days of the prophet Isaiah those words of Jehovah God did apply in a literal sense to the natural descendants of Jacob, and the words were fulfilled upon them in the subsequent sixth century B.C.E. How? Well, a surviving remnant of those natural descendants of Jacob, or Israelites, were delivered from their long captivity in the land of Babylon. Jehovah their God had repurchased them, and the way by which he did this had political aftereffects upon Egypt, Ethiopia and Seba at the hands of the new Persian Empire established by Cyrus the Great. Then Jehovah as their Savior brought the faithful remnant of his people back to their homeland in the land of Palestine, although he had to bring them through fire and water, as it were, or through rivers and across fiery desert.

15. (a) What change did Jesus show took place in his day, and how was it forcefully illustrated? (b) To whom after that did Isaiah’s prophetic words apply, and why to them?

¹⁵ However, in the first century C.E., Jehovah’s great prophet, Jesus Christ, pointed out that Jehovah, who had been their God up till then, was rejecting Jacob’s natural descendants, the Israelites, because of their disobedience to him and their rejecting of his prophets. This rejection of those natural Israelites was forcefully expressed by letting their sacred city Jerusalem be destroyed in the year 70 and by letting the survivors be scattered to the ends of the earth. At the same time Jesus Christ made it clear that the application of Isaiah’s prophetic words had been transferred to his own faithful followers in order to have a higher, fuller and spiritual fulfillment. In one expression of this transfer Jesus Christ said to the faithless, disobedient Israelites or Jews: “The kingdom of God will be taken from you and be given to a nation producing its fruits.” (Matt. 21:43) The faithful dedicated followers of Jesus Christ are the ones who make up that new nation to which the kingdom of God is given. They bring forth its fruitage in the kind of spiritual lives that they live and in their preaching worldwide the good news of God’s kingdom with its blessings for all families of the earth.

16. In the relationship of God with his people, who created whom, proving what?

¹⁶ As it was with that ancient nation of Jacob or Israel before Jehovah God rejected them, so it is with this new nation to whom he gives the kingdom of God, that they may reign with Jesus Christ in the heavens as blessers of all mankind left on earth. They did not create Jehovah in their minds as their God, but he created them as a spiritual nation, a spiritual Israel or Jacob. They did not form him, neither did they form imaginary statues of him, but Jehovah God formed them as a spiritual nation with Jesus Christ as the King of kings. Consequently, Jehovah is no false god, no man-made god, but, as God and Creator, he made them.

A REGATHERING NEEDED

17. Why was a regathering of believers in the true God needed, but what interruption prevented it for a time?

¹⁷ After the death of Jesus Christ and his twelve apostles, his faithful followers were scattered by persecution and religious oppressors. In the latter half of the nineteenth century there was an effort by a faithful remnant of Christ’s dedicated, baptized followers to unite together from all parts of the earth. But in 1914 along came World War I, and the religious clergy of Christendom took advantage of the patriotic, nationalistic passions, ambitions and emergency arrangements of wartime to oppress and scatter, if not exterminate, these Christians who worshiped Jehovah as the only living and true God. But thousands of years previously, he had promised to regather his worshipers and use them in a special way for his glory. In the same chapter of Isaiah he went on to say:

18. Had this true God made any statement about regathering those of his who were scattered?

¹⁸ “Do not be afraid, for I am with you. From the sunrising I shall bring your seed, and from the sunset I shall collect you together. I shall say to the north, ‘Give up’ and to the south, ‘Do not keep back. Bring my sons from far off, and my daughters from the extremity of the earth, everyone that is called by my name and that I have created for my own glory, that I have formed, yes, that I have made.’”—Isa. 43:5-7.

19. How did Jesus show he knew of this regathering that was to take place?

¹⁹ Jesus Christ foretold this same regathering in his prophecy on the end of this worldly system of things. He applied it, not to the regathering of Zionist Jews to Palestine and the establishment of the Republic of Israel, but to the faithful remnant of his own dedicated followers. He said: “The powers of the heavens will be shaken. And then the sign of the Son of man will appear in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will beat themselves in lamentation, and they will see the Son of man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And he will send forth his angels with a great trumpet sound, and they will gather his chosen ones together from the four winds, from one extremity of the heavens to their other extremity.”—Matt. 24:3, 29-31.

20. In what way did Jehovah prove to be a God of his promise as regards regathering those of his nation?

²⁰ Thus in the eighth century B.C.E. by his prophet Isaiah Jehovah God foretold the regathering of his Christian worshipers and he emphasized it by the prophecy of his own Son Jesus Christ nineteen hundred years ago. Did Jehovah God fulfill the prophecy? Did he prove that he is a God of true prophecy? Has he proved that he is the faithful, almighty God who sticks to his promise and who can make good his word of promise? Yes! Contrary to the expectation of the religious clergy of Christendom, and much to their vexation and irritation, Jehovah delivered his faithful remnant of worshipers from Babylonish captivity and regathered them in a worldwide unity, stronger and more extensive than ever before. Even the most prominent ones of the remnant who had been imprisoned during World War I were freed from prison and were exonerated of all the false charges that had been used to railroad them to prison.

21. What appreciation of Jehovah now came to those regathered, and to what realization did they come?

²¹ By means of his written Word upon which the light of fulfilled prophecy was shining Jehovah led the remnant to appreciate more the importance and preciousness of his name. They came to appreciate that they were a people, not for the name of Jesus, but for the name of Jehovah, even as the Christian disciple James pointed out long ago when applying Jehovah’s prophecy in Amos 9:11, 12. (Acts 15:13-19)d From the unfolding meaning of the Holy Scriptures they became more and more impressed with the fact that they must serve as the Christian witnesses of Jehovah. By means of his holy spirit he had created them for His glory, for he had begotten them to be his spiritual children and had anointed them with his spirit to preach and to be the joint heirs of Jesus Christ in his heavenly kingdom. Jehovah had formed them as a spiritual nation by bringing them into His new covenant through the Mediator Jesus Christ. Jehovah had made them his visible organization on earth, a theocratic organization. Now, by his delivering them in 1919 and reorganizing them for his further service, he had proved that he was a living God to them.

22, 23. (a) What failure on their part did Jehovah call to their attention? (b) What were some of the charges laid against them, and what would they have to face?

²² Before this they had not appreciated so fully and clearly that he was their God. With regard to this fact they had been spiritually blind and deaf, like Christendom, which worships what it calls a “triune God,” a trinity of three coequal, coeternal persons all said to be contained in one God. Their slowness to see and hear was to a large extent due to the influence of Christendom, with which they had so long been associated and which had oppressed them and held them captive. They had failed to act as the “servant of Jehovah.” In the preceding chapter of Isaiah (Isa 42:18-25) Jehovah had called attention to this and to the painful consequences of it, saying to them:

²³ “Hear, you deaf ones; and look forth to see, you blind ones. Who is blind, if not my servant, and who is deaf as my messenger whom I send? Who is blind as the one rewarded, or blind as the servant of Jehovah? It was a case of seeing many things, but you did not keep watching. It was a case of opening the ears, but you did not keep listening. Jehovah himself for the sake of his righteousness has taken a delight in that he should magnify the law and make it majestic. But it is a people plundered and pillaged, all of them being trapped in the holes, and in the houses of detention they have been kept hidden. They have come to be for plunder without a deliverer, for pillage without anyone to say: ‘Bring back!’ Who among you people will give ear to this? Who will pay attention and listen for later times? Who has given Jacob for mere pillage, and Israel to the plunderers? Is it not Jehovah, the One against whom we have sinned, and in whose ways they did not want to walk and to whose law they did not listen? So [Jehovah] kept pouring out upon [Jacob] rage, his anger, and the strength of war. And it kept consuming [Jacob] all around, but he took no note; and it kept blazing up against him, but he would lay nothing to heart.”

THE CALL FOR WITNESSES

24. (a) How might some view the plundering of Jehovah’s people? (b) What, then, was necessary?

²⁴ Due to letting his people be plundered and pillaged because of their failing to see and to hear and to obey their God, Jehovah allowed it to appear that their God was no God at all, or was a weakling God and so the gods of their persecutors, plunderers and pillagers were stronger than Jehovah. Now the time had come to reverse the wrong impression that had been allowed to grow. The time had now come for the dispute over the true Godship to be settled and every false god to be silenced. Let a judicial court be held! Let witnesses be called, and let all the universe attend the hearing, particularly all the nations of earth! Rather than call for a unification of all the gods and for a combining of their worship in one all-inclusive religion, Jehovah challenges all those who are worshiped as gods by the nations, to prove themselves gods.

25, 26. What did Jehovah then do for his people, and how did he speak of this prophetically?

²⁵ That his dedicated people may serve as his representatives in this universal court, Jehovah opens up their eyes and their ears in a spiritual way by having them brought forth from their captivity in the Babylonish religious organization in the year 1919, in which year they held the epoch-making first general convention of the international Christian Bible students after World War I. Having now his own free representatives, Jehovah God calls for all the nations of earth to appear in court. His once blind and deaf people must face all the worldly nations on the controversy of Godship.

²⁶ Prophetically issuing the order for the calling of this court together in this twentieth century, Jehovah went on to say by means of his prophet Isaiah of twenty-seven hundred years ago: “Bring forth a people blind though eyes themselves exist, and the ones deaf though they have ears. Let the nations all be collected together at one place, and let national groups be gathered together. Who is there among them that can tell this? Or can they cause us to hear even the first things? Let them furnish their witnesses, that they may be declared righteous, or let them hear and say, ‘It is the truth!’”—Isa. 43:8, 9.

Part Two

 1. To whom are the challenging words of Jehovah addressed?

WHOM does Jehovah mean when he says concerning all the nations and national groups: “Who is there among them that can tell this? Or can they cause us to hear even the first things? Let them furnish their witnesses, that they may be declared righteous”? By those challenging words Jehovah means the gods of all those nations and national groups. These gods are the ones that are called upon to furnish witnesses who by their testimony can prove that their gods are gods of prophecy and are righteous gods, the right gods to be worshiped, gods who can clear themselves of the charge of being false gods. Let such gods plead their case in court against Jehovah.

 2. While there has been plenty of time for Jehovah’s words to be proved true, what pointed questions are asked of all other gods, including Christendom’s trinitarian god?

² Jehovah’s written Word, the Holy Bible, was completed by the end of the first century C.E. In the more than eighteen centuries since then there has been plenty of time for Jehovah’s prophecies written in his Word over his own name to be fulfilled. But what about the gods of all the worldly nations, including the trinitarian god of Christendom? Was there or is there among all the nations of this world any god that “can tell this,” that is, tell what Jehovah has told in his written Word? Or can those gods of the nations “cause us to hear even the first things,” that is, things in advance? Did those gods make predictions in the past that later on came true in the past? Did those gods make predictions concerning the present time of perplexity? Do the events and conditions of the world since A.D. 1914 prove that those gods spoke the truth and that they are truthful gods of prophecy who have the power to make their prophecy come true?

 3. What are these gods called on to do?

³ Let these gods bring forth their witnesses from all the many nations whose total population today numbers over three thousand millions. Surely among so many people the gods should find the required two or three witnesses to prove them to be true gods. Let these witnesses hear what their gods have to say in their sacred religious books in order that such witnesses may point to and say regarding the prophecy of their gods: ‘“It is the truth!” Our gods have proved true!’

 4, 5. (a) How many of the gods of the nations are able to produce witnesses to their godship? (b) What does Jehovah now say?

⁴ Where, though, in the midst of the world trouble do those gods have witnesses who are thus testifying, “It is the truth!” concerning their gods? Which of those gods has foretold for any length of time in advance this present anguish of nations with perplexity and then provided an explanation