inconsistently serving both sides of the conflict.

11. How will the destruction God brings about allow for his will to come to pass on our earth as well as in heaven?

¹¹ As regards God’s will to be done in the heavens, he has installed the new heavenly powers to rule the coming righteous new world and has ousted Satan and his demons and limited their activities now to the earth. His installed King now has all his enemies at his footstool the earth and is ruling among them. Shortly he will destroy Satan’s wicked heavens and earth, Satan’s invisible and visible organization. Following this destruction he will build up a new human society the members of which will love to do God’s will. Thus God’s will to have a new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells will be done, in fulfillment of his promise. (2 Pet. 3:13; Isa. 65:17; 66:22) It is not God’s will to destroy this literal earth, no more than to destroy the literal heavens. These shall abide forever. Because his will is to preserve this earthly globe through the battle of Armageddon, his will can and will be done here also as it is done up in heaven.

Daily Bread, Forgiveness, and Deliverance

1. With whom do the foregoing three, and the remaining four petitions of the Lord’s prayer, have to do?

THE first three petitions of the Lord’s prayer have to do directly with God’s interests which are of first importance universally. The remaining four petitions have to do with us creatures individually and personally. Being our heavenly Father, God is lovingly interested in these things which vitally affect his children on earth, and Jesus our Teacher assures us we may present these matters to Jehovah God in prayer.

2. With what regard for tomorrow do we ask for only today’s food?

² “Give us today our bread for this day.” By asking bread or food and drink for no more than today this prayer adopts the right attitude. It does not presume we shall be living tomorrow, mindful of Proverbs 27:1: “Boast not thyself of to morrow; for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth.” The disciple James impresses that same thought and tells us we should say: “If Jehovah wills, we shall live and also do this or that.” (Jas. 4:13-15, NW) In harmony with this prayer for just today’s portion of food Jesus a little later on in this same sermon on the mount tells us how God feeds the birds and clothes the flowers, and says: “So never be anxious and say: ‘What are we to eat?’ or, ‘What are we to drink?’ or, ‘What are we to put on?’ For all these are the things the nations are eagerly pursuing. For your heavenly Father knows you need all these things. Keep on, then, seeking first the kingdom and his righteousness, and all these other things will be added to you. So, never be anxious about the next day, for the next day will have its own anxieties. Sufficient for each day is its own evil.” (Matt. 6:31-34, NW) So we ask today for only our daily bread.

3. How does the Lord’s prayer encourage no greedy spirit?

³ The way Luke 11:3 (NW) words it in the similar prayer reads: “Give us our bread for the day according to the day’s requirement.” This promotes no spirit of hoarding things to the denial of such things to other children of God, nor any getting of a corner or monopoly on foodstuffs so as to command the market, control prices and make financial profits at the expense of the people’s misery. The Lord’s prayer advises no greedy spirit. To the contrary, it advises godly devotion with contentment, which means great gain in a real way, a gain in happiness and blessing now and of eternal life in the righteous new world. “So, having sustenance and covering, we shall be content with these things.”—1 Tim. 6:6-8, NW.

4, 5. (a) How is this daily bread no free, unearned handout? (b) Why need we not fear because it comes on a day-to-day basis?

⁴ This prayer for daily bread does not mean God treats us like infants and brings the food to us without effort by us and puts it before us on the table or right into our mouths. No; this material bread is not a free, unearned handout. God has surrounded us with all the means for providing us with bread, but we must get busy and work to get it deservedly. There is no room allowed for sponging on our hardworking fellows, but God enforces the rule among his able-bodied children: ‘If anyone does not want to work neither let him eat.’ (2 Thess. 3:10, NW) In keeping with our prayer to him for the daily ration for today, we trust him to provide us physical and mental strength to work and deserve it. In the forty years of wandering in the wilderness, God caused the manna to fall like dew all about the Israelites each day of the week except the seventh day. So there was plenty of food about them, but they had to go out and collect the manna and then work it up into baked bread. On the sixth day God caused twice as much to fall, for the seventh day was a rest day and none would fall then, because it would be wasted since they were legally forbidden to go out and do collecting work.

⁵ So our praying for just today’s bread may put us on a day-to-day basis in our dependence on God for nourishment, but he will fatherlike provide it during our journey through this old world, just as faithfully as he provided manna for the Israelites.

6. What assurance has God given as to our bread and water, and what can be done about those having less than we do?

⁶ To those who take refuge under God’s capital organization, heavenly Zion, Jehovah gives this assurance and he has made it good to date: “He will dwell on the heights, his stronghold will be rocky fastnesses; his bread will be given to him, his water will be sure.” (Isa. 33:13-16, AT) For example, during the siege of Jerusalem by the armies of King Nebuchadnezzar, Jeremiah was imprisoned, but even there his prison-keepers “gave him daily a loaf of bread out of the bakers’ street, until all the bread in the city was spent”. (Jer. 37:16-21, AS) Likewise, through this troublous period upon Christendom and clear through the war of Armageddon Jehovah will make sure we get our bread and water to meet our need in our faithful service of him. Due to action of the enemy against us, some of our fellow children of God may not have as much as we do. In this case it is our privilege to share with them to strengthen them for God’s work with integrity. We shall always have something so as to distribute equally what God provides. As it was with the Israelites when collecting manna each day in the wilderness, “he that gathered much had nothing over, and he that gathered little had no lack, they gathered every man according to his eating.”—Ex. 16:18, AS; 2 Cor. 8:14, 15, NW.

7. How does God answer this petition in more than a material way? Why?

⁷ Knowing that “man must live, not on bread alone, but on every utterance coming forth through Jehovah’s mouth”, our heavenly Father will also supply us daily with the spiritual food through his theocratic organization, provided we daily come to his table not only feeding our minds on his written Word but also feeding our spiritual selves by doing God’s will and sharing his Word of truth with others.—Matt. 4:4, NW; Deut. 8:3, AS; John 4:34.

FORGIVING OUR DEBTS

8. What are the debts for which we ask forgiveness, and why so?

⁸ A sin of transgression against God’s law puts us in debt to him. “The wages sin pays is death.” (Rom. 6:23, NW) For our sin God could demand and exact our lives; he could banish us from his holy organization and from fellowship and association with it. He could withdraw his peace from us, breaking off all peaceful relations with us. He could make us turn in to him all that we got from him by his undeserved kindness. We owe him love, expressed in obedience; and when we sin we fail in paying our debt of love to him, for sin is unloving toward God. (Rom. 13:8-10) It is with a view of sin as being a debt to be settled with God that Jesus framed the next petition in the Lord’s prayer: “And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.” (Matt. 6:12, NW) In proof that debt here means sin, Jesus expresses the same petition in the corresponding prayer in these words: “And forgive us our sins, for we ourselves also forgive everyone that is in debt to us.”—Luke 11:4, NW.

9. What is the basis for God’s forgiveness of us, and so what must we believe and accept to pray this petition effectively?

⁹ This petition would not be authorized unless there was some basis for God’s forgiveness of us. The basis for it is not just his love and mercy in an abstract way and without regard to his perfect justice which requires death for sin. The basis for forgiveness is his love and mercy expressed in the human sacrifice of his Son Jesus Christ which completely met all the demands of justice in our behalf. When Jesus taught this prayer in the sermon on the mount he had already pronounced the forgiveness of the sins of a number whom he healed. So it was to be understood that God’s forgiveness would be through Christ Jesus, and that by his perfect ransom sacrifice. The apostle Paul, who claimed to be the foremost of sinners, says to God’s children: “The Son of his love, by means of whom we have our release by ransom, the forgiveness of our sins.” “Now he has manifested himself once for all time at the consummation of the systems of things to put sin away through the sacrifice of himself.” So to pray this part of the Lord’s prayer effectively we must sincerely believe in Christ’s sacrifice and accept it.—Luke 5:20-24; 7:47-49; Matt. 9:1-8; Col. 1:13, 14 and Heb. 9:26, NW; Gal. 1:4.

10. Why may we not ignore the sacrifice and priesthood of Jesus?

¹⁰ God does not ignore the sacrifice of his Son for sin. His absolute justice requires this sacrificial arrangement. “He loved us and sent forth his Son as a propitiatory sacrifice for our sins.” Unlike certain religious sects, as the Holiness sect and Christian Science, etc., we must be honest enough to admit our imperfections and confess our sins. We must recognize the fact of sin in us, just as the apostle Paul did and expressed it. It is absolutely necessary for us to confess our sins to God and to appeal to him for the benefits of the sacrifice of his Son and to recognize Jesus’ office as God’s High Priest. Otherwise, we can have no forgiveness. The Aaronic priesthood of the tribe of Levi in Israel has passed away, but we dare not deny