***w67 7/15p.427 FestivalsofPraisetoJehovah***
5 It is good to know that this weekly sabbath of the Jews is only “a shadow of the good things to come.” The Bible indicates that Jehovah created the heavens and the earth in six days, each 7,000 years in length. On the seventh day Jehovah rested from his creative work and entered into his sabbath. Mankind, however did not keep peaceful rest or sabbath with Jehovah, but through disobedience came into bondage to sin, imperfection and death. Almost six thousand years of the seventh day have passed and there is only a little more than a thousand years left. Jesus, speaking of the weekly sabbath day, said: “The sabbath came into existence for the sake of man, and not man for the sake of the sabbath.” So these last thousand years are set aside by Jehovah for a special purpose foreshadowed by the weekly sabbath of the Jews, namely, for the reign of Christ Jesus, his Son, for Jesus went on to say: “Hence the Son of man is Lord even of the sabbath.” (Mark 2:27, 28) It is a thousand-year sabbath within Jehovah’s great 7,000-year sabbath of rest. Like the weekly sabbath, the greater thousand-year sabbath will be devoted to the worship of Jehovah, and to the education of all the living, including those resurrected from the memorial tombs, in the righteous requirements of Jehovah.-Heb. 10:1; Gen. 2:1-3; John 5:28, 29.
***w67 7/15 pp.446-447TheRemovalofMankind’sChiefDisturber***
According to the Bible timetable, man’s history on earth has been nearly 6,000 years. Adam was created in 4026 B.C.E., which means that six thousand years of human history end about the fall of 1975 C.E. We are in the great 7,000-year rest day of God, starting at the time he rested after the creation of Adam and Eve. There are, therefore, a thousand years left to run. Without Satan and his demons to disturb mankind it will indeed be a restful time. It will be like a sabbath. In a way it will be a sabbath within a sabbath. The last thousand years of God’s great seven-thousand-year rest is a special sabbath over which the Son of man will be Lord.-Matt. 12:8.
***w69 5/15 p.312HaveYouBeenStudyingforSixMonths?***
In view of the short time left in which to do their work, Jehovah’s witnesses do not continue to study the Bible with any who fail to respond to its urgent message within six months. The nearness of this system’s end compels them to use their time in the most effective way possible.
***w69 10/15 p.623par.42TheApproachingPeaceofaThousandYears***
42 In order for the Lord Jesus Christ to be “Lord even of the sabbath day,” his thousand-year reign would have to be the seventh in a series of thousand-year periods or millenniums. (Matt. 12:8, AV) Thus it would be a sabbatic reign. Since early in the existence of mankind Satan the Devil has been on the loose, making the human family to toil in hard bondage, causing the earth to be filled with violence before the global flood of Noah’s day and inducing the same old earth to be filled with even greater violence today. Soon now six millenniums of his wicked exploiting of mankind as his slaves will end, within the lifetime of the generation that has witnessed world events since the close of the Gentile Times in 1914 till now, according to the prophetic words of Jesus in Matthew 24:34. Would not, then, the end of six millenniums of mankind’s laborious enslavement under Satan the Devil be the fitting time for Jehovah God to usher in a Sabbath millennium for all his human creatures? Yes, indeed! And his King Jesus Christ will be Lord of that Sabbath.