Study of the Watchtower, Jehovah helps us to endure with joy, Week of January 9 to 15, 2023, Comments and Practical Answers.

Study of the Watchtower, 9-15-January 2023, Jehovah helps us to endure with joy, Comments and Answers.

“Jehovah waits patiently to show you favor, and he will rise up to show you mercy” (IS. 30:18).

1, 2. a) What will we see in this article? 

In this article we will see that Jehovah really wants to help us endure problems so that we serve them with joy, we will see how Jehovah makes this possible and what things we have to do to make the most of his help.

1, 2. (b) What shows that Jehovah wants to help us?

It is shown by Biblical verses such as Hebrews 13:6, which says Jehovah is my help in you I will not be afraid, what can man do to me, according to the explanation of a Biblical dictionary, the word that is translated helper, in this verse refers to a person who runs to the aid of someone who asks for help. This helper is Jehovah who runs to help us when we go through distressing situations, because he has a reason and he wants to help us with all his heart.

3. In what three ways does Jehovah help us to endure with joy?

Isaiah chapter 30 gives us the answer. There it says that Jehovah listens to us attentively, guides us, blesses us now and will also bless us in the future. Knowing this helps us endure trials without ceasing to be happy 

JEHOVAH LISTENS TO US

4. a) What did Jehovah say about the Jews of Isaiah's time, and what did he allow to happen to them? 

At the beginning of chapter 30 of Isaiah Jehovah called the Jews stubborn children and said that they added more sin to sin, he also said that they were a rebellious people who did not want to hear the law of Jehovah. Jehovah then foretold that he would allow a terrible misfortune to befall them, which was fulfilled when Babylon carried them off into exile. 

4. (b) What hope did Jehovah give faithful Jews? (Isaiah 30:18, 19).

According to Isaiah 30:18,19 Jehovah gave the faithful Jews the hope that one day he would grant them his favor again, those words were fulfilled when Jehovah freed them from Babylon. Although for this they had to spend 70 years. Then some Jews were able to return to Jerusalem and wept with joy to see their land again.

5. What does Isaiah 30:19 guarantee us?

And this question is very important, since it also includes us, it says when the people in Jerusalem You surely won't cry when you cry for help, he will without fail show us favor and answer us. So that guarantees us by extension as a principle that Jehovah will listen carefully to our prayers and that he will answer them quickly, 

Sure, he helps us, but not in the way we want or when we want him, as if he worked serving us in a restaurant and we just order and he has to attend to our order immediately, it doesn't work that way, that's important to understand. The prophet says that these comforting words remind us that he is not only willing to help or assist us. You also want to do it wholeheartedly, but we must ask for your help in the right way.

6. How do Isaiah's words indicate that Jehovah hears the prayers of each of his servants?

In the first part of Isaiah chapter 30, Jehovah speaks of you, in the plural because he is speaking to his people, in that context to the people of Israel, since that was written for them. But it also has a fulfillment in modern times. Then in verse 19, he says of "you," in the singular because he is speaking to his servants individually. So God sees us as a group in the form of a nation of people and also individually or personally.

As Jehovah is a loving father, when one of his children is discouraged, he does not tell him you have to be strong like your brother, others have endured more than you. Rather, he is interested in each one of us and personally attends to our prayers.

We find similar principles that are related in Psalm 116 says: Jehovah hears my voice my prayers for help and in Psalm 57:15 there it says that he dwells in the high and holy place, but also with the crushed and those of humble spirit to revive the humble and revive the hearts of the crushed. So that is the principle that encourages us to know that our prayers are not like when someone processes an appointment in an office and there is a lot of bureaucracy, which makes us happy to know that this is not the case before God. 

However, we must understand people in general what they want to ask God for is money, health and selfishly they ask God, but here he is talking about someone who has a personal relationship with the creator and is expressing his feelings and you are asking for your help, that is very different from what is meant by the concept of prayer of people who do not know Jehovah.

7. How do Isaiah and Jesus show the importance of earnest prayer?

In the message transmitted by the words of Isaiah, he says do not give rest to him, that is to say to Jehovah, but what does this mean? Well, we should not rest, we should not stop praying, the last thing we should stop doing is praying to him. to Jehovah, curiously that is what people stop doing when they are going through problems, and our prayers must be insistent, he says that we should not let him rest from our prayers, let us not stop praying, which conveys the idea of ​​praying insistently to us . 

And Jesus said this in Luke 11:8 to 10,13, he used comparisons of a friend who insistently went to knock on the door of his other friend at night to ask for help to ask for food, and there the insistence, since this friend, seeing that his other friend was insistent, in the end ended up attending to him, with all the more reason, he says, the father will give to those who insistently ask him for the Holy Spirit, and in our requests we can also ask Jehovah to guide us to make good decisions. 

ILLUSTRATION

There we see the image of how our sister prays insistently, and the hours call attention, early in the morning, then we see around noon, then we see around 3 in the afternoon, then we see, before going to bed. These prayers do not give Jehovah rest, it is not that he is praying 24 hours, but he is setting aside a moment to pray. 

And in what activities? Before starting the day, her sister is with her daughter and she is surely going to her study center, but before leaving home she is praying, entrusting herself to God asking for his protection and his blessing, then she is cleaning, we do not know if that is Its his work and if he is at his place of work or is at home doing his work, perhaps he is at home. But the point is, she is praying then at 3 in the afternoon, maybe lunch is over, maybe she is done with daily chores, but again she keeps praying and finally she is ending her day and she is also praying, brothers, that is not giving God rest.

We see the image is a personal relationship with the creator, a direct communion and what is interesting is that his prayer is done alone, which shows that he has a personal relationship with the creator, and that is something important that we must cultivate and maintain. 

Images of a sister praying at different times of the day. 1. With your little girl before the girl leaves for school. 2. In the middle of the morning when you take a break from housework. 3. In the middle of the afternoon. 4. After your little girl goes to sleep.

What did Isaiah mean when he said to give Jehovah no rest? (See paragraph 7).

JEHOVAH LEADS US

8. How were the words of Isaiah 30:20, 21 fulfilled?

This was something very unfortunate, we will not go into details. but in a general way, he says, the army of Babylon surrounded the Holy City of Jerusalem, for a year and a half, and during that time the Jews suffered so much that anguish became as common as bread and water, we did not reach imagining everything they had to live and go through in that year and a half was frightening, these were the consequences.

According to verses 20 and 21, Jehovah promised them that he would save them if they would repent and change their attitude. Isaiah said that Jehovah was the great instructor of his people and promised them that he was going to teach them to worship him as he wants, in holiness, without idolatry, without paganism, without false gods, in integrity. These words were fulfilled when they were liberated from Babylon and it was God who organized this, who had these kings who were not Israelites, but he also gave them the orders. So Jehovah showed that he was their great instructor thanks to his guidance the Jews managed to restore pure worship.

9. What is one way that Jehovah guides us today?

Well, thinking of Isaías in the expression "you will see your great instructor with your own eyes", in that comparison the instructor is standing in front of his students, because there he says they will see him with their own eyes, if he were behind them they would not be able to see, but it says in front of their eyes they will see it. So through his organization Jehovah teaches us in our days, for this reason we are very grateful for the very clear teaching that we receive. We have been receiving this teaching, understanding and spiritual nourishment for more than 100 years, through the meetings of the assemblies of the publications of the Broadcasting and in many other ways, So all this guidance has helped us to stay and endure with joy in difficult times.

10. How do we hear God's voice behind us?

Well now going back to the example of the instructor who is walking behind his students attentive to their steps, and he is guiding them so that they know where to go. In a similar way, when we read the Bible it is as if we were listening to the voice of Jehovah, speaking to us from behind, because the Bible is the inspired word of God and we have the Bible within our reach, we have these 66 books that were inspired by God. 

And that serves as a guide for our life, so it is something that we appreciate very much that privilege of reading the Bible. So they are both habits, reading and praying, there is the key, there is the solution, reading the Bible and praying, so we can see clearly what the path is and that explains why people in the world are blinded. since they cannot see which way is.

11. What must we do to endure with joy, and why?

And why is it not enough to know what the path is, if not, you have to walk on it. So thanks to the word of Jehovah and the explanations we receive, we learn what Jehovah expects of us and how to put into practice what he teaches us and we must do it because only then will we have the certainty that Jehovah will bless us with endurance and joy .

JEHOVAH BLESSES US

12. According to Isaiah 30:23-26, how would Jehovah bless his people?

There he mentions that he would give them a spiritual blessing and a physical blessing. They would sow what was a desert and they would flourish, they would prosper in the middle of a desert, they would have light, they would have water, they would have stability, communion, and the favor of Jehovah. Once again, the Jews who returned to Israel to the land of Israel after the exile in Babylon, received an infinity of blessings, a restoration of pure worship, it was a harmony, a moment of much restoration, much peace, much joy. So the spiritual light shone seven times more, that is, completely.

13. How has the prophecy about the restoration of pure worship been fulfilled in our day?

Well, at this moment we believe that since 1919 millions of people have freed themselves from Babylon the great, the set of false religions of this world. All of them have been taken to a much better place than the promised land to a spiritual paradise, but of course this is partially, since we will see all this physical and spiritual paradise fully in the new world and let us not forget that this change is a change that only Jehovah and our Lord Jesus Christ can bring. So no one will be able to say that this restoration was thanks to the human being, if not that we owe it all thanks to Jehovah and Jesus Christ.

14. What is the spiritual paradise, and who lives in it today? (See note).

The note says that this expression refers to the safe environment in which we worship Jehovah United. The unity we enjoy globally. The same spiritual food, the same information, the understandings, the word of God, the holy spirit that we receive, a lot of spiritual food that is not contaminated with religious lies. We also have a close friendship with Jehovah and enjoy peace with our brothers who love us, who help us to joyfully endure life's problems. 

Now we enter this spiritual paradise, it does not matter if we are Anointed, if we are from the other sheep, that does not matter, all those who wish to enter can enter if they meet the requirements and we do it when we begin to worship Jehovah in the correct way and when we we try our best to imitate it.

15. Where is the spiritual paradise?

Someone could say that paradise is located in the world headquarters or is in Bethel. However, the truth is that the spiritual paradise is all over the world, it is spiritual not physical. Jehovah's servants are all over the world. So this paradise extends all over the world, regardless of our language, our location, the corner of the planet, where we are, our social class. If we are worshiping God in spirit and in truth and have direct fellowship with him, we will be able to enjoy that spiritual paradise and no matter what problem we have, we will feel Jehovah's support.

16. What must we do to continue seeing the beauty of the spiritual paradise?

We must value the Christian congregation and we do it by focusing on the beautiful things of those who live in it and not those imperfections, since we must not allow our imperfections or those of the other brothers to prevent us from seeing the beauty and unity of the Christian congregation world.

In order not to lose that connection with our creator, let us never allow anything or anyone to make us leave Jehovah. and to achieve this we must not focus on the small imperfections of our dear brothers, if we do they will prevent us from seeing their beautiful qualities and thus we would lose ourselves in this beautiful spiritual paradise, since Jehovah will reward us if we strive to see our brothers as he sees them .

17. What can each of us do to strengthen the unity of the congregation?

What each one of us can do to strengthen the unity of the congregation is to strive to promote peace, since every time we take the initiative to get along with the brothers in the congregation, we make the spiritual paradise more beautiful and We keep in mind that Jehovah attracted Pure Adoration to all who are in the spiritual paradise.

ILLUSTRATION

In this image we can see how a brother to strengthen the congregation and maintain unity, put pride aside and apologizes to another brother who may have offended and we notice that the brother receives his apologies and in this way they are promoting harmony and peace and unity in the congregation.

Picture series: 1. A brother accepts an apology from another brother at the Kingdom Hall. 2. A beautiful forest of different colors that covers the side of a mountain.

What can each of us do to make the spiritual paradise more beautiful? (See paragraphs 16 and 17).

18. What should we often meditate on, and why?

We must carefully meditate on what we learned in the word of God, in our publications. If we study and meditate, we will develop Christian qualities that will prompt us to show brotherly love and affection in the congregation, since by meditating on the blessings we have now, our friendship with Jehovah will be strengthened and by meditating on the blessings that Jehovah will give us in the future , our hope to serve you forever will be kept very much alive in our hearts.

19. (a) According to Isaiah 30:18, what can we be sure of?

We can be sure that Jehovah will rise up to act on our behalf when he puts an end to this wicked world, and we are sure of that because he is a God of justice, and we know that he will not allow Satan's world to exist for even one day. more than what justice demands, since both Jehovah and we wait patiently for the day of our Liberation to arrive.

19. (b) What will help us to endure with joy?

It will help us make the decision to value the honor of praying to him, studying his word and putting it into practice. And also to meditate on our blessings, since if we continue to do all this it will help us to serve him with endurance and joy.

HOW DOES ISAIAH CHAPTER 30 REMIND US THAT JEHOVAH IS WILLING TO DO THE NEXT FOR US?

Listen to us.

When we pray to our God about something that worries us, the first thing he may do is give us the strength to bear the situation, and if the trial does not go away as quickly as we would like, we may have to ask him many times for the strength to endure. endure. In fact, that is what he himself does not dare to do in Isaiah 62:7, since here he encourages us not to give Jehovah rest, this means that in these prayers they have to be so intense that, as it were, we do not let him rest. to Jehovah. This is not reminiscent of something Jesus said about prayer that we read about in Luke 11:8-10,13.

Guide us.

It reminds us of what he mentions in Isaiah 30:21, since first he says be on the road, and second he encourages us to walk on it. So it is not enough to know the way, since we must walk in it, that is why thanks to the word of Jehovah and the explanations that his organization gives us, we learn what Jehovah expects of us and teaches us how to put it into practice what we learn. We must do these two things to endure with joy in our service to Jehovah, since only then will we have the certainty that he will bless us. 

Bless us.

Jehovah is ready to bless us because since 1919, Millions of people have freed themselves from Babylon the Great, the set of false religions of this world and they have all been taken to a place much better than the Promised Land: to a "Spiritual Paradise". That is why we increasingly take the initiative to get along with the brothers in the congregation, and we make the spiritual paradise more beautiful, since we keep in mind that Jehovah brought all those who are in the spiritual paradise into pure worship. .