Posthaste “to the Mountains!”
1. What is it now high time to do, and where can one now be hidden from destruction by the heavenly executioners?
THERE is now no time for delay. It is high time to flee for safety. The proverbs of God say: “Be wise, my son, and make my heart glad, that I may answer him who reproaches me. A prudent man sees danger and hides himself; but the simple go on, and suffer for it.” (Prov. 27:11, 12, RS) Where, then, can the wise and prudent person flee and hide from destruction by the heavenly executioners that carry out God’s will upon his foes? Not to private refuge farms of isolation in some literal mountains or other out-of-the-way place. There are no out-of-the-way places to God’s executioners; and the hiding of oneself from the armies of the “disgusting thing” that wreak desolation upon Jerusalem’s modern counterpart will not hide anyone from execution by God’s Armageddon forces under his King Jesus Christ. For the Christians who saw the armies of Governor Gallus and promptly fled from Judea before Jerusalem was destroyed in 70 (A.D.), the mountains of Gilead around Pella were a place to continue in theocratic organization under their governing body and to keep on preaching the good news of God’s Word, turning people’s hopes and dependence away from doomed Jerusalem and to the promised kingdom of God, the New Jerusalem. For Christians and for people outside of Christianity who want to flee and be hidden at Armageddon’s very outbreak, the mountains outside of condemned Judea pictured today the protected New World theocratic system of things that Jehovah God has created in this time of the end. In that system of things is where Jehovah God keeps his New World society safe, that they may carry on their theocratic activities, announcing the Kingdom of God’s new world.
2. How can those inside Christendom flee from her, and in company with whom is there now safe refuge?
2 Those of us who are literally in the realm of Christendom cannot get out of it in a physical way. For us to go to the lands of so-called “heathendom,” steeped just as much in Babylonish, demon religion, would be no greater safeguard in the time of Armageddon. But we can flee from Christendom spiritually by abandoning her worldly, untheocratic system of things and thus get out of her danger zone, leaving her to her fate and having no part with her in her adulterous connections with the United Nations and any other political and commercial system of this old world. Only then can we be free to declare the day of vengeance of our God against Christendom and all the rest of this Babylonish world. There is only one place to go for safe refuge, and that is under Jehovah’s theocratic new system of things in company with his New World society. From God’s standpoint those of his New World society are no longer in the land of the condemned and doomed but are in the land of his approval. He has founded a “new earth” to flee to!
3. How are Jehovah’s worshipers today in a new land, and how is this a complete change of condition for them from their condition at the close of World War I?
3 We as Jehovah’s worshipers are in a new land. A new land has been born in this “time of the end,” not by means of an undersea earthquake’s pushing up a new island or continent, but by God’s all-powerful spirit in giving his people a new position on earth. He has completely changed the situation for them from what it was at the close of World War I. Then in consequence of Christendom’s action in rejecting Jehovah’s kingdom of his Son and choosing the friendship of Caesar and handing over Christ’s faithful followers to Caesar for execution by the sword of the State, the anointed remnant of Jehovah’s witnesses came into captivity to the enemy’s power. For a while they were exiled from Jehovah’s favor and were held in the enemy’s land and deprived of their rightful privilege of freely worshiping their God and doing his work. Their condition was foreshadowed by that of the Jewish remnant when held prisoner in the idol-filled land of Babylon far from their homeland that God had decreed should lie desolate without man or tame beast for seventy years, with no capital city and no temple bearing Jehovah’s name. Scattered about in an alien land, they were no longer a nation under a government of their own. Their distant homeland was no longer a cultivated land teeming with people, but was a wilderness, a jungleland infested with fearsome wild beasts and unclean birds. Similarly in 1918 the remnant of Jehovah’s witnesses were as an oppressed people not a nation and with no land of their own, no God-given land according to his promise. How, then, is it that today they are distinguished as a united, organized people, moving about freely in the royal realm of theocracy?
4. What promise of liberation did God fulfill for them as he did for his ancient people?
4 It is because God has done for them spiritually what he did for his ancient people after they had been held captive in Babylon for the decreed term of bondage there. God fulfilled his promise of liberation that he had pronounced by his prophet, saying: “The ransomed of Jehovah shall return, and come with singing unto Zion; and everlasting joy shall be upon their heads: they shall obtain gladness and joy; and sorrow and sighing shall flee away. . . . For I am Jehovah thy God, who stirreth up the sea, so that the waves thereof roar: Jehovah of hosts is his name. And I have put my words in thy mouth, and have covered thee in the shadow of my hand, that I may plant the heavens, and lay the foundations of the earth, and say unto Zion, Thou art my people.” (Isa. 51:11-16, AS) When in 537 B.C. Almighty God thus ransomed his people from the mighty world power of Babylon after nearly three quarters of a century, it excited the amazement of the ancient world. So, too, now.
5. When did the liberation of the anointed remnant begin, and what only can account for their free, organized state today?
5 At the close of World War I in 1918 (A.D.) Christendom turned to the League of Nations for security in the postwar world. The anointed remnant of Jehovah’s witnesses turned to Jehovah’s kingdom by Christ as the rightful government of the new world and vowed to proclaim it to all mankind, and that with boldness, if only they were ransomed from the enemy’s fearsome power. Therefore in 1919 their release from the enemy’s power began, and it can be attributed only to Jehovah’s power by means of Christ his King. Only His power can account for it that today they are a people called by his name. As he had said in his prophecy: “That I may . . . say unto Zion, Thou art my people.” It is he who by the dynamic power of his spirit and by the liberating force of his revealed Word of truth has broken the restrictive fetters of fear of man and the shackles of religious falsehoods, man-made traditions and untheocratic systems and customs. He has reorganized them in subjection to his anointed King. He has ordered their lives theocratically and given them a purpose in living, a glorious commission of service in His name.
6. How has a new land thus been born, and what is its capital?
6 By this divine action a nation has been brought forth. A new land has been born, not by the Peace Conference of Versailles after World War I in carving up the map of the globe and giving various peoples like Poland, Czechoslovakia, etc., a territory of their own. No, but by the Creator of heaven and earth in giving his delivered witnesses on earth the standing that no other people occupy, the standing of his restored, approved people living and working in a theocratic domain. It has its definite boundaries beyond which they will not go to compromise and make common cause with this world. It has a capital city. Its capital is not over in Brooklyn on the river bank opposite the world capital of the United Nations. It has no earthly city as its capital, for it is a universal society with a divine capital in heaven, New Jerusalem.
7, 8. How has Zion’s travail during World War I not been in vain, and thus how has the world been amazed in fulfillment of prophecy?
7 The travail through which God’s universal organization Zion passed during World War I has not been in vain, but by the power of her Husband Jehovah God she has brought forth a chastened, purified, theocratic people as her visible children on earth. Thus to the surprise of all a nation was brought forth. If today this mammoth international assembly here in Yankee Stadium in this eleventh year of the atomic age arouses the wonder of New York city, then it is only part of the amazement of the entire world at seeing the unusual, unexpected birth of a new land and the bringing forth of a nation by God’s woman Zion, in execution of his 2,700-year-old prophecy:
8 “Before she travailed, she brought forth; before her pain came, she was delivered of a man-child. Who hath heard such a thing? who hath seen such things? Shall a land be born in one day? shall a nation be brought forth at once? for as soon as Zion travailed, she brought forth her children. Shall I bring to the birth, and not cause to bring forth? saith Jehovah: shall I that cause to bring forth shut the womb? saith thy God.”—Isa. 66:7-9, AS.
9. On what day are these astonishing things brought forth, and how had God opened Zion’s womb and why could he not now close it?
9 It is in one exclusive day that these new and astonishing things have been produced in vindication of Jehovah’s word. This is the day of Jehovah in which his theocratic government comes to the fore. The day of 2,520 years enjoyed by the untheocratic, Gentile nations for global domination has ended. At the ending of their day in 1914 Jehovah’s day began throughout the universe and his government exercised by his Anointed King Jesus Christ was brought forth from his heavenly organization Zion. To bring forth the Messianic kingdom symbolized by the man-child he had opened the womb of his organization Zion. He could not now shut her womb and not let her produce more, and especially so after he let her go through a period of painful travail due to the persecution of the Kingdom proclaimers on earth. By captivity to the enemy and by exile in the enemy land they were buried away, hidden out of sight. They were unidentifiable as representatives of the heavenly Zion. That persecution of them must be defeated and result in something by the power of God. The things of Jehovah’s people on earth had to be brought into harmony with the triumphant birth of the Kingdom in the heavens, and they were. How?
10. How was a nation brought forth by Zion and a land born through Jehovah’s Servant, and for what is the land now open?
10 At the climax of the travail and at the due time for the birth Jehovah caused his heavenly Zion to bring forth the remnant of her spiritual children on earth as a nation subject to God’s newborn kingdom. Long previously he had said to his great Servant, Jesus Christ the King: “I will preserve thee, and give thee for a covenant of the people, to raise up the land, to make them inherit the desolate heritages; saying to them that are bound, Go forth; to them that are in darkness, Show yourselves.” (Isa. 49:8, 9, AS) Now by his Servant, the Ruler in the newborn kingdom, Jehovah raised up the land by causing his anointed witnesses to inherit the formerly desolate heritages, telling them to go forth from their bondage to this Babylonish world and no longer to linger in Babylonish darkness but to come forth into the light of Jehovah’s day. Thus he caused the birth of a land for them by restoring them to his favor and putting them under his theocratic control, free from the bondage of the foes of the Kingdom. As with the Israelites at the end of the seventy-year desolation of Jerusalem and the land of Judah, this newborn land of today lies no longer under a divine interdict. As it were, the seventy-year restriction is lifted, and the land is thrown wide open. It is time for Jehovah’s people to flock into the newborn theocratic land and to take up each one his theocratic assignment in it. Let now the people of good will stream into this land!
11. When and how did Jehovah plant the heavens and lay the foundations of the earth, and with what does such earth correspond in Jesus’ prophecy regarding the disgusting thing?
11 This means the founding of the new earth. The Creator had already planted the new heavens of the new world in 1914 by the birth of his Messianic kingdom, for the Kingdom becomes the heavenly ruling power of the righteous new world. The Creator’s laying of the foundations of the new earth began in 1919 with the ransoming of the remnant from Babylonish restraints in that year and the reinstatement of them in the divine favor, service and worship. The birth of this land of the New World society is truly the founding of the new earth, for the spiritual remnant will be preserved through Armageddon and their theocratic earthly organization will eventually blend into the permanent new earth of the new world, inhabited exclusively by earthly people of good will. This newborn land now occupied by the newly-brought-forth nation of Zion’s spiritual children is a place of security. It corresponds with the mountains to which Jesus warned his followers to flee at the sight of the disgusting thing that causes desolation, and especially at the ominous sight of its armies of desolation surrounding Christendom, which claims to be holy and indestructible by man.—Luke 21:20, 21, NW.
12. What has Jehovah put into the mouth of his restored remnant, and for what purpose?
12 The flight of the spiritual remnant and their governing body to this newborn land far from Christendom’s danger zone does not end the matter. Their safety is not the full realization of the divine mercy and saving power in this day of Jehovah. He has pointed out the purpose of covering the restored remnant with his protection in the land of restoration, saying: “I have put my words in thy mouth, and have covered thee in the shadow of my hand, that I may plant the heavens, and lay the foundations of the earth.” (Isa. 51:16, AS) These words in the remnant’s mouth are not for them to keep to themselves but must be transmitted to the rising generation of the new world that will occupy the “new earth” permanently. “And as for me, this is my covenant with them, saith Jehovah: my spirit that is upon thee, and my words which I have put in thy mouth, shall not depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed, nor out of the mouth of thy seed’s seed, saith Jehovah, from henceforth and for ever.”—Isa. 59:21, AS.
13. How will Jehovah’s words never depart from their mouth?
13 Jehovah’s words in the mouth of his people are for them to speak out boldly, authoritatively. For his words never to depart out of their mouth means for them never to cease serving as his mouthpiece in proclaiming the good news of the Kingdom in all the world now for a witness to all the nations. If they are willing to use their mouths in his witness work he will always supply them his message to deliver. This will be not alone for the salvation of themselves but also for the salvation of many others.
14. Why must those already fled to the “mountains” concern themselves with more than their own salvation, and how do they “raise a signal”?
14 Those who have already fled to the mountains of safety with the New World society must unselfishly concern themselves with more than their own salvation. Countless others are threatened with destruction at Armageddon, which will begin with destruction of old-world religion. We who read the prophecy with discernment see the armies of desolation massing their camps around the present-day counterpart of unfaithful Jerusalem. We read the sinister meaning of the situation. It is a sign that the worldly religious system that has taken the name of God’s Son but has blasphemed it and heaped reproach upon Jehovah’s name is near its devastation and hence near the start of the “war of the great day of God the Almighty.” Those will be the days of vengeance for vindicating Jehovah and his Messianic kingdom. (Rev. 16:14, 16; Luke 19:22) It is mandatory upon the remnant to act as a watchman class and cry out the warning to the people of good will of all nations to flee to the mountains. If they are in Christendom, they must flee out. If they are outside of her and in heathendom, they must not enter in and become a part of her. The nations of the Western bloc are feverishly trying to preserve Christendom as something sacred and as if the world’s safety lay in her; but not so, says God’s Word. Those who have already fled to the newborn land with the New World society have Jehovah’s words in their mouths and they must proclaim his kingdom everywhere as the only government that is bound to succeed and usher in undiminishing blessings to all the families of the earth. In that way they “raise a signal over the peoples,” that these may see where to flee and assemble for safety under the shadow of God’s hand.—Isa. 62:10, AT.
15. Does the foregoing mean that we may no longer preach in the realm of Christendom? And how long are we to preach?
15 Jerusalem’s modern counterpart is seen getting encircled with armies of desolation and those in that doomed system are commanded to flee out of it if they want to be Christ’s followers. But this does not mean we must quit preaching in Christendom. The system of Christendom in alliance with this world against the Kingdom is what we must flee from, but it is in the realm of Christendom that we must keep preaching. How long? If we have said, “Here am I; send me,” then Jehovah’s answer at the temple to Isaiah we must take to indicate how long. His answer is: “Until the cities be wasted, without inhabitant, and the houses without man, and the land become an utter desolation, and Jehovah have removed men far away, and the solitude be great in the midst of the land.” (Isa. 6:8-12, Da) That is, until the crack-up in Christendom’s alliance with the disgusting thing that causes desolation becomes a complete rupture and the horns of the beastly thing turn upon her and make her desolate. That means, till the battle of Armageddon begins and proceeds toward the total desolation of the old world of which Satan the Devil is the god. Till then there must be no quitting. We must give forth God’s words that have been placed in the mouth of his remnant and in the mouth of the rising generation of good will. We must preach the good news of the Kingdom to all the nations as a witness, which necessarily includes also the proclaiming of the day of vengeance of our God.—Isa. 61:2.
16. How may we show that we welcome fugitives to the New World society’s land, and to increase the land’s population far beyond what it is now what do we have to do?
16 In love for our imperiled neighbor and fellow man let us do this and thus help as many as we can to flee without further delay from the entire doomed world of the Devil. We have to go to them. Like the angels who warned Lot and his daughters at Sodom and urged them not to stay in the District but to escape for their lives to the mountainous region, we must take them by the hand and help speed their escape. (Gen. 19:15-17, NW; Luke 17:28-30) We must view seriously what we see in the light of Jesus’ prophecy and we must act with the sense of greatest urgency in behalf of all the people of good will who long for such a thing as a happy life in a righteous new world. By such efforts we show we welcome them to the blessed land of the New World society, here to enjoy the pleasures of God’s loving-kindness and security under his wings, where everlasting joy is upon the heads of his people. Already there are reported over a half million serving as witnesses in the newborn land with the New World society. Are we willing to work on until Jehovah God has made the blessed population of the theocratic land to number, say, millions, who for having fled there and faithfully living there will survive Armageddon and need never die off the face of the new earth? If we are willing, God’s good news of the Kingdom and his warning of vengeance for the foes of the Kingdom must be our message down till Armageddon and we will not let those words of God depart from our mouths until the desolation of Satan’s old world is complete and the earth as well as heaven is clean. That supreme event is near!
17. Of what are we on the threshold, and what preparations must we make for it?
17 We are now on the threshold of a new world that will never perish or grow old, but of which the divine Creator says: “For as the new heavens and the new earth, which I will make, shall remain before me, saith Jehovah, so shall your seed and your name remain.” (Isa. 66:22, AS) What an unspeakable privilege it is now to live in the land of safety with the New World society and take part in the preparations for that world of calm and of contentment with godliness, where nothing may harm us or make us afraid! It is Jehovah God who builds the righteous new world by Jesus Christ his King, and so our preparations for it are principally with ourselves as a New World society, learning how to work together in love, getting organized theocratically and keeping so. Amid the destructions during Armageddon our various physical properties, homes, Kingdom Halls, and material possessions may be destroyed, but under heavenly protection from Jehovah’s executional hosts we shall survive with what we need, chief of all of which will be his approval for holding fast our integrity to him and his kingdom.
18. How and with what expectation should we now conduct ourselves as a New World society, and in accord with this what has Jehovah provided for us through his New World society?
18 Looking forward to living endlessly together after Armageddon, the big thing now is knowing how to live together and serve God unitedly. Let Jehovah’s spirit have free and unimpeded operation among us that we may be kept from being fashioned according to men’s ideas and schemes and that he may make us into something for his everlasting use. While the old-world society wails, howls, starves and thirsts religiously and hastens to a fiery destruction, let us continue rejoicing, singing and feasting together spiritually, always remembering the words of Peter: “There are new heavens and a new earth that we are awaiting according to his promise, and in these righteousness is to dwell.” (2 Pet. 3:13, NW) In full accord with our expectation, and for our further feasting together and working together as a New World society, the happy God Jehovah has provided for us through his New World society this new 384-page book in English, entitled “NEW HEAVENS AND A NEW EARTH”