philosophies, and she has no faith. Christ is here! We are living in the time of his presence, or paroúsia, and it is a time of judgment of the nations. Jehovah God has taken his “great power and begun ruling as king” by the One delegated to “shepherd all the nations with an iron rod.” The nations have become exceedingly wrathful, and Jehovah’s own wrath has come upon the nations. It is the due time to bring to ruin those ruining the earth.—Rev. 11:15-18; 12:5, NW.

Satan, through his religious element, will try to break our faith by various arguments and labels of heresy. Through his commercial element he will try to weaken our faith by the subtle snare of materialism, and through the political wing of his organization he will try to break through our armor of faith by all sorts of wicked charges against us, even charging us with sedition as he did Jesus, and by arousing the masses against us by the false charge of being agents of this or that political power in order to “consolidate its power” over the people.

We need to remind ourselves of the apostle’s words at 2 Corinthians 13:5 (NW): “Keep testing whether you are in the faith, keep proving what you yourselves are.” We need to be very watchful lest the adversary, the Devil, who is walking about like a roaring lion “seeking to devour someone,” finds a weak spot in our armor of faith and gets one of his “burning missiles” through to our hurt or even destruction. We can conquer this enemy by ‘keeping our senses,’ being “solid in the faith,” having “the large shield of faith, with which you will be able to quench all the wicked one’s burning missiles.”—1 Pet. 5:8, 9; Eph. 6:16, NW.

This ‘latter period of time’ is one of particular danger. Scoffers, ridiculing the Word of God, ridiculing those who diligently proclaim it, have been foretold to be especially numerous. Only by faith based upon an intellectual understanding of God’s Word can anyone survive, and faith must be backed up by right works. “As for you, beloved ones, call to mind the sayings that have been previously spoken by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ, how they used to say to you: ‘In the last time there will be ridiculers, proceeding according to their own desires for ungodly things.’ These are the ones that make separations, animalistic men, not having spirituality. But you, beloved ones, by building up yourselves on your most holy faith, and praying with holy spirit, keep yourselves in God’s love, while you are waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ with everlasting life in view.”—Jude 17-21, NW.

The Filipinos Have Not Forgotten

For three centuries the people of the Philippine Islands suffered almost continuously under the church-state rule of a Catholic Spain. They were delivered from it by the United States in 1898 and were granted full freedom July 4, 1946. That the Filipinos might not forget their struggle against corrupt and intolerant churchstate rule the legislature on May 23 passed a bill (No. 1425) and the president, Ramon Magsaysay, signed it on June 16, 1956, making compulsory reading in all colleges and universities two of the novels written by the Philippine liberty lover Rizal. The tenor of the protest of these books can be seen by their titles, “Social Cancer” and “Reign of Greed.” While the Catholic Hierarchy in the Philippines strenuously opposed the passing of this bill, claiming that the books were heretical and impious, she dared not claim that they were not factual. The advocates of the bill argued that a study of these books would inculcate a love of freedom and a love of country. Incidentally, the original author of the bill is a Catholic, as also are some eighty percent of all Filipinos.