it due to the desire which we have cultivated contrary to God’s will. Thus we let it turn out an experience with spiritual hurt to us rather than one of victory for us, one building us up in our strength in God, one strengthening the ‘tested quality of our faith’ and winning God’s approval for us. We should always remember Jesus’ warning, “The spirit, of course, is willing, but the flesh is weak.” (Mark 14:38, NW; Luke 22:40, 46) Before going to Gethsemane Jesus had warned them that the prophecy he quoted must be fulfilled. Hence the fulfillment of the prophecy was not being forced upon them contrary to their wills. It came true because their flesh was weak and they had not strengthened their willing spirit by keeping awake and praying. They did not avail themselves of the divine help they needed. Consequently they entered into temptation due to a selfish desire to save their own necks, and they fled and abandoned Jesus, and Peter went farther and denied him three times.

24. How is it shown that God was not the one that brought them into temptation in Gethsemane?

²⁴ It was not God that brought them into this temptation so as to fulfill his own prophecy, for God’s Son Jesus stood the trial and he asked for his disciples to be let go unmolested. Their failure to heed Jesus and watch, pray and copy his courageous, self-sacrificing example operated for them to enter into the temptation. Since Jesus stood the trial, God had not brought the apostles into temptation by giving them a trial greater than what they could stand. Jesus’ steadfastness by God’s power should have steadied and helped them. Satan was the one that ‘sifted the apostles like wheat’, scattering them because they feared death with their Master. (Luke 22:31-34; Amos 9:9, 10; Ps. 59:11; Isa. 30:28) That God did not bring them into this temptation, but that they themselves entered into it, is shown in that later on they did find in God the strength to expose themselves to being arrested for Jesus’ sake, to being thrown into prison and being held for execution. So with Jehovah’s help they could have borne the Gethsemane trial also. Hence it follows that the heavenly Father brought them under trial at Gethsemane but did not bring them into temptation.

25. So in praying not to be brought into temptation what are we asking of the heavenly Father? What guarantees have we about it?

²⁵ So being aware of our weakness and limitations we pray in the Lord’s prayer to the heavenly Father that he will not try us and chasten us any more than an earthly father would his child. Is that not a proper prayer of a child to its father? We have God’s written guarantee that he will not do so. “For he knoweth our frame; he remembereth that we are dust. Like as a father pitieth his children, so Jehovah pitieth them that fear him.” And he says: “They shall be mine, saith Jehovah of hosts, even mine own possession, in the day that I make; and I will spare them, as a man spareth his own son that serveth him.” (Ps. 103:13, 14 and Mal. 3:17, AS) Supporting this thought, the apostle Paul vindicates God of any charge of bringing us into temptation by saying: “Let him that thinks he has a firm position beware that he does not fall. No temptation has taken you except what is common to men [like those Israelites in the wilderness]. But God is faithful and he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear, but along with the temptation he will also make the way out in order for you to be able to endure it.”—1 Cor. 10:12, 13, NW.

DELIVERANCE FROM THE WICKED ONE

26. With what petition does the prayer close, and why appropriately so?

²⁶ Where a child proves himself loyal under trial, won’t a loving earthly father rescue the child from a wicked assailant and oppressor? Yes; and so will the heavenly Father, too. Appropriately, then, Jesus closed the model prayer with this petition: “And do not bring us into temptation, but deliver us from the wicked one.” (Matt. 6:13, NW) And what deliverances God has wrought since the establishment of his kingdom in 1914! It is as though he was answering the prayer of old: “Command deliverances for Jacob.” He is a Deliverer.—Ps. 44:4-8; 2 Cor. 1:10; 2 Tim. 3:11; 4:17, 18.

27. For what classes has God accomplished a deliverance since 1919?

²⁷ Since A.D. 1919 God has delivered the remnant on earth of his Kingdom heirs from great mystic Babylon, Satan’s world. He has sent his Son Jesus Christ to the place of power in the heavenly Zion to act as a Deliverer in their behalf and to turn away all the ungodliness of mystic Babylon from them and free them from their fears. This deliverance he accomplished in fulfillment of the prophecy: “All the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God,” for in all the earth his remnant are active as his liberated servants and witnesses and are demonstrating their freedom from Babylon. (Isa. 59:18, 19; 52:1, 2, 10-14; Rom. 11:26) Hence all the people of good will in all nations see the salvation and deliverance Jehovah God has effected for his remnant, and they are being shown the way to get deliverance from Babylon too. So Almighty God is now accomplishing the deliverance of this great crowd of “other sheep”, just as he delivered Lot from doomed Sodom long ago.—2 Pet. 2:7, 9.

28. In view of all the wicked features of the situation now, of what divine provision must we make use for protection and victory?

²⁸ Meantime we must put on the full suit of armor from God and stand firm in it and keep praying. Doing so we keep ourselves from having the wicked one Satan the Devil fasten his hold on us, though we are in the world which is lying in the power of that wicked one. (1 John 5:18, 19, NW) We know that the days are wicked, and that wicked men and impostors were foretold to advance from bad to worse and they have reached their worst in these last days. Hence if we hope to withstand the onslaught of the wicked one and his demons in this wicked day, we must don the full suit of armor from God. With its shield of faith we can “quench all the wicked one’s burning missiles” and in this manner endure the trial of our faith: “this is the conquest that has conquered the world, our faith.”—Eph. 5:15; 6:11-18, NW; 1 Pet. 1:6, 7; 1 John 5:4, NW.

29. If we thus do our part, what will God do?

²⁹ If we thus do our part God will faithfully do his part for our deliverance. As it is written: “Faith is not a possession of all people. But the Lord is faithful, and he will make you firm and keep you from the wicked one. May the Lord continue directing your hearts successfully into the love of God and into the endurance for the Christ.”—2 Thess. 3:2, 3, 5, NW.

30, 31. But what does answer to the petition for deliverance mean now, and how does the prayer close?

³⁰ For us who live in the “time of the end” of this world our heavenly Father’s answer to our prayer, “Deliver us from the wicked one,” means more than just keeping us out of Satan’s power and rescuing us from his mighty organization while He leaves him and his organization still on the loose. Answer now to that prayer means a deliverance by preserving us against wicked Satan’s final attacks in this time of the end and destroying him and all his organization whereas we survive the end of his world. This salvation or deliverance our Father effects by means of his kingdom for which we pray, asking that it come against Satan’s organization and destroy it. Thus here on the earth to which Satan and his demons have now been restrained God’s will is to be done, and after those wicked spirits are abyssed at Armageddon they will not molest anyone on earth during the thousand years of Christ’s kingdom.

³¹ Thus the Lord’s prayer closes on a note of triumph with full confidence in Jehovah’s victory. It is now near complete answer.

Theocracy’s Increase in Burma

This article continues the series reporting on the travels of the Watchtower Society’s president, N. H. Knorr, and his secretary, M. G. Henschel.

THE Rangoon airport is located at Mingaladon, several miles from the city. When we stepped out of the plane and into the waiting bus which drove us to the terminal building we saw no sign of any of the publishers and we wondered whether conditions in Burma had worsened and they had not been able to make the trip out. On account of the delay in the flight the brothers had been misinformed about the plane that had arrived and they were waiting inside to be advised when the Bangkok plane landed. The first our brothers saw of us was at 5:40 and they thought we would not arrive until 6, so all of us were surprised and glad to meet. The publishers related how two weeks earlier the insurgents in the country had blown up the water line and they were without water for some days. They were glad that things were now restored and the convention would not be affected. On the way to the meeting hall we passed a high barbed-wire fence with many guards on duty at the gates and we were informed that inside this compound lived the high officials of the government who had to be protected because of the war conditions in the country.

We were scheduled to speak to the convention already in session that evening and it surely was a delight to see the fine increase in the organization. In 1947 when we visited before there were only 19 publishers there and then we were meeting on the outskirts of the city in a little Kingdom Hall built of bamboo poles and covered with woven palm leaves. But now the company had grown and moved into the heart of the town, 106 Brooking street, one flight up. The hall was filled; 80 persons had assembled from various parts of Burma. Most of them were from the city of Rangoon itself because travel is difficult in Burma at the present time. Because the plane left Bangkok late the meeting was on when Brother Henschel and I walked into the hall. A round of applause came up when they saw us. They were happy that we had arrived. Brother Henschel talked first and a brother in Burmese