him to what pagans say about their gods. They dishonestly twist the Scriptures to make them appear to imply support for their doctrine. Considering how the churches thus misrepresent the true God and his name, how could they possibly be his representatives? Do you honestly believe that you can please the God of truth by belonging to such organizations?—Rev. 18:4.

The Time Is Short

WAILING police sirens paused only momentarily to permit the warning message by loudspeaker: “This is a tornado alert! This is the real thing! Take all emergency steps!” Wise citizens grabbed a few essentials and hastened to shelters. Unwise ones dallied, toying with the thought that it might, after all, be only a false alarm. But suddenly they found themselves engulfed in the fury of the storm as wild winds and flying objects smashed larger buildings like matchwood and lifted scores of smaller ones high into the air.

People living throughout the earth today might well ponder the lesson of such a situation. Survivors often come forth from the shelters to scenes of appalling desolation, but at least they are alive! The victims are usually those who failed to heed the warning. What if it should at times turn out to be a false alarm? Would it not be far wiser to take precautions and protect one’s life? When all the signs point unmistakably to the approach of the tornado, how foolish to ignore warnings!

Yet today a vast multitude of earth’s inhabitants are acting and living as though the blackening horizon of our times did not point to a world storm of unprecedented proportions. Yes, all the signs today point to the closeness of God’s great war against all the kingdoms of the whole inhabited earth, the war of Armageddon, that must clear the way for a New Order of peace and righteousness. (Rev. 16:14, 16; Dan. 2:44) What is your attitude? Will you heed the warning and take steps for survival, or will you join the heedless ridiculers, who say: “Why, from the day our forefathers fell asleep in death, all things are continuing exactly as from creation’s beginning”?—2 Pet. 3:4.

IN THE PATH OF THE STORM

For almost fifty years now Jehovah’s witnesses have been sounding the warning. There is no doubt about the reality of this great world storm that is bearing down upon a whole world of disobedient men. Warned Jesus Christ: “Those days will be days of a tribulation such as has not occurred from the beginning of the creation which God created until that time.” (Mark 13:19) Think of that! The slaughter in countless wars waged on earth, all of history’s earthquakes and famines that have