true. The older we get the more knowledge we acquire and the more wisdom we gain. So we have better understanding. God wrote his Word, the Bible, for a very definite purpose, “for our instruction.” (Rom. 15:4) Therefore, we should keep on reading it and truly studying it. With more knowledge true Christians can appreciate the principles of truth and righteousness. A Christian having instruction can endure and face the difficulties, persecutions and hardships while walking in his integrity. God’s Word strengthens him to be a publisher of the Kingdom, maybe a missionary or a pioneer, or circuit servant or district servant somewhere in Jehovah’s visible organization. God is not unmindful of what faithful Christians are doing. Paul appreciated this and so he wrote: “For God is not unrighteous so as to forget your work and the love you showed for his name, in that you have ministered to the holy ones and continue ministering. But we desire each one of you to show the same industriousness so as to have the full assurance of the hope down to the end, in order that you may not become sluggish, but be imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.”—Heb. 6:10-12.

Lovers of God’s Name

1. To what extent have Jehovah’s witnesses shared the good news from God’s Word with others during the past year?

JEHOVAH appreciates the great love Christians show for his name. “God is not unrighteous so as to forget your work,” and true Christians are happy to be called Jehovah’s Christian witnesses, declaring his name in 200 lands, even to the ends of the earth. The service year of 1968 proves they are not sluggish but truly industrious, because 1,221,504 publishers spent 208,666,762 hours preaching the good news of God’s established kingdom. How many members of Christendom’s denominations go from house to house as do Jehovah’s witnesses, to aid people in their private study of the Bible? Very, very few! But Jehovah’s Christian witnesses conducted 977,503 home Bible studies every week for twelve months during 1968. What a joy this has been for these ministers! They are imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises, showing their faith by their works. Look at Abraham, look at Isaac and Jacob. Consider Moses, David, Gideon. These men worked industriously at God’s work, and God has remembered them and we find a good report about them in the eleventh chapter of Hebrews.

2. (a) Why should twentieth-century Christians show even greater faith than did the faithful men of ancient times? (b) How can true Christians follow the advice of Luke 21:28?

² If those ancient men had such faith and “did not get the fulfillment of the promises,” Christians today should show a greater faith. (Heb. 11:13) Why? Because we are at the threshold of what those faithful men of ancient time were looking for. We can recognize the physical facts marking the end of this system of