is too late to store up treasure in heaven by obedient service to Jehovah and compliance with Christ’s commands, and earthly treasure of silver and gold cannot ransom you. Perhaps the time for your deathbed scene will come at Jehovah’s war of Armageddon. Wealth accumulated by materialism will not deliver its victims: “They shall cast their silver in the streets, and their gold shall be as an unclean thing; their silver and their gold shall not be able to deliver them in the day of the wrath of Jehovah.” What is the course of wisdom for now and for the future?—Ezek. 7:19, AS.

13. What do we need to be happy now, and what do we need to gain happiness forever?

¹³ We do not try to steer a ship on land or drive a car over the ocean or mow a lawn with a typewriter. We should not try to make ourselves do what we are not made for. Some food and drink and money are proper, but God did not design us to be gluttons or drunkards or greedy materialists. To play a little is good, but we are not to become useless playboys. We must study to gain wisdom about Jehovah, must work in his service, must act justly toward all, and must have love for self and for neighbor and for God. We need some material things, but without materialism. We need some money, but not the money itch. We need Jehovah’s spirit; so make room for it. We have the urge to worship; so respond to it zealously. Doing this, we will be happy now. But what if we die and turn to dust? What can make dust happy? Nothing, unless Jehovah returns us from the dust to life again. And he will do that only if we have availed ourselves of the only suitable, effective, powerful ransom. So what does it take to make us happy forever? It takes Christ impaled, the wisdom of God and the power of God. Embrace it now!

Sermon Subjects Too Thin

Charles Clayton Morrison. one-time editor of The Christian Century, once discussed sermons, saying: “During the many years since I was pastor of a church I have listened to a great many sermons. . . . One impression made upon me is that the sermons generally deal with subjects that are too thin. Most preachers seem to select for their subject some fragment of Christian truth; they break off a tiny twig from the tree of life—it may be a scripture text or an ethical idea—and make their sermon out of that.”—Treasury of the Christian Faith.

The Kremlin and the Vatican

Russia’s Nikita Khrushchev, an atheist, recently granted an interview to the Hearst Newspapers editor-in-chief, William Randolph Hearst. At the close of the interview the Soviet leader said that “God is but a mask” put on by some people whose actions “are contrary to humanism.” Khrushchev continued: “They lean on the word of God and then violate it. How can we understand it when churchmen, clergymen, throw holy water on guns that are intended to kill people? Is that the highest showing of man’s spirit? God is being used by these people for hire. They are Pharisees.”

Though the Vatican declined any official statement on Khrushchev’s remarks, Vatican spokesmen said that such antireligion statements were “the most blatant in the Kremlin’s recent times” and that they serve “as a further warning to the world that communism is the world’s public enemy No. 1.” Vatican spokesmen asked: “Cannot a priest also bless a gun to preserve peace?”—New York Journal American, November 26, 1957.