or more years at Brooklyn Bethel. Has it all been easy? Not really. Here at the Watch Tower Society’s headquarters you are tested as you become just one of about a thousand others, each one of them with an assignment that sometimes does not constitute the easiest nor the most pleasant work. But here is an opportunity to devote yourself unselfishly all of your waking hours for the highest good of others. You will be furnished with the necessities of life so that you can apply yourself wholly to the Kingdom interests. You will associate with mature Christians who know where they are going and have known it for many years. One who had spent many years in that service and still rejoices in it put it this way: “Even if there were no new order after Armageddon I wouldn’t have wanted to miss serving God here because just being here now is a sufficient reward in itself.” That does not sound like making a sacrifice, does it?

21. Where will one not find examples of sacrifices that God delights in, and why?

²¹ Does that sound like the conclusion that some of Christendom’s clergy have come to today after having been trained many years in their religious schools and then having served for a time in their churches? No, it does not. Many of these are now shedding all pretense of being believers of God and his Bible. They are changing course and becoming instigators in protest marches and even in riots. Their conclusion is that simply teaching the Bible is not enough. They feel that in order to accomplish something in behalf of deprived people they cannot wait for God to act but have to be out where the action is, even if that means violence that God condemns and the “Caesar” governments condemn. Surely we will not here find examples of those who are offering sacrifices that Jehovah delights in.

THINGS TO GUARD AGAINST

22. (a) What must one guard against in order to keep one’s sacrifices acceptable? (b) Give an example.

²² Something to guard against in all of this is resentment. One could allow the feeling to develop that too much is required. It can happen to anyone. It happened to Moses, ‘the meekest of men.’ The Israelites had just gotten started on their trek through the wilderness toward the land of Canaan when the people began to complain because of lack of meat. Moses said to Jehovah: “I am not able, I by myself, to carry all this people, because they are too heavy for me. So if this is the way you are doing to me, please kill me off altogether, if I have found favor in your eyes, and let me not look upon my calamity.” (Num. 11:14, 15) Jehovah has not required too much of us. There is, indeed, plenty of work to do, but the right view will straighten us out, just as Moses was aided to get the right view and was straightened out.

23. (a) What else must one guard against to keep one’s sacrifices acceptable? (b) Give an example.

²³ We also have to guard against jealousy. This, too, can happen to anyone. It happened to Aaron and Miriam, Moses’ brother and sister. They apparently felt that Moses had too much power and authority and so said to him: “Is it just by Moses alone that Jehovah has spoken? Is it not by us also that he has spoken?” (Num. 12:2) Miriam was stricken with leprosy by Jehovah, and it was only by Moses’ intercession that she was healed. Do we feel that some others are more highly favored with responsibilities and privileges than we are? Do we sometimes allow the desire for a little more prominence in the congregation to build up in us unknowingly? It is something to watch, is it not? It is much better to rejoice when others of our brothers are rewarded for good work done, and, in fact, encourage them to greater works in behalf of pure worship.

24. What about misplaced sacrifices?

²⁴ We will also want to guard against misplaced sacrifices. Have you been thinking of working overtime, or allowing your wife to work so that your son can go to college? This will be a ‘sacrifice,’ but is it really worth it? Too often these sons have come out of college with little or no faith in God nor love and respect for their parents who worked so hard to make the higher education possible. This experience has been a bitter disappointment to some. It is the wrong kind of sacrifice. By contrast, parents who concern themselves primarily with Christian training for their children and provide a Christian example for them to follow will find this a sacrifice that is pleasing to God.

25. What makes us happy concerning sacrifices to Jehovah?

²⁵ It is good to be living in the time when the kind of sacrifices that Jehovah enjoys most can be offered up to him. We are glad that these are to be offered in the form of praise by Christians who are intelligent and enlightened, not in a formalistic, sectarian way. It has been made clear just what God delights in. What a privilege to know of sacrifices that are acceptable to him and to offer them!

Have You Stumbled at What Others Have Done?

HE HAD been a zealous Christian minister for many years. Also he had seen to it that his children were reared “in the discipline and authoritative advice of Jehovah.” Then one day he quit associating with his fellow Christians and wrote to the Watch Tower Society giving his reasons. What had caused him to stumble? He felt he had been wronged by certain ones in his congregation.—Eph. 6:4.

Then again, there was a ministerial assistant in a large congregation who suddenly lost all interest in Jehovah’s work and severed his connections with Jehovah’s people. He stumbled at the course of his own father, who had been his overseer, the father being disfellowshiped because of adultery.

Among those stumbling and losing all interest in Jehovah’s work was also an elderly couple. Why? Because a business transaction with a fellow Christian seemed to them to be “sharp.”

And too, there was a young Christian woman who had dedicated her life to Jehovah God but who now hesitated to get baptized. What caused her to be in danger of stumbling? The unwise conduct of a servant in her congregation.

What do these experiences and others