, they found the prices 20 to 100 percent higher than before the war—someone had been "doing their bit" profiteering in a perfectly "patriotic" way.

They were told to eat less sugar and bacon; whereupon, after denying themselves and their children, they found a corner on both these necessities and huge fortunes being made at their expense; and while men were being shot and jailed for military treason, no one was being hanged, jailed, or shot for treason to those men and their dependents who were shedding their lifeblood and wading through hell to "make the world safe for democracy"—or plutocracy?
(To be continued ...)

Golden Age—1935, p. 22 May

01/05/2026

“And I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the former heaven and the former earth had passed away, and the sea was no more” (Revelation 21:1).
The Kingdom of Christ and His followers seated on the throne constitute the new heaven, while the new visible order on our planet for carrying out God’s will among mankind constitutes the new earth.
The “sea” symbolizes that restless mass of humanity which constantly cast up the mire and filth of sin, and from which arose the wicked visible organization of the Devil in destructive beastly forms.
If “hell” or “Hades” were a fiery place of eternal torment, then Revelation shows that not all the dead had gone to such a fiery place, but that many of the dead were in a watery place, in the sea. However, the biblical “hell” is not a place as portrayed by Christendom’s religions—a fiery, sulfurous place for the eternal torment of human souls under the supervision of the Devil and his demons. It is the abode of the dead, where Jesus himself went after his death and burial. God resurrected him from this “hell” on the third day and thereafter entrusted him with “the keys of hell and of death” (Revelation 1:18). Thus, Jesus Christ, as the Judicial Representative of Jehovah God, uses the keys and raises the dead from the sea and from Hades, as well as from the general state of death that became the result of Adam’s sin before our birth. During Christ’s thousand-year reign, the divine will for that time will be made known to all mankind, to the very ends of the earth, to the farthest reaches of the paradise capable of providing food for the entire population of the Earth.
To be continued
Watchtower 15 January. 1949

29/04/2026

Faithful followers of Christ, who walk in His footsteps, become a “natural body” after death. But when they take part in the “first resurrection” after Christ Jesus comes to Kingdom power, they are raised as a “spiritual body.” This is stated in 1 Corinthians 15:44. Having thus been resurrected as perfect immortal spirit creatures, they immediately come to life and enter into life, just as Christ Jesus did at His resurrection. None of the consequences of their being born in sin and under the condemnation of death as descendants of Adam are carried over to them, for they forever sacrifice their human nature, just as their Leader Christ Jesus did. This is what distinguishes the “first resurrection,” and participation in it makes them “happy and holy.
“But the rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were ended” (Revelation 20:5). The resurrection of these people from the dead does not make them alive in the same full sense in which those who share in the first resurrection come to life. Consider the evildoer who lived a life of crime right up to his death beside Jesus. What chance would he have if King Christ Jesus first remembered him and brought him out of the grave at the end of His thousand-year reign, only for him to face Satan immediately afterward, and then for Satan to be released to try once again to deceive mankind? In that case, the evildoer would receive none of the benefits of correction and uplift to human perfection that Christ’s Kingdom is meant to grant its subjects. He would have no real opportunity to be declared righteous—to gain everlasting life and thus “experience life anew.”

To be continued
Watchtower 15 January 1949

26/04/2026

"WOMAN AND WAR"
(By Rose Henllerson, ex-judge of the Juvenile Court of Montreal)

THE SOCIAL COST OF WAR
For the women of the middle and ruling classes, generally speaking, war exists for them in conversations, military balls, reviews, anniversary banquets, the organizing and raising of "patriotic" funds, and kindred activities. Their husbands and sons go to war, but keep well away from the danger zones.

They are officers or subordinates.
They fight the war by telephone, from armchairs and luxurious clubs; the best that can be provided is theirs by "divine right", and their wives and families are especially favored in many ways.

They belong to a different class, many having large investments in munition works, railroads, shipping, etc.
(To be continued ...)

Golden Age — 22 May 1935

22/04/2026

"WOMAN and WAR"
(By Rose Henderson, ex-judge of the Juvenile Court of Montreal)

THE SOCIAL COST OF WAR
Bankers figure the cost of war in money;
manufacturers, in lost labour-power and raw materials; merchants, in ruined commodities and lost markets; humanitarians, in loss of life; money-changers barter and wrangle over their profits and losses.

Ministers of the gospel speculate on their heavenly gain in departing souls or acquired virtues in war, but, so far, no one has dared to estimate the cost of war to those helpless victims who bear the greatest burden.

The mother's heart sinks as she catches a glimpse of the babe she has borne on his way to embark.
The wife stifles the anguish and terror that clutch at her heart when she hears the words, "I'm called up."

The maiden's heart sinks when she questions, "Will he ever return?" and sees her dreams of home and children shattered, perhaps for ever.

In her heart of hearts every intelligent woman questions if her menfolk will be strong enough to withstand the moral degradation of the battlefield, and fears that when they are returned to their homes their moral and physical fitness to be fathers and husbands will be undermined.

Golden Age — 22 May 1935
To be continued...

20/04/2026

WOMAN and WAR
(By Rose HenLlerson, ex-judge of the Juvenile Court of Montreal)

In time of war, when the world goes mad, when all restrictions are let down, when men
mock and laugh at their own moral and ethical codes, then the only appeal is to woman's primitive motions, and she is swept into every excess.

She becomes the blind, senseless tool of blind, senseless men, who rule the world, men who march in their millions to fight unknown
enemies, and to fill unknown graves, because
someone told them to do so.

lf these dead heroes could speak, they would tell of their mangled comrades writhing in trenches, tormented by lice, rats and mice, wallowing like swine in the blood, mud and filth of the battlefields.

They would speak of barbedwire entanglements, shell holes, guns, tanks, bombs, grenades, liquid flame, disease germs, poison gas, the babblings of the insane, and the ungodly spectacle of millions of men, armed with every device known to science, doing one another to death over the length and breadth of a continent.

And yet this picture but lifts the curtain on
the first act of the drama of war. It would сonvey only a glimmer of the suffering that men
endure.

Back of the millions of men are millions of women-mother, wife, sister or sweetheart.

Back of these women are millions of children, the mute, outraged, exploited victims of an accursed system making for war.
Golden Age-1935 22May
To be continued ...

05/04/2026

Every honest person knows that he is sinful by nature, and even his thoughts are imperfect. He reads in the Scriptures, in 1 Peter 1:15,16:
“But just as He who called you is holy, so be holy in all your conduct.”
A good person may say:
“I will serve Jehovah God once I prove to myself that I am holy.”
So he delays the day when he will begin to serve God, trying to bring himself into a state of righteousness, only to discover in the end that he is just as imperfect as he was at the beginning.
Another person thinks that he can become perfect and holy by his own efforts, but he cannot succeed.
According to the Bible, to be holy, or to have holiness, means to be fully devoted to God. This does not mean that a person has no physical or spiritual weaknesses. When a person becomes a Christian, he remains by nature just as imperfect as before. Yet, even being sinful by nature, a person can completely dedicate himself to the purpose of Jehovah God.
This means that a person sincerely strives to act in a way that pleases God and under no circumstances willingly does what Satan wants him to do.
Remember that Jesus was perfect. He could do everything within the power of a perfect being. Yet he said that he could do nothing against the will of his Father, because he was completely devoted to Jehovah and His righteous purpose.
In the same way, all who become faithful followers of Jesus Christ must act. If they wish to have God’s favor, they must fully and unconditionally dedicate themselves to God. This is what it means to be holy in Christ—to be completely devoted to the Kingdom of God.
The one who wants to be holy must follow Jehovah’s instructions. He must tell others about God’s merciful promises—to redeem and bless all the nations of the earth through Christ and His Kingdom. He must, as a witness, preach the good news of the Kingdom to others.
1934 years

Jehovah's Witnesses

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