The Need to Awake

“THIS good news of the kingdom will be preached in all the inhabited earth for the purpose of a witness to all the nations.” (Matt. 24:14, NW) In obedience to that prophetic command of Christ Jesus some 450,000 Christian witnesses regularly go from house to house with Bibles and Bible literature, conduct Bible studies in the homes of the people, arrange for public Bible lectures and also stand on the busy streets offering the magazines The Watchtower and Awake! Often as they stand on the streets with these magazines passers-by will make such rejoinders as “I am awake”; “I’m not asleep!”

But persons making such rejoinders actually are asleep to the purposes of Jehovah God, to the fulfillment of Bible prophecies, to the urgency of heeding the Scriptural call to get out of Babylon. (Luke 21:28; Rev. 18:4, NW) Otherwise they also would be standing on the streets calling out to others to awake. However, although the rank and file of churchgoers are thus blithely oblivious to their need to awake, such fact has not escaped the notice of some of their clergymen. For example, the Dr. Culbert C. Rutenber, of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

The Chicago Daily Tribune, May 20, 1952, reported on the address which this theologian made to some 12,000 Baptist representatives of 7,000 Baptist churches in the United States at the opening session of the 45th assembly of the American Baptist convention (held in Chicago, May 19-23, 1952): “Dr. Rutenber said that the clergy and the laity are alike disturbed at the seeming irrelevance of the church in a world where the only dynamism appears to be the dynamism of anti-Christ, and that the church at large is waiting for a word from God—‘a word of hope, a mighty word, a sure word’—but that actually Christians are asleep.

“‘God is more likely to speak that word,’ Dr. Rutenber continued, ‘if we give heed to the word He has already given us, which is, “Awake thou that sleepest, and Christ will give thee light.”’”

The learned doctor is right in concluding that Christendom is asleep. But is he himself fully awake? If he were would he not be able to give ‘that word of hope, that mighty word, that sure word’ to his listeners? That is what the Christian witnesses of Jehovah are doing. And far from the only “dynamism” in this world being godless and Christless communism, all acquainted with the facts know that the zeal and enthusiasm of Jehovah’s witnesses far outstrip the “dynamism” of the Communists. In fact, one of the chief reasons why the Communists in Poland forced the work of Jehovah’s witnesses underground was that the zeal, enthusiasm and success of Jehovah’s witnesses so eclipsed the activities of the Communists.

Yes, Dr. Rutenber also needs to awake!