Down with the Old—Up with the New!

“See, I have commissioned you this day to be over the nations and over the kingdoms, in order to uproot and to pull down and to destroy and to tear down, to build and to plant.”—Jer. 1:10.

1. Who were the ones foretold to be hated by all nations on account of Jesus’ name?

“THEN people will deliver you up to tribulation and will kill you, and you will be hated by all the nations on account of my name. . . . And this good news of the kingdom will be preached in all the inhabited earth for the purpose of a witness to all the nations, and then the accomplished end will come.” (Matt. 24:9-14) The speaker of these words, on account of whose name they would be hated by all the nations, was Jesus Christ. Those who would be hated by all the nations were his disciples, followers who were associated with his name and who preached in his name. They were Christians, of the real sort, not afraid to endure hatred on account of his name. When was this hatred to burn against them?

2. When was this hatred to burn against them?

² The time adverb then locates it at the time when Jesus’ prophecy was fulfilled: “Nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be food shortages and earthquakes in one place after another. All these things are a beginning of pangs of distress.” This beginning of pangs of distress, with more pangs and severer pangs due to come, was to mark the beginning of the consummation of the system of things.—Matt. 24:7, 8, 3.

3. When did the international pangs of distress begin, and what movement of things started taking place?

³ Our well-known modern history supplies us with the proof that that beginning of pangs of distress, that beginning of the consummation of the system of things, was forty-four years ago, in the year 1914. On July 28 of that year the kingdom of Austria declared war on the kingdom of Serbia. World War I followed, accompanied by the many other things that Jesus foretold. At that momentous time something began to go down, and something else began to come up.

4. What is it that Jesus’ followers have to do with the nations?

⁴ According to the words of Jesus just quoted, his real and true followers must have something to do with the nations. Of course, they may have nothing to do with national politics; yet they do find themselves living among all nations of the earth, there to suffer being hated by all the nations and there to preach this good news of the Kingdom everywhere for the purpose of a witness to all the nations, which means also those nations in Europe and in North, Central and South America.

5. What is the reason that Jesus’ followers are hated by all nations—merely the bearing of his name, or what?

⁵ Why should they be hated by all nations? It cannot be just on account of Christ’s name. In Europe and in the Americas as well as in the rest of Christendom there are hundreds of millions of people who are called Christians, and they are by no means hated. Rather, they are loved by the nations of this world. Still, anyone can take a name. So, besides the mere name, there must be another reason that causes this hatred by one and all the nations. This other thing must be that which Christ’s truly named followers do in fulfillment of his own prophecy. It must be their preaching “this good news of the kingdom” for the purpose of a witness. What kingdom? Well, which kingdom or which political government on earth today is a source of good news? None! Jesus did not prophetically refer to any of these. There was just one kingdom that he always talked about—just one, so that there is no mistaking. This was the kingdom of God. It is the only source for good news today. Jesus’ followers today mark themselves as genuine Christians by preaching just this kingdom and by being willing to be hated by all nations for preaching this kingdom.

6. According to Jesus’ prophecy concerning them, his followers would be very much like whom, and why so?

⁶ Nothing, therefore, is plainer than this, that Jesus Christ foretold that his followers who would bear witness to all nations would have startling things to say or preach about the ending of the old and the beginning of the new. For this reason they would raise a storm of international protest and would suffer hatred by all the old nations. In this regard they are very much like the ancient prophet Jeremiah, who lived and preached more than six hundred years before Jesus Christ. When Jesus was on earth, many Jews mistook him for Jeremiah the prophet. (Matt. 16:13, 14) Jesus quoted things from the prophecy of Jeremiah. In turn, Jeremiah foretold things concerning Jesus Christ. Jeremiah also foretold important things concerning the followers of Jesus. In fact, Jeremiah prophetically prefigured the remnant or remaining ones of Jesus’ consecrated, anointed followers on earth in this time of the outgoing of the old and the incoming of the new.

7. When Jeremiah began preaching, what was about to happen in the religious realm, and so why is it now necessary to listen to the remnant prefigured by Jeremiah?

⁷ The time of Jeremiah’s living greatly determined this prefigurement and its fulfillment today. He began prophesying at a time when a most heart-rending thing was about to happen, a thing almost unbelievable. This was the destruction of the holy city of Jerusalem and the plundering and burning down of its temple dedicated to the worship of Jehovah God. Just forty years from when Jeremiah began to prophesy in witness of Jehovah, that tremendous religious shock took place; from 647 B.C., which was the thirteenth year of the reign of good King Josiah in Jerusalem, to 607 B.C., the year that the Babylonian armies under the conquering King Nebuchadnezzar destroyed the temple built by Solomon the wise. Today fear is more and more being expressed for the organized religion of Christendom. What is to come of it? For an answer, people should listen to the plain preaching by the remnant prefigured by Jeremiah, for these preach to men the present-day fulfillment of Jeremiah’s prophecies.

8, 9. (a) How and by whom did Jeremiah become a prophet? (b) When was it timely for Jeremiah to take on God’s work, and why was he not to be afraid of the faces of older men?

⁸ Who made them a prophet to speak with the authority that they claim? Well, who made Jeremiah a prophet? Jeremiah was a son of a Jewish priest in the city of Anathoth to the north of Jerusalem. That fact did not automatically make him a prophet. He did not make himself a prophet. He could not have done so, especially since he was set apart to be a prophet before he was born. Still he could of his own accord agree to and submit to serving as a prophet when told of the vocation for which he was marked out. Jeremiah tells us how and by whom he became a prophet: “The word of Jehovah began to occur to me, saying: ‘Before I proceeded to form you in the belly I knew you, and before you began to come forth from the womb I sanctified you. Prophet to the nations I made you.’ But I said: ‘Alas, O Lord Jehovah! Here I actually do not know how to speak, for I am but a boy.’ And Jehovah went on to say to me: ‘Do not say, “I am but a boy.” But to all those to whom I shall send you, you should go; and everything that I shall command you, you should speak. Do not be afraid because of their faces, for “I am with you to deliver you,” is the utterance of Jehovah.’” (Jer. 1:4-8) It is evident that Jeremiah was born for a work. The question was, Would he fit himself to the work? Would he be willing to undertake it? His feeling unequal to the assignment did not decide matters.

⁹ Jeremiah did not resist or rebel because work was cut out for him. Showing still further how God made him a prophet, he tells us: “Jehovah proceeded to thrust his hand out and cause it to touch my mouth. Then Jehovah said to me: ‘Here I have put my words in your mouth. See, I have commissioned you this day to be over the nations and over the kingdoms, in order to uproot and to pull down and to destroy and to tear down, to build and to plant.’” (Jer. 1:9, 10) Jeremiah’s being a boy, either in years or in his own estimation, was no real obstacle. When one is young is when one should make it one’s purpose to take on God’s work. Besides, in Jeremiah’s case it was to be no short-term job. In his case it was to be a responsible work of forty years in length, and then some. For him to carry it out in its fullness, it was timely for him to begin when young, in boyhood, when he had the larger part of his life yet ahead of him. So Jehovah brushed aside Jeremiah’s fear of being too young and said: “Do not say, ‘I am but a boy.’” Since it was the rule for young persons to show respect toward the old, it would require something unusual for a boy to speak sternly to older men. But Jehovah was older than any of Israel’s elders. So he said to the “boy” Jeremiah: “Do not be afraid because of their faces, for ‘I am with you to deliver you,’ is the utterance of Jehovah.” The whole question, then, was this: Was Jeremiah willing?

10, 11. (a) The consummation of the system of things was the time for what work? (b) In 1919 what was the question of highest importance that faced all professed Christians?

¹⁰ In the year 1914 the prophecy of Jesus began fulfillment. The “consummation of the system of things” began for this world. There were hundreds of millions that claimed to be Jesus’ disciples, the vast majority of these being found in Christendom. The consummation of the system of things was the time for a great work to be done, a work that would run from the beginning of that period of consummation until the accomplished end of it. It was a work toward all the inhabited earth, toward all the nations, a work of being witnesses to all these nations concerning God’s kingdom of good news. For more than four years World War I occupied the time and attention of over thirty nations, till near the close of 1918; and the religious systems of Christendom threw themselves into the war on the sides of their respective nations. Certainly they had no time for preaching God’s kingdom of good news then. As regards Jehovah’s witnesses, the religious systems of Christendom stirred up the political, military and judicial authorities to cut down or almost stop the public preaching that Jehovah’s witnesses were trying to do concerning the meaning of world conditions and the times and events. Came the year 1919, and the work of witnessing to the nations in fulfillment of Jesus’ words was still there to do. It faced all men who claimed to follow and obey Jesus. In that opening year for postwar decisions and work the question of highest importance to Christendom and to all who called themselves Christians was, not, Should all nations get together in a peace league? but, Who will be Jehovah’s prophet to the nations, to speak to them everything that He should command? Who will be the modern Jeremiah?

¹¹ Jeremiah prophesied forty years in the time of the end of the kingdom of Judah. So who will prophesy with his message in this time of the end of the nations of this world?

12. (a) How can we find the answer to the question? (b) What must the combined answer be on the part of all the things consulted?

¹² Back there, about forty years ago, that was the question. Today we may ask, How was the question answered? There are facts to show. We should not appeal to religious pride or boasting or self-made claims. We should appeal to the facts. Let facts speak for themselves. Consult the factual record of Christendom’s religious systems, Catholic and Protestant, not to speak of Jewry. More than that, examine also what those religious systems are doing today. Then consult the record of the one religious organization that all Christendom’s religious organizations and Jewry strenuously opposed during World War I and have opposed since. Everybody knows that this opposed organization of Christians is Jehovah’s witnesses. Consult the newspaper reports or magazine articles, the police and judicial court records, yes, consult the homes of the millions of people who have been visited by these witnesses of Jehovah, apart from their own annual reports and the Yearbooks of Jehovah’s witnesses. Ask all these what the witnesses have been doing since 1919 till this very hour. The combined answer will be that they have been preaching by all the means and channels of publicity. They have specialized on preaching just one thing, and that is, God’s kingdom of good news. This they have preached, as Jesus commanded, “for the purpose of a witness to all the nations,” including the nations behind the Iron Curtain.

13, 14. (a) What fact decides the answer to the question? (b) As regards the answer why are Jehovah’s witnesses grateful today and why have they become happy?

¹³ The fact that decides the answer to the question is, not, Do all the clergy of Roman Catholicism and of Protestantism agree that Jehovah’s witnesses have been and are God’s prophet to the nations? but, Who discerned the divine will for Christians in this time of the world’s end and offered themselves to do it? Who have undertaken God’s foreordained work for this day of judgment of the nations? Who have answered the call to the work and have done it down till this year 1958? Whom has God actually used as his prophet?

¹⁴ By the historical facts of the case Christendom is beaten back in defeat. Jehovah’s witnesses are deeply grateful today that the plain facts show that God has been pleased to use them. All the preaching and all the Bible educational work that they have done till now in 175 countries and islands of the sea they confess has been, not by help of a military army, nor by human power, but by God’s spirit, his invisible active force. (Zech. 4:6, AV) It has been because Jehovah thrust out his hand of power and touched their lips and put his words in their mouths. It has evidently been because he commissioned them to be over the nations and over the kingdoms. Happy are all those who have seen what the work of Jehovah God for now is and who have volunteered to do it.

TWO KINDS OF DIVINE WORK

15. (a) What was it that was foreordained? (b) How, then, must Christians live up to their claims, and which “Christians” have done so?

¹⁵ Individuals have not been foreordained for God’s work, as in Jeremiah’s case. The work was the thing foreordained. Christendom may fail to do the foreordained work, but it will be done just the same. We must harmonize with the work, not decide for ourselves what God’s work should be at this time and then ask his divine blessing on what we decide. This latter course is one of lawlessness against God, no matter how loudly and insistently one claims to be a Christian. God offers the foreordained work to Christians, as these claim to have given themselves to him through Christ to do the divine will. Thus God lets Christians live up to their claims, if they want to, by accepting the work he foreordained for Christians in this day. Regardless of the names of the individuals, a remnant of consecrated, anointed witnesses of Jehovah rejoiced to be freed from their captivity during World War I and to carry out their dedication to God by taking up the foreordained work. Hundreds of thousands have since seen the opportunities of the work and have joyfully joined the anointed Jeremiah class in doing the work.

16. Despite their fewness, why is the work of Jehovah’s witnesses of world importance, and what are they, as pictured by Jeremiah, commissioned to do?

¹⁶ Jehovah’s witnesses may be comparatively few in number. They do not have any political ties or influence. Nonetheless, their work is of world importance, because it was foreordained by God. It was foreshadowed and outlined by Jeremiah’s own work, which was of world importance. Jehovah’s witnesses are absolutely neutral toward the political, ideological and military conflicts of this world, and yet they are under divine command to declare Jehovah’s message concerning the nations and kingdoms of this world. As pictured by Jeremiah, they are commissioned “to uproot and to pull down and to destroy and to tear down, to build and to plant.”

17. In what they have done during the past forty years, how have Jehovah’s witnesses fulfilled His commission to them?

¹⁷ That is the work that Jehovah’s witnesses have been doing during these past forty years. In all that work they have not meddled in politics, subverted any governments or raised a violent hand against any of the institutions or political structures of any nation of the world. How, then, have they fulfilled Jehovah’s commission to them? Our guide to the right answer is found in the answer to the question, How did our pattern, Jeremiah, fulfill his commission to do such things? He did this by declaring the judgments, the judicial decisions and the purposes of Jehovah God, which, when pronounced over Jehovah’s own name, are as good as accomplished. Thus he “calls the things that are not as though they were.” (Rom. 4:17) Not one of his judgments and purposes has gone unfulfilled.

18. By comparing himself with whom does Jehovah show that he is unchallengeable, and so what decisions can he make or reverse concerning the nations?

¹⁸ Jehovah God formed man of the dust of the ground. Quite rightly, then, Jehovah compares himself to a great Potter or Fashioner of vessels, in supreme control of the products of his hands. As such Fashioner, he is unchallengeable. It does not do a bit of good to challenge him on what he is doing or how he expresses his will. He said: “As the clay in the hand of the potter, so you are in my hand, O house of Israel. At any moment that I may speak against a nation and against a kingdom to uproot it and to pull it down and to destroy it, and that nation actually turns back from its badness against which I spoke, I will also feel sorry over the calamity that I had thought to execute upon it. But at any moment that I may speak concerning a nation and concerning a kingdom to build it up and to plant it, and it actually does what is bad in my eyes by not obeying my voice, I will also feel sorry over the good that I said to myself to do for its good.”—Jer. 18:5-10.

19. How and with what nations did Jehovah anciently illustrate his power as a world Potter, and so why should nations today not despise Jehovah’s Word, even through his modern witnesses?

¹⁹ Long ago Jehovah God illustrated his power as a world Potter to make and break nations. The ruins of ancient world powers and kingdoms, those of Israel and of Judah, of Babylon, of Edom, of Moab, of Ammon and of other ancient political powers stand as warning examples of how he uproots, pulls down, destroys and tears down mighty governments, great cities and powerwielding populations and their institutions. In each case he poured out his judgments upon the nation or the world power that offended against him and fought against him. He always had his chosen executioner to carry out the divine word and make it live toward the offenders and fighters against Him. “‘Is not my word correspondingly like a fire,’ is the utterance of Jehovah, ‘and like a forge hammer that smashes the crag?’” (Jer. 23:29) Let the nations of today not despise the Word of Jehovah God, come though it may through the internationally hated body of Christians known as Jehovah’s witnesses. What they are saying and preaching to the nations is not their own word; it is taken from God’s written Word. “So, then,” says Paul, “the man that shows disregard is disregarding, not man, but God, who put his holy spirit in you.”—1 Thess. 4:8.

20, 21. (a) What significance were Jehovah’s witnesses attaching to 1914 (A.D.), and since when? (b) What was that “something new” and “something old,” and what are Jehovah’s witnesses declaring about the United Nations?

²⁰ As early as 1877 Jehovah’s witnesses, who are associated with the Watch Tower Bible & Tract Society of Pennsylvania, came out in print to the effect that 1914 was the date marked in God’s Bible for the Gentile Times, “the appointed times of the nations,” to end. This meant that something new was due to begin during 1914 and something old was to end or enter into the time of its end.

²¹ That something new was God’s kingdom of the heavens, prayer for the establishment of which had gone up for near onto nineteen hundred years. The something old was this world; not this earth, which sixty nations scientifically studied during their International Geophysical Year, but the bedeviled man-made system of things on the surface of this earth. Since 1914, the year to which Jehovah’s witnesses pointed long in advance, this old world has never been the same. The distress and perplexity have continued and increased upon it. In 1919 the victorious nations of World War I established an international league to hold the world together and to promote and maintain international peace. Jehovah’s witnesses identified it as something abominable in God’s sight and said that God’s Word doomed the League of Nations to go down. Down it went in 1939, not because Jehovah’s witnesses pulled it down—the Nazi leader Hitler and the Axis Powers behind him did that—but because Jehovah’s infallible Word said so. His Word through his witnesses on earth did not fail. As regards the successor of the League, the United Nations, Jehovah’s witnesses are boldly declaring his Word concerning that international peace organization, just as he has commanded. Jehovah’s Word says, Down with it! Hence it is doomed to join the League of Nations.

22. For members of the United Nations to have to listen to what Jehovah’s witnesses declare is like doing what, but what is His command to his witnesses concerning this?

²² The eighty-one members in the United Nations will not relish this pronouncement from the Word of Jehovah God. To listen to it, especially at the mouth and by the publications of the witnesses of Jehovah, may seem to them like having to drink drugged wine. Yet the Jeremiah class of today are commanded to make the nations hear this warning message from Jehovah’s inspired Word. ‘Uproot, pull down, destroy and tear down,’ said Jehovah to Jeremiah. And so we today, as long as this old world stands, must keep on preaching this bitter message and make the nations drink this warning until God himself makes them drink the real thing. Says he: “You must say to them, ‘This is what Jehovah of armies, the God of Israel, has said: “Drink and get drunk and puke and fall so that you cannot get up because of the sword that I am sending among you.”’ And it must occur that in case they refuse to take the cup out of your hand to drink, you must also say to them, ‘This is what Jehovah of armies has said: “You will drink without fail. For, look! it is upon the city upon which my name is called that I am starting off in bringing calamity, and should you yourselves in any way go free of punishment?’” ‘You will not go free of punishment, for there is a sword that I am calling against all the inhabitants of the earth,’ is the utterance of Jehovah of armies.”—Jer. 25:27-29.

23. For what claim will Jehovah hold Christendom accountable, and why will the Communist bloc and the nations outside not escape punishment by Jehovah’s executional sword?

²³ Copying the unfaithful nation of Israel in Jeremiah’s day, unchristian Christendom of this twentieth century claims to be called by God’s name and to represent him. Jehovah God will hold Christendom accountable for not living up to the divine name. At the universal war of Armageddon, which draws near, Jehovah will tell his Executional Officer Jesus Christ to swing down the sword of destruction upon the hypocritical religious organization. Let not the Communist Eastern bloc of nations, neither the non-Christian nations outside, gloat because of the coming destruction of the so-called Christian Western bloc, or, more particularly, Christendom. If Jehovah considers Christendom, which pretends to bear his name and to stand for God to the world, to be punishable, do Communist Russia and its satellites, and the non-Christian nations of the world, think that they are unpunishable? Have they loved Jehovah God more than Christendom has? Have they refrained from opposing and fighting against Jehovah God and his witnesses? Have they been guiltless as to doing filthy things and sinning against Him? No; and Jehovah says that they will not go free of punishment, but his executional sword will be upon all the inhabitants of the earth. Consequently they have not gone unwarned by Jehovah’s witnesses.

24. What was Jehovah’s message through Jeremiah concerning the calamity and its effects, and of what was Nebuchadnezzar’s conquering sweep through the Middle East and into Egypt an illustration?

²⁴ Hear this: “This is what Jehovah of armies has said, ‘Look! A calamity is going forth from nation to nation, and a great tempest itself will be roused up from the remotest parts of the earth. And those slain by Jehovah will certainly come to be in that day from one end of the earth clear to the other end of the earth. They will not be bewailed, neither will they be gathered up or be buried. As manure on the surface of the ground they will become.’” Then, addressing himself to the political rulers, backed by the religious leaders and the commercial, industrial and financial princes, he says: “Howl, you shepherds, and cry out! And wallow about, you majestic ones of the flock! For your days for slaughtering and for your acts of scattering have been fulfilled, and you must fall like a desirable vessel. And a place to flee to has perished from the shepherds, and a means of escape from the majestic ones of the flock. Listen! The outcry of the shepherds, and the howling of the majestic ones of the flock, for Jehovah is despoiling their pasturage.” (Jer. 25:32-36) What took place long ago when Nebuchadnezzar, king of the Babylonian world power, swept through the Middle East and down into Egypt is a small, human-scale illustration of what Jehovah’s mightier Executional Servant, Jesus Christ, will do when he sweeps round the entire globe from nation to nation and destroys the old worldly system of things.—Jer. 25:8-11.

Surviving with the New

1. For their preaching, with what may Jehovah’s witnesses be charged, and how did Jeremiah himself escape execution for a like charge?

FOR preaching such a message as this to the nations Jehovah’s witnesses may be charged with being subversive. Jeremiah was charged that way. The religious leaders tried to have the political princes kill him. “Then the priests and the prophets and all the people proceeded to lay hold of him, saying: ‘You will positively die. Why is it that you have prophesied in the name of Jehovah, saying, “Like that in Shiloh is how this house [this temple] will become, and this very city will be devastated so as to be without an inhabitant”?’” Then they said to the princes of Jerusalem: “To this man the judgment of death belongs, because he has prophesied concerning this city just as you have heard with your own ears.” Jeremiah defended himself, saying: “It was Jehovah that sent me to prophesy concerning this house and concerning this city all the words that you have heard. . . . And as for me, here I am in your hand. Do to me according to what is good and according to what is right in your eyes. Only you should by all means know that, if you are putting me to death, it is innocent blood that you are putting upon yourselves and upon this city and upon her inhabitants, for in truth Jehovah did send me to you to speak in your ears all these words.” At that time the princes showed courage enough to stand up against the religious leaders and false prophets and refused to put Jehovah’s witness to death. (Jer. 26:1-24) That was twenty-two years before Jerusalem was destroyed.

2, 3. (a) In spite of Egyptian aid, how did Jeremiah keep on pulling down Jerusalem? (b) Of what was Jeremiah afterward accused, and why did he come into the miry cistern and yet escape death?

² Later, in the ninth year of King Zedekiah, the Chaldean armies under King Nebuchadnezzar came against Jerusalem. When they heard that Pharaoh of Egypt was coming up to relieve the city, they lifted the siege and withdrew. But Jeremiah uprooted and pulled down Jerusalem by predicting that that city was doomed. Said he: “‘The Chaldeans will certainly come back and fight against this city and capture it and burn it with fire.’ This is what Jehovah has said: ‘Do not deceive your souls.’” Afterward Jeremiah was accused of deserting to the Chaldeans. On his way out through one of Jerusalem’s gates he was seized by the official guard of the gate, who said: “It is to the Chaldeans that you are falling away!”

³ Jeremiah was then put in a house of detention. Even from there Jeremiah told King Zedekiah himself that the enemy Chaldeans would come back and capture king and city. (Jer. 37:1-19) When released, Jeremiah preached the same thing. He told the people to surrender to King Nebuchadnezzar if they wanted to escape destruction inside the city by sword, famine and pestilence. The political princes did not take the message to heart in faith and act on it. They misinterpreted the message and said to the king: “Let this man, please, be put to death, for that is how he is weakening the hands of the men of war who are left remaining in this city and the hands of all the people, by speaking to them according to these words. For this man is one seeking not for the peace of this people but for calamity.” Jeremiah was now arrested and lowered into a waterless cistern with a miry bottom. There Jeremiah was left to sink into the mire. However, an Ethiopian eunuch was man enough to get him out of that death hole. Jeremiah was then kept under detention in the Courtyard of the Guard until Jerusalem fell and release came to him at the hand of the Chaldeans.—Jer. 38:1-13.

4. Despite national security measures and false clergy charges, what must we keep on doing, like Jeremiah?

⁴ In these days, when the political governments find it advisable to take special security measures and when it is popular for certain religious clergymen to cry “Communist!” because Jehovah’s witnesses foretell the destruction of Christendom in the universal war of Armageddon, we cannot alter our message. When under any arrest and imprisonment, we must stick to the message that Jehovah has commissioned us to preach, because it is true and is certain to be fulfilled. We must remember Jeremiah and keep on warning.

5, 6. In what way will the clergy and prophets of Christendom dispute us, but what are they forgetting that Jeremiah said about the temple?

⁵ The religious clergy and prophets of Christendom will dispute us. They will deny that Jehovah God will destroy Christendom and will use Jesus Christ himself as one Greater than Nebuchadnezzar to destroy the realm that takes its name after Christ. Their church system, they will argue, was founded by Jesus Christ and they can trust him to preserve and not to destroy what is his own. “God’s house is this!” they say. “God’s house is this!” Talking like that, they forget what Jesus said about the temple at Jerusalem: “Look! your house is abandoned to you. . . . By no means will a stone be left here upon a stone and not be thrown down.” (Matt. 23:38; 24:2) They forget that Jeremiah said the following about the temple:

⁶ “Do not put your trust in fallacious words, saying, ‘The temple of Jehovah, the temple of Jehovah, the temple of Jehovah they are!’ . . . ‘Here you are putting your trust in fallacious words—it will certainly be of no benefit at all. Can there be stealing, murdering and committing adultery and swearing falsely and making sacrificial smoke to Baal and walking after other gods whom you had not known, and must you come and stand before me in this house upon which my name has been called, and must you say, “We shall certainly be delivered,” in the face of doing all these detestable things? Has this house upon which my name has been called become a mere cave of robbers in your eyes? Here I myself also have seen it,’ is the utterance of Jehovah. ‘However, go, now, to my place that was in Shiloh, where I caused my name to reside at first, and see what I did to it because of the badness of my people Israel. . . . I will do also to the house upon which my name has been called, in which you are trusting, and to the place that I gave to you and to your forefathers, just as I did to Shiloh. And I will throw you out from before my face, just as I threw out all your brothers.’”—Jer. 7:4-15; 1 Sam. 4:3-22.

7. Why, therefore, can we not alter our message just to please people?

⁷ That utterance from Jehovah denies what the priests and prophets of Christendom tell the people in contradiction of Jehovah’s witnesses. That is why we cannot alter the message, just to please the people and their chosen religious leaders. Changing the message will not save anyone, not even our own selves. Like Jerusalem, Christendom is doomed to extinction and with her all the rest of this worldly system of things, in the “war of the great day of God the Almighty.” His heavenly Field Marshal, Jesus Christ, will destroy unchristian Christendom, because it has hypocritically misrepresented him before all the non-Christian peoples and nations.

8. What will befall those who stick inside Christendom, and to what do we urge and educate the people to go out?

⁸ Those who stick inside Christendom by adhering to its religious systems will die in the universal war of Armageddon, just as those who stayed inside Jerusalem and did not go out to the besieging king of Babylon died miserably inside the city. By our message against Christendom we do not advise or encourage people to go over to ungodly communism of any type. In harmony with Jeremiah, we urge the liberty-loving, life-loving people to go out to the conquering King Jesus Christ. From the Holy Bible we educate the people to take upon themselves the yoke of the King Jesus Christ and to serve him. We tell even the political rulers to do this, just as Jeremiah strongly urged King Zedekiah to do similarly. It means their life, their eternal life.—Jer. 38:17-20; 27:12-17.

9. What does taking the yoke of the reigning King Jesus Christ mean for one, and for what does bearing it work?

⁹ To take the yoke of the reigning King Jesus Christ upon one, even so late as this in the world’s time of the end, means sweet refreshment to one’s soul. Hundreds of thousands of sheeplike people all around the earth have already found that out. Jesus Christ, although now in battle dress for the universal war of Armageddon, still says: “Come to me, all you who are toiling and loaded down, and I will refresh you. Take my yoke upon you and become my disciples, for I am mild-tempered and lowly in heart, and you will find refreshment for your souls. For my yoke is kindly and my load is light.” (Matt. 11:28-30) It is like a wooden yoke or yoke bar, and he helps us to bear it, rather than to press us down and crush us with it. Bearing his yoke now works for our life in the new world!

10. How do Christendom’s priests and prophets take the position of prophet Hananiah, and how will people following their advice fare?

¹⁰ The priests and prophets of Christendom take the position of the false prophet Hananiah and other religious leaders who opposed Jeremiah. They deny that Jesus Christ, now reigning in the midst of his enemies since 1914, is against Christendom and will destroy it and that it is very urgent to desert Christendom without delay and dedicate oneself to Jehovah God and truly follow in Christ’s footsteps, bearing his yoke according to the Holy Scriptures and not according to the religious creeds of Christendom. If people follow the advice of men like Hananiah and refuse to get out of Christendom and bow their neck under the yoke of the King of kings and Lord of lords, it will go very hard with them at Armageddon.

11. How did Jehovah contradict Hananiah and sentence him, and between what yokes do the people now have to choose?

¹¹ The prophet Hananiah broke the wooden yoke bar from off Jeremiah’s neck. He said that Jeremiah’s illustration of his prophecy was false; and that just as he (Hananiah) had broken the yoke of wood, so inside of two full years Jehovah would break Nebuchadnezzar’s yoke from off the neck of all nations. Jehovah told Jeremiah to say to Hananiah that iron yoke bars were what was in store now instead of wooden ones: “A yoke of iron I will put upon the neck of all these nations, to serve Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon; and they must serve him. And even the wild beasts of the field I will give him.” Another thing: Hananiah, who had “spoken outright revolt against Jehovah,” must die. He did die that very year. (Jer. 27:1 to 28:17) What will happen to the people who today choose to follow religious leaders like Hananiah? Jesus said: “If, then, a blind man guides a blind man, both will fall into a pit.” (Matt. 15:14) The choice now before all people is between a symbolic wooden yoke with life for our souls in the new world and an iron yoke with death for revolt against Jehovah and his King.

BUILDING AND PLANTING

12. Why could Jeremiah well give way to the expressions in the book of Lamentations, and yet how does that book breathe of Jehovah’s righteousness?

¹² Jeremiah has been called a “prophet of gloom.” “Gloom,” yes, for the wicked, who deserve it. Because the holy name of his God, Jehovah, was implicated, Jeremiah could give way to the expressions of grief contained in his book of Lamentations. Yet Lamentations is a book of great poetic beauty; it breathes of Jehovah’s righteousness. It pours out sorrow for sin against him, it wells up with hope in merciful restoration and reconstruction by him, and it draws consolation from the divine vengeance that is coming upon those who have taken part and rejoiced in working ruin upon Jehovah’s people.—Lam. 1:18, 21, 22; 3:26-41, 55-66; 4:21, 22; 5:19-21.

13. What was it that made Jeremiah sad, and yet in fulfillment of what did that come?

¹³ Because the enemy gloated and bragged, because they taunted and reproached God’s name, because the symbols of Jehovah’s typical religion were wrecked and overthrown, and because Jehovah’s people grew so rebellious, unfaithful and worldly as to deserve this painful experience, it made the prophet Jeremiah sad. Still it came in fulfillment of Jeremiah’s preaching, in which Jeremiah uprooted and pulled down, destroyed and tore down with descriptive language.

14. Happily, what also was Jeremiah commissioned to do, and in harmony with this what grand prophecies was he privileged to utter?

¹⁴ Happily Jeremiah was also commissioned “to build and to plant.” It was he who foretold of a miraculous restoration of Jehovah’s people, this resulting in an overflow of joy. Jeremiah was the one who said these touching words of Jehovah to his visible organization: “With a love to time indefinite I have loved you. That is why I have drawn you with loving-kindness. Yet shall I rebuild you, and you will actually be rebuilt, O virgin of Israel. You will yet deck yourself with your tambourines and actually go forth in the dance of those who are laughing. You will yet plant vineyards in the mountains of Samaria. The planters will certainly plant and begin to use them. For there exists a day when the lookouts in the mountainous region of Ephraim will actually call out, ‘Rise up, O men, and let us go up to Zion, to Jehovah our God.’” Jeremiah dispelled gloom by foretelling that the captive ones of Jehovah’s people would “return from the land of the enemy.” Jeremiah also foretold the “new covenant” that Jesus Christ was to mediate with God for his body of followers, the nation of spiritual Israel. In this covenant Jehovah said: “I will put my law into the midst of them, and in their heart I shall write it. And I will become their God, and they themselves will become my people. . . . for they will all of them know me, from the least one of them even to the greatest one of them, . . . For I shall forgive their error, and their sin I shall remember no more.”—Jer. 31:3-6, 16, 31-34.

15. (a) What did Jeremiah see happen to Jerusalem’s king and priests, and yet what did he upbuildingly say regarding the covenants with David and with the Levite priesthood? (b) So what do we now preach?

¹⁵ Jeremiah saw how the typical “throne of Jehovah” in Jerusalem was emptied of its last king, Zedekiah. He saw how Jehovah’s chief priest of the temple, Seraiah, and the second priest, Zephaniah, were killed by the Babylonian executioner. Yet Jeremiah built and planted by joyfully declaring that Jehovah’s covenants with King David and with the Levite priesthood for a “kingdom of priests,” a “holy nation” of king-priests, “a royal priesthood,” would endure: “This is what Jehovah has said, ‘If you people could break my covenant of the day and my covenant of the night, even in order for day and night not to occur in their time, likewise could my own covenant be broken with David my servant so that he should not come to have a son ruling as king upon his throne; also with the Levites, the priests, my ministers. Just as the army of the heavens cannot be counted, neither the sand of the sea be measured, so I shall multiply the seed of David my servant and the Levites who are ministering to me.’” (Jer. 33:20-22; Ex. 19:6; Num. 25:10-13; 1 Pet. 2:9) Likewise today, Jehovah’s witnesses preach for a witness to all the nations the good news that Jehovah has planted the enduring kingdom of his King-Priest like Melchizedek, Jesus Christ. With himself in that heavenly kingdom Jesus will have the full 144,000 anointed followers, who “will be priests of God and of the Christ” and who “will rule as kings with him for the thousand years.” (Rev. 20:4-6) By that kingdom mankind will procure eternal blessings.

16. How did Jeremiah do constructive work concerning the kingdom of God’s new world, and also concerning survivors into that new world?

¹⁶ “‘Look! There are days coming,’ is the utterance of Jehovah, ‘and I will raise up to David a righteous sprout. And a king will certainly reign and act with discretion and execute justice and righteousness in the land. In his days Judah will be saved, and Israel itself will reside in security. And this is his name with which he will be called, Jehovah Is Our Righteousness.’” (Jer. 23:5, 6) In his prophetic work Jeremiah did more than build up and plant the only government of hope, the everlasting kingdom of God’s new world. He also built up and planted a great crowd of sheeplike worshipers of Jehovah, getting these into that new world without their dying. Jehovah used Jeremiah to cause persons to reveal themselves as illustrations of these “other sheep.” Who were they?

DRAMATIC ACTORS PREFIGURING SURVIVORS

17. At God’s command, what did Jeremiah do to the Rechabites, and how did they respond?

¹⁷ Jerusalem was then in its time of the end. King Jehoiakim, who cut up a scroll of Jeremiah’s prophecy and pitched it into the fire, still reigned but was undergoing pressure by the king of Babylon and his armies. Cooped up in the city with Jeremiah was a tribe of Rechabites, who were not Israelites but yet worshipers of Jehovah. God told Jeremiah to bring the Rechabite men to the temple and give them wine to drink. The Rechabites absolutely would not drink it. They explained, saying: “We keep obeying the voice of Jehonadab the son of Rechab our forefather in everything that he commanded us by drinking no wine all our days, we, our wives, our sons and our daughters, and by not building houses for us to dwell in, so that no vineyard or field or seed should become ours. And we keep dwelling in tents and obeying and doing according to all that Jonadab our forefather commanded us.”—Jer. 35:1-10.

18, 19. (a) So what was Jehovah’s message to the Rechabites, and why? (b) To whom today does Jehovah’s assurance to the Rechabites give an assurance, and why?

¹⁸ If men like those Rechabites unswervingly kept the commands of their forefather, why could not and why did not the Israelites keep the commands of their heavenly Life-giver, their God Jehovah? The faithful example of the God-fearing Rechabites condemned the God-forsaking Israelites. Therefore, let Jerusalem and its wicked inhabitants go down in destruction, but let the Rechabites live on!

¹⁹ Hence Jeremiah said to them: “This is what Jehovah of armies, the God of Israel, has said, ‘For the reason that you have obeyed the commandment of Jehonadab your forefather and continue keeping all his commandments and doing according to all that he commanded you, therefore this is what Jehovah of armies, the God of Israel, has said: “There will not be cut off from Jonadab the son of Rechab a man to stand before me always.”’” (Jer. 35:12-19) Even so! The Rechabites survived the destruction that came on Jehovah’s unfaithful people by His executioner, just as their forefather Jonadab had survived the slaughter of Baal-worshiping Israelites in their idolatrous temple. Today, in association with the anointed Jeremiah class there is a great crowd of “other sheep.” These condemn Christendom by refusing to join with her in forsaking Jehovah in order to go over to materialism and selfish idolatry. God’s promise to the Rechabites assures these other sheep that they will survive Christendom’s destruction and live on into God’s new world.

20. During Jerusalem’s final siege, how was Jeremiah mistreated for keeping up his warning, and what non-Israelite came to his rescue?

²⁰ King Jehoiakim’s son succeeded him and reigned on Jehovah’s throne for just three months. Then Jehoiakim’s brother, Zedekiah, was made king. In the ninth year of his reign Jerusalem again came under siege by the king of Babylon and his armies. For keeping on warning that Jerusalem would be burned and torn down, Jeremiah was arrested, charged with sedition and put down in a cistern, where he sank in the mire. To his rescue, in defiance of the princes, there came, not a circumcised Israelite, but a castrated Ethiopian, a eunuch named Ebed-melech. He condemned what the princes had done to Jehovah’s prophet. At King Zedekiah’s order Ebed-melech took along thirty men for safety and for assistance and got Jeremiah out of the miry death hole. After that, thanks to Ebed-melech, “Jeremiah continued to dwell in the Courtyard of the Guard.”

21. What happened to many inhabitants during Jerusalem’s siege, but what was Jeremiah commanded to tell Ebed-melech?

²¹ During Jerusalem’s siege mothers boiled their own children for food against starvation, many died of pestilence, and many died by the swords of the Babylonians. But what of Ebed-melech, who was in the house of King Zedekiah? Jehovah commanded Jeremiah in the Courtyard of the Guard to tell his rescuer Ebed-melech: “‘I will deliver you in that day,’ is the utterance of Jehovah, ‘and you will not be given into the hand of the men because of whom you yourself are in fright.’ ‘For I shall without fail furnish you an escape, and by the sword you will not fall; and you will certainly come to have your soul as a spoil, because you have trusted in me,’ is the utterance of Jehovah.”—Jer. 39:15-18.

22. Who today, like Ebed-melech, have put their trust in Jehovah, and how have they proved this trust?

²² Today, near Christendom’s destruction at Armageddon, a sheeplike class like Ebed-melech have put their trust in Jeremiah’s God. They have proved this trust by being willing to risk death at the hands of Christendom’s princes in order to come to the rescue of the antitypical Jeremiah of today. “To the extent that you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me,” said the King Jesus Christ to the “other sheep” in his parable of the sheep and goats, the last part of his prophecy on the world’s end.—Matt. 25:40.

23. What will the King’s invitation to these sheep to come and inherit the kingdom prepared for them mean and, accordingly, what promise will Jehovah then remember and apply to them?

²³ In this day of the judgment of the nations, Jesus Christ the King, seated on his heavenly throne for judgment work, turns to his right and says to these sheep: “Come, you who have my Father’s blessing, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the world’s foundation. . . . I was in prison and you came to me.” Since the year 1914 that heavenly kingdom is here and this green earth is its realm. These sheeplike persons of the Ebed-melech kind do not have to die and be resurrected in order to enter into the realm of that kingdom of God’s new world. They are already living in the Kingdom’s earthly realm. This is the realm they must inherit, and so they are not going to be evicted from this earthly inheritance of theirs. Christendom is cursed, but these sheep have the blessing of the King’s Father, Jehovah God. Christendom with its goats will be destroyed, for it has no place in this earthly Kingdom realm. But the King’s Father Jehovah will remember his promise to Ebed-melech at Jerusalem’s destruction. So these blessed sheeplike Christians will not fall by the Executioner’s sword at Armageddon.

24. How will it be possible for these sheep never to die off the earth, their inheritance?

²⁴ In that battle they will certainly come to have their soul, their life, as a victor’s spoil. This guarantees that they will live through the crash of Christendom and its religious temples and will begin to enjoy their earthly inheritance in the eternal new world. By maintaining sheeplike obedience toward their Shepherd King they will never die off the earth, their inheritance. The goats “will depart into everlasting cutting-off, but the righteous ones into everlasting life,” said Jesus the Judge.—Matt. 25:31-46.

25. Because of what work do we suffer reproach, but should we be like Jeremiah when under his reproach?

²⁵ Just as with Jeremiah, so with the anointed remnant and their companions, those righteous sheeplike ones. Heavy is the reproach that they bear because of their work of uprooting, pulling down, destroying and tearing down the old world by means of preaching the day of Jehovah’s vengeance. But should we, on that account, stop filling ourselves with Jehovah’s Word and quit preaching his hard message? We cannot, even as Jeremiah said he could not: “Take note of my bearing reproach on account of your own self. Your words were found, and I proceeded to eat them; and your word becomes to me the exultation and the rejoicing of my heart, for your name has been called upon me, O Jehovah God of armies.”—Jer. 15:10, 15, 16.

26. By whom are we opposed and obstructed even because of our constructive work, but when it comes to stopping speaking, how are we like Jeremiah?

²⁶ Even because we do a building and planting work in favor of God’s new world, the lovers and supporters of the old world oppose us and try to force us to stop. But fired as we are with God’s Word, how can we stop speaking? To quote Jeremiah: “The word of Jehovah became for me a cause for reproach and for jeering all day long. And I said: ‘I am not going to make mention of him, and I shall speak no more in his name.’ And in my heart it proved to be like a burning fire shut up in my bones; and I got tired of holding in, and I was unable to endure it. . . . Sing to Jehovah, you people! Praise Jehovah! For he has delivered the soul of the poor one out of the hand of evildoers.”—Jer. 20:8, 9, 13.

27. While expressing the theme of our preaching, how does Jehovah strengthen us not to fear the enemies’ faces, and, true to his deliverances when ancient Jerusalem perished, what will Jehovah do?

²⁷ Therefore, in expression of the theme of our preaching, Down with the old world! Up with the new world! The Almighty God of the new world bids us not to be afraid of the enemies’ faces: “They will be certain to fight against you, but they will not prevail against you, for ‘I am with you,’ is the utterance of Jehovah, ‘to deliver you.’” (Jer. 1:19) True to his promise, he delivered Jeremiah and the Rechabites and Ebed-melech when Jerusalem perished. True to that prophetic picture, Jehovah of armies will deliver us the remnant and the other sheep when, at Armageddon, he fulfills what we have preached and he brings down the old world and brings up his righteous new world.

“His Own Purposes”

The following is a passage from Abraham Lincoln’s Second Inaugural speech (March 4, 1865): “Both [North and South] read the same Bible, and pray to the same God; and each invokes his aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God’s assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men’s faces. . . . The prayers of both could not be answered. . . . The Almighty has his own purposes.”