E-mail going around JW land.
Illustration about obedience given by a brother at a new Kingdom Hall in New England:
'...do you realize that in the Bible there are many instances of situations where Jehovah's people were given directions that made no sense from a human standpoint and seemed totally illogical? For instance - Abraham sacrificing Isaac; Noah building an ark when there had never been rain; Moses having the Israelites march out in battle formation and then marching back in the direction they left. Pharaoh thought they were crazy and then Moses led them to the Red Sea; Pharaoh thought he could kill them all as their backs were against the wall (sea). Also Gideon; his army was whittled down to 300 men. With torches and jars they went out to defeat the enemy. And what about Jericho; for six days they marched around the city once and on the seventh day they marched seven times and then shouted. Then there was Jehoshophat who was afraid when the Ammonites and others were coming to annihilate them. He prayed, and Jehovah said put the singers and women and children in front of the armed forces and go and meet the enemy! All of these situations were Jehovah's direction but they seemed foolish, illogical from a human standpoint. It seemed each time as if they would be killed.'
Then the brother asked this question: 'Do you have the faith to follow the direction of the faithful and discreet slave in these last days even if you don't understand what they are asking and it seems as if you will die because the direction is illogical? Will you quickly obey and trust the channel Jehovah is using?' He told us to carefully meditate on that because we will be in a similar situation in the tribulation where we will think we are facing death, but we need to obey quickly the directions given.'