says the Bible writer Jude, “are placed before us as a warning example by undergoing the judicial punishment of everlasting fire.”—Jude 7, NW.

JUDGMENT DAY SINCE 1918

What does all this mean? The apostle Peter answers: “By reducing the cities Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes he condemned them, setting a pattern for ungodly persons of things to come.” So Sodom’s judgment day pictured the judgment day that would come upon the peoples of the nations in the “last days,” where we now are. Since 1918 the enthroned King Christ Jesus has been judging the peoples of the nations. Jesus does not have to be on the earth to do this, but he does it invisibly from heaven as he foretold: “When the Son of man arrives in his glory and all the angels with him, then he will sit down on his glorious throne. And all the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another.” Upon what does Jesus base his judgment? Upon peoples’ response to the preaching of the good news of the established kingdom by Jehovah’s witnesses. Jesus foretold that this world-wide witness work would be done during his second presence: “This good news of the kingdom will be preached in all the inhabited earth for the purpose of a witness to all the nations, and then the accomplished end will come.”—2 Pet. 2:6; Matt. 25:31, 32; 24:14, NW.

“The accomplished end” means the culmination of this judgment period, the war of Armageddon. Then Jehovah enforces his judgment of condemnation by “the revelation of the Lord Jesus from heaven with his powerful angels in a flaming fire, as he brings due punishment upon those who do not know God and those who do not obey the good news about our Lord Jesus. These very ones will pay the penalty of everlasting destruction.” So those who die at Armageddon will pay the same penalty as the people of Sodom did; that is, they will not have a “resurrection of judgment” during the 1,000-year judgment day, but they will stay dead forever.—2 Thess. 1:7-9, NW.

To survive Armageddon and to enter the 1,000-year judgment day, during which mankind will be brought back to perfection, will be an incomparable blessing. It is a blessing open to all, no matter what their past life, if they heed the warning message now and worship Jehovah in obedient service. Most people, though, will take the indifferent attitude, which places them in the goat class. The Master foretold this mental attitude. “Just as it occurred in the days of Noah,” and “just as it occurred in the days of Lot,” declared Jesus, “the same way it will be on that day when the Son of man is to be revealed.” The people in Noah’s day were too busy to listen to Noah; if they did they scoffed. In Lot’s time some of Sodom’s citizens thought that their judgment day was just a joke. They had a good laugh but it was cut short by their everlasting destruction. So Jesus tells us not to act in the same oblivious, noninvestigating manner. Peter does also: “In the last days there will come ridiculers with their ridicule.” What will be the object of their laughter? The preaching of the news that Christ has taken up his Kingdom power and is now judging the peoples of the nations. This, together with the urgent warning of Armageddon, the masses think farfetched, just a joke.—Luke 17:26, 28, 30; 2 Pet. 3:3, NW.

But Jehovah’s witnesses are not joking. They would not, year after year, day after day, preach unceasingly from house to house, in the people’s homes and on the public streets if their message were a joke. So earnestly serious are they that to sound the warning of Armageddon’s nearness, they spent, in 1954, a monumental 80,814,996 hours. Avail yourself of the opportunity to hear this most urgent of all messages thoroughly. Carefully investigate it by using your Bible. Your destiny is at stake. So remember Sodom’s laughing citizens and their fate. Remember Jesus’ warning comparison of that time with today. Benefit now by knowing that this present judgment day is for a certainty not a joke.

Abraham and the Hittites

THE Hittites were the descendants of the Biblical patriarch Heth, who was a grandson of Ham through Canaan. (Gen. 10:6, 15) The word Hittite(s) occurs 47 times in the Hebrew Scriptures, while the name Heth is used 14 times, thus indicating an outstanding ancient people appearing on the scenes of Biblical history all the way from early post-Flood days to the period of the Hebrew kings. (Gen. 15:20; 2 Sam. 11:3; 2 Chron. 8:7) Secular ancient history knew nothing of these ancient people until after 1871, when archaeologists began to find inscriptions mentioning the Hittites, thus confirming the Bible record of their existence.a

In 1906 in Asia Minor 90 miles east of Ankara, Turkey, excavations were begun of what proved to be the ancient Hittite capital city, Boghaz-keui, where some ten thousand clay tablets were found written in the Hittite and other dead languages of the past.b Many of these tablet-documents have now been deciphered and from them much of the language, laws and culture of the Hittites has been reconstructed. It is now commonly accepted that the Hittites operated a vast ancient empire dominating most of Asia Minor with an extension of their political control over most of Palestine from the years of about 2000 to 1200 B.C. Therefore Hittite government and law dominated much of the land of Canaan during the sojourn of Abraham in the Promised Land.

The Scriptures are clear that while Jehovah God gave Abraham the promise of Palestine as the future home for his posterity, yet Abraham himself during all the rest of his life remained a temporary resident moving about from place to place with his flocks. (Gen. 15:18-21; Heb. 11:9) This meant that for any business or legal transactions with the city organizations existing in Palestine, it became necessary for Abraham to conform to the dominating law of those cities. In 1951 there were published in London English and Hebrew translations of two hundred paragraphs of Hittite legislation, having reconstructed two hundred laws from the tablets found in 1906 and subsequently. Several of these laws shed interesting background information