you in the Christian congregation is like a signpost on a fast-moving turnpike. It assures you that you are on the right road, heading in the right direction. (Matt. 7:14) This road is not the broad, spacious road of ingratitude. That road is leading off into certain destruction. The road leading off into life is the road of appreciation. Be among the relatively few who find it. You can by appreciating your privileges at the world’s end.

20. (a) How does Paul admonish all to treat their privileges? (b) For whom will Jehovah’s King show appreciation at the world’s complete end?

²⁰ Whatever gifts and privileges Jehovah extends to you, appraise them highly and faithfully use them to his honor. “Whatever you are doing, work at it whole-souled as to Jehovah, and not to men, for you know that it is from Jehovah you will receive the due reward of the inheritance.” (Col. 3:23, 24) “Since, then, we have gifts differing according to the undeserved kindness given to us, whether prophecy, let us prophesy according to the faith proportioned to us; or a ministry, let us be at this ministry; or he that teaches, let him be at his teaching; or he that exhorts, let him be at his exhortation; he that distributes, let him do it with liberality; he that presides, let him do it in real earnest; he that shows mercy, let him do it with cheerfulness. Let your love be without hypocrisy. Abhor what is wicked, cling to what is good. In brotherly love have tender affection for one another. In showing honor to one another take the lead. Do not loiter at your business. Be aglow with the spirit. Be slaves to Jehovah. Rejoice in the hope ahead. Endure under tribulation. Persevere in prayer.” (Rom. 12:6-12) To all men of good will who now appreciate their privileges, the King will say at the world’s end: “Come, you who have my Father’s blessing, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the world’s foundation.” (Matt. 25:34) Would you appreciate an inheritance like that? Then appreciate your privileges now at the old world’s end.

A Clerical Analysis of Christendom

In his book Questions People Ask, Robert J. McCracken, pastor of New York city’s Riverside Church, writes: “Years ago in Boston Bishop F. J. McConnell delivered a speech. . . . ‘During the Boxer Rebellion,’ he said, ‘hundreds, probably thousands of Chinese Christians were martyred. There they knelt, with their heads on the blocks, the knives trembling in the hands of the executioners. All they needed to do was to grunt out a Chinese word that meant “I recant” and their lives would be saved. Now, what should I have done under these circumstances? And I speak not simply personally, but in a representative capacity, for I think the rest of you are very much like myself. With my head on the block I suspect I should have said, “Hold on! I think I can make a statement that will be satisfactory to all sides.’”

“For too long, Christians have been like that, accommodating, worldly-wise, pliable, acquiescing in what is conventional, leaving their unbelieving neighbours uncertain as to what the Church stands for, unless it is an easy-going toleration of things as they are, coupled with a mild desire that they may grow better in time, so far as that is compatible with the maintenance of vested interests. Salt, light, leaven—those were the terms Jesus used in envisaging the impact of his disciples on the world. And to-day . . . the ever-present danger which confronts the Church is that it may become insipid—standing for nothing in particular, hesitant, halfhearted, its message muffled and uncertain.”