a peace that is unique, based on principle, and does not depend upon our environment. By reason of exercising faith we have been able to come into peaceful relations with Jehovah God, and now we must work at maintaining our possession of peace. We must be at peace with our brothers and, as far as it depends upon us, we want to be at peace with our neighbor, whoever he may be.

²⁷ That means being peace-minded, making peace our pursuit, praying for peace, working at peace, guarding against the many peace-disturbers and, in particular, being on guard against Satan the Devil, the great peace-wrecker. It means cultivating all the rest of the fruits of the spirit so conducive to peace. We do want to maintain our possession of peace, for peace makes for well-being of mind and body, makes for effective activity and results in happiness.

28. What relation is there between peace and happiness?

²⁸ Is not Jehovah God the happy God, and Jesus Christ the happy Potentate? Yes, they are, and if we would be happy we must have their peace. “Those counseling peace have rejoicing.” And did not Jesus say: “Happy are the peaceable, since they will be called ‘sons of God’”? Do we appreciate the implication of those words? In other words, peaceableness is an identifying characteristic of God’s children, even as is their love and their message. So let us ever safeguard the peace of God, our possession.—Prov. 12:20; Matt. 5:9.

Image Worship Brings Incurable Disease

WHICH is more important, your physical or your spiritual health? Many have gone to the shrine at Lourdes to get rid of their physical diseases, and in thousands of places prayers for healing are offered up to the image of Mary. Pagans also pray to their images for physical cures. When they do this, what are they doing to themselves spiritually? God’s command to Christians is: “Little children, guard yourselves from idols.” (1 John 5:21) The nation of Israel suffered terrible spiritual sickness by turning away from the commandments of God and violating his command not to make an image of anything in heaven or that is in the earth. But they used images in worship. (Isa. 1:4-6; Ezek. 8:3, 10; 1 Ki. 12:28-30) This eventually resulted in terrible physical diseases upon the nation, as God had forewarned.—Deut. 28:15, 27, 58-61; Ezek. 6:5.

It would follow that worship of an image today would bring spiritual sickness that would eventually result in literal death. One should not think that it makes no difference as to what one’s spiritual health is, for it is really spiritual sickness that has resulted in the woes and distresses that are on humankind today. God looks upon one as to what he is spiritually. He may be a physically healthy person but a spiritual skeleton. On the other hand, he may be very weak and sickly physically but healthy in a spiritual way. If God looks upon you as spiritually healthy, you are on the way to living forever. If you are in a spiritually diseased condition and remain that way, you are in real danger of lasting death.

A TIME OF EXAMINATION

The reason these things are stated here is that everyone is in peril—peril from an incurable disease because of being drawn into image worship, which he may not even realize that he is committing. In previous articles this magazine has pointed out that God is angry with this world and that he is expressing his anger in the form of the plagues described in Revelation, chapter 16. These plagues are symbolic and point out the various world conditions as viewed from God’s judicial standpoint and portend what is to result to the world from his judicial opinion as to the peoples of the world. Ours is a time when the situation described at Psalm 11:4-7 exists: “Jehovah is in his holy temple. Jehovah—in the heavens is his throne. His own eyes behold, his own beaming eyes examine the sons of men. Jehovah himself examines the righteous one as well as the wicked one, and anyone loving violence His soul certainly hates. He will rain down upon the wicked ones traps, fire and sulphur and a scorching wind, as the portion of their cup. For Jehovah is righteous; he does love righteous acts. The upright are the ones that will behold his face.” By carrying out such a procedure, which includes the seven plagues of Revelation, Jehovah makes it evident to men that he is in his holy temple.

As John watches the scene against the temple as a background, he hears a voice. John says: “And I heard a loud voice out of the sanctuary say to the seven angels: ‘Go and pour out the seven bowls of the anger of God into the earth.’” (Rev. 16:1) The last verse 8 of Revelation, chapter 15, shows that Jehovah God is in his temple sanctuary in the heavens, with no one else able to enter it for the time being. Jehovah’s being in his temple would mark the time for these plagues to be poured out, for it is the time that he judges and tests his people and executes judgment against those falsely and hypocritically claiming to serve him, according to the prophecy at Malachi 3:1-5. It would be after Babylon the Great suffered a fall, which God caused to take place in 1919 for “the vengeance for his temple.” (Jer. 50:28; 51:11) Great Babylon, the world empire of false religion, would have to be exposed as false and lose the power to hold her unwilling captives. Then those desiring to escape the plagues could do so, for Babylon herself will suffer destructive plagues to her complete annihilation.

FIRST BOWL POURED OUT INTO “EARTH”

The first angel carries out his divinely given service: “And the first one went off and poured out his bowl into the earth. And a hurtful and malignant ulcer came to be upon the men that had the mark of the wild beast and that were worshiping its image.” (Rev. 16:2) So the bowl is poured out toward the earth in which image-worshiping men live.

By “the earth,” our planet is not meant, but, rather, the people who live upon it. (Gen. 11:1; Rev. 13:3) More specifically, just as on the third creative day the earth, dry land, appeared, projecting out of the surging waters upon the face of the earth, so the term is used here to describe the