dominions shall serve and obey them.”—Dan. 7:13, 14, 22, 27, RS.

23. In fighting against God’s decision and arrangement, why will the nations be acting with impractical wisdom?

²³ Let the missile-equipped, space-probing nations fight a hot or a cold war over this issue of world domination. There would be absolutely no need to fight if they merely recognized Jehovah God’s decision and action in the matter. In their ignoring and unwittingly fighting against God’s decision and arrangement in the matter they may act with all the accumulated military wisdom of the ages; but they will nonetheless act with impractical wisdom. Theirs will be a war of miscalculation indeed, for they misjudge Jehovah God by the apparently weak, defenseless appearance of his witnesses on earth, the true followers of the Lamb Jesus Christ. Hence concerning the nations who lack practical wisdom and who show no more understanding than a brute beast it is written: “These will battle with the Lamb, but, because he is Lord of lords and King of kings, the Lamb will conquer them. Also those called and chosen and faithful with him will do so.”—Rev 17:12-14.

EXERCISE OF FORETHOUGHT WISE

24, 25. (a) What is the attitude of those who desire to be on the winning side in the universal fight? (b) What advice of the Lamb do we follow?

²⁴ Persons who desire to be on the winning side in the universal fight for world domination do not follow the nations in ignorance of the sacred secret of God. They do not care to be drawn into any war of miscalculation against God and his Lamb Jesus Christ. In harmony with “God’s wisdom in a sacred secret, the hidden wisdom,” these lovers of life and happiness follow the advice of the Lamb Jesus Christ that he gave when a notably great crowd followed him. The question was, Would they all continue to follow him to the end? Did they fully know what this required? So concerning this we read:

²⁵ “Now great crowds were traveling with him, and he turned and said to them: ‘If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own soul, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever is not carrying his torture stake and coming after me cannot be my disciple. For example, who of you that wants to build a tower does not first sit down and figure out the expense, to see if he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, he might lay its foundation but not have the funds to finish it, and all the onlookers might start to ridicule him, saying: “This man started to build but had not the funds to finish.” Or what king, marching to meet another king in war does not first sit down and take counsel whether he is able with ten thousand troops to cope with the one that comes against him with twenty thousand? If, in fact, he cannot do so, then while that one is yet far away he sends out a body of ambassadors and sues for peace. Thus, you may be sure, none of you that does not say good-bye to all his belongings can be my disciple. Salt, to be sure, is fine. But if even the salt loses its strength, with what will it be mixed? It is suitable neither for soil nor for manure. People throw it outside. Let him that has ears to listen listen.’”—Luke 14:25-35.

26. What would be practical wisdom with regard to building a watchtower or going to war with a superior enemy?

²⁶ To get the security or the protection of property that a watchtower makes possible, one has to have the funds with which to complete it to its required height. To avoid ridicule or the poking of fun at one, one has to be practical in wisdom and calculate first whether one has enough money to complete the proposed tower, before one ever starts building and wasting time, material, energy and money and showing unwisdom. In war, to avoid suffering a calamitous defeat or even the wiping out of his army and himself, a king has to show good sense and do some calculating. Can he win against the king coming with a double-size army and possibly better equipped? Or would it be safer to sue for peace and not risk a fight? If this latter course is advisable, then it would be practical wisdom for the weaker king to sue for peace.

27. How was worldly wisdom shown respecting handling the 1959 Berlin crisis, but how do the nations not act with practical wisdom concerning the impending universal war?

²⁷ Not otherwise in this space age. Even in the Berlin crisis of 1959 the need to negotiate was seen to be advisable rather than to risk a nuclear war with all the disastrous consequences to both sides in the conflict. But how about the impending universal war between God Almighty and all this wicked system of things? Ah, in this more serious case the nations see no need to negotiate, no need to send now before Armageddon comes like a surprise attack and sue for peace with Almighty God. Yet they cannot possibly win against him. To continue to ignore Jehovah’s warnings through his witnesses until the battle is joined at Armageddon means annihilation for all the nations of this world. So they show no practical wisdom.

28. Where has the spirit of revelation shown us that the kings of earth are being gathered, and why cannot we afford to be like them?

²⁸ We toward whom God’s loving-kindness has abounded in all wisdom and good sense cannot afford to do like the world rulers. We must act with the “spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the accurate knowledge of him, the eyes of your heart having been enlightened.” With our enlightened eyes we see what the prophetic Revelation has said concerning the “expressions inspired by demons” that come forth through the mouths of impressive speakers: “They go forth to the kings of the entire inhabited earth, to gather them together to the war of the great day of God the Almighty. And they gathered them together to the place that is called in Hebrew Armageddon.” (Rev. 16:13, 14, 16, footnote) We have the accurate knowledge that the kings are being gathered to destruction at the hands of God Almighty and his King of kings. Personally, we witnesses of Jehovah have acted with practical wisdom and refused to go along with them.

29. How have we acted unlike those kings, and how have we shown hate of those dear to us according to the flesh?

²⁹ We have sued for peace with God through his Lamb Jesus Christ, through whose blood we have the release from condemnation and the forgiveness of our trespasses against God. We have counted the cost, figured out the cost of a thorough, complete undertaking. Determined to meet all personal expenses involved and being sure that with God’s help we can meet the expense, we have said good-by to all our selfish belongings and have dedicated ourselves to God to be disciples of his now-reigning Son, Jesus Christ. This has meant hating or loving less our personal fleshly relatives, father, mother, wife, children, brothers and sisters. Even our present earthly life we cannot afford to hold too dear to us.

30, 31. (a) Why must we be the “salt of the earth” all the time? (b) After we have undertaken discipleship, why is it impractical wisdom for us to drop out?

³⁰ Now that we have been for some time in the way following Christ as his disciples, we dare not grow weak in our decidedness. We dare not become like salt that loses its strength and is no longer fine. To become so would mean to become useless, a subject of ridicule to this world and unfit for God, in fact, a reproach upon God, hence like strengthless, contaminated salt fit only to be thrown out and trampled underfoot. Yes, it means destruction.

³¹ We must continue to be the “salt of the earth” all the time. (Matt. 5:13) It is practical wisdom first to sit down and figure out the expense of undertaking discipleship. It is impractical wisdom, therefore, after we have undertaken it, to refuse to pay the further expense and continue in discipleship to the end. Worldly wisdom may make it appear to be the best thing for one to drop out, but such wisdom is not practical. It is not good sense, for it dictates what may be selfishly advantageous for the time being but what will mean disgrace and destruction in the end. Practical wisdom never hesitates to pay the running expenses until the entire cost is met and the glorious reward of discipleship is ours! We must follow God’s Lamb no matter where he goes!—Rev. 14:4.

Displaying Practical Wisdom as Sons of Light

1. What are we obligated to display for the sake of sheeplike people, and what course does this mean for us in this space age?

IT IS our obligation to display practical wisdom for the sake of the sheeplike people who need faithful shepherds. We dare not be like Bildad the Shuhite in the prophetic drama of Job. This Bildad did not help to solve afflicted Job’s problem. Rather, he cast doubts upon Job’s integrity and urged another course of action for Job. So Job said to Bildad: “O how much help you have been to one without power! O how you have saved an arm that is without strength! How much you have advised one that is without wisdom, and you have made practical wisdom itself known to the multitude!” May such a word not need to be said reproachfully to us in this space age. If we desire to prove ourselves real friends and sincere comforters, and not “physicians of no value” to the sheeplike ones in their affliction today, we have to make known the course of practical wisdom to them. (Job 26:1-3; 13:4) That course is for us to interest them, not in outer space, but in the heavens where they can lay up bomb-proof treasure with Jehovah God and his Christ.

2. On the impracticalness of modern worldly programs what did a manager of space programs recently say to a conference of scientists?

² On the impracticalness of modern worldly programs, Dr. A. R. J. Grosch caused an uproar at the conference of scientists at California Institute of Technology when he, as manager of space programs for the International Business Machines Corporation, shouted: “Our missile program is the swan song of a dying civilization. We don’t need better missiles to destroy each other—the ones we have now will do the job adequately. And there isn’t any point in zooming off into outer space. We could spend the money better solving problems here at home—taking care of our overcrowded, underfed millions. If we did that, we wouldn’t need to find new worlds to colonize.” He added: “We are in a bad way, I’m afraid, when we try to solve our problem by mass killing—or by paddling off to a bigger island in space.”—New York Times, page 2, March 21, 1959.