1881 Watch Tower - A2Z.org

Ah, dear brother, sister, it is no easy road; but do you think theend justifies the means? Now look again at the prize; keep youreye of faith fixed on that. Give up your human will, your humanambition, etc., as Jesus did, and commit your new spiritual lifeto him who is able to keep it. If you let Him, God will work inyou to will and to do of his good pleasure, and Jesus says: "Fearnot, little flock; it is the Father's good pleasure to give you thekingdom."====================R234 : page 5THE TIMES WE LIVE IN.The present is a momentous crisis. All sects are shaking. Thereligious world is convulsed. Atheism has opened her batteries,and unsheathed her sword. Skepticism is big with hopes.Catholic and Protestant Popery are plodding and plotting for thesupremacy. The little and the great Popes are on tiptoe. Saintsare praying for the millennium; myriads are laboring for itsintroduction. The Bible and the creeds are at war. There is notruce. Such is the present.--Christian Baptist.R234 : page 5===================="ART THOU HE THATTROUBLETH ISRAEL?"These were the words of Ahab, king of Israel, to Elijah. Ahab, itwill be remembered, was the husband of Jezebel, the wickedwoman, who persecuted Elijah, and from whom he fled into thewilderness for three and a half years. (See 1 Kings 18:17.)We have heretofore seen that all three of these Jewish characterswere types or figures of classes in the Gospel age, and that theiractions were such as to illustrate the actions of those classeswhich they represented: Elijah represented the church--the trueand earnest teachers of God's Word; Jezebel is used to representthe false church, Papacy, and which came into power bymarriage with the Roman Empire, which is represented byAhab.As Papacy used the Roman army and power to persecute thetrue teachers of the Lord (and slew many) for three and a halfsymbolic years, or twelve hundred and sixty symbolic days; soJezebel used Ahab's power to persecute Elijah and slay theLord's prophets for three and a half literal years. During thoseyears there was great drouth in the land; so, too, during the 1260years of Papal persecution, ending in 1798, there was a greatspiritual drouth and "a famine, not of bread nor a thirst forwater, but of hearing the words of the Lord." Amos 8:11. Then