FAITH CONQUERS PERSECUTIONS

7. What examples show that faith is triumphant over persecutions?

⁷ This expansion was not accomplished without severe persecutions. For example, because Jehovah’s integrity-keeping witnesses refused to worship the Nazi state, they were hunted down and herded into filthy concentration camps. Also, 635 of them died in prison. But their faith could not be broken. One observer described the individual Witness as “a fortress which can be destroyed but never taken.” As an eyewitness commented concerning his own brother, brutally shot by Nazi SS guards in a public execution: “Everyone was impressed by his calmness and composure, like someone who had already won the battle.”

8. (a) During trialsome World War II years, how did Christian faith prosper? (b) But what did religious leaders bless and extol?

⁸ As already stated, Jehovah’s Witnesses entered the difficult years of the second world war numbering some 67,000, but they emerged from the conflict more than 141,000 strong. Bans, imprisonments and other trials of integrity had not caused them to flinch in their faith.

The conquest by faith has been very plain to see, and especially in the 40-and-more countries where Jehovah’s Witnesses are now serving under ban or other restriction.

10. How has the tested quality of faith been displayed in Malawi and other countries under restrictions?

¹⁰ Notable among countries where the trial of faith has been hard is the small African nation of Malawi. Up until 1962, Jehovah’s Witnesses enjoyed rapid growth in that land. But, then, in 1964, violent persecution broke out. Because Jehovah’s Witnesses would not worship the Malawi segment of the ‘wild beast out of the sea’ (Rev. 13:1, 4) by buying political party membership cards, they were hounded from their homes, many being raped and killed. Finally, most of them were driven from their homeland. But the tested quality of their faith, proved as though by fire, has been a cause of rejoicing, not alone to themselves but to their Christian brothers throughout the earth. (1 Pet. 1:7) In all the lands where Jehovah’s Witnesses are compelled to serve underground, the same sterling quality of faith is to be observed. All of these Witnesses, and there are more than 200,000 of them in such lands, are succeeding marvelously in their conquest by faith.