25. What did the symbolic locusts go forth to do to these men from 1919 onward, and was this to be fatal?

²⁵ John says further: “And it was granted the locusts, not to kill them, but that these should be tormented five months, and the torment upon them was as torment by a scorpion when it strikes a man.” The life cycle of the locust (schistocerca [or split-tailed] gregaria) is about six months. So for that length of time the locust can do damage. The symbolic locusts who were revived in 1919 for God’s service went forth into the postwar world, but not to kill their persecutors, the religious clergy of Christendom who had no seal of the spirit from God. They went to declare to them God’s judgment message. But this did not please the religious rulers of Christendom. It put them in great pain as if from a scorpion’s sting, but such a sting, though painful, is not necessarily fatal.—2 Cor. 10:3-6.

26. How long are Jehovah’s witnesses authorized to strike with this tormenting message, and when will the clergy find relief from it?

²⁶ How long are the remnant of the anointed Christian witnesses of Jehovah authorized to strike the religious clergy with this tormenting message? For the period of their life before God’s war of Armageddon, as symbolized by the five months assigned to the locusts. Since Jehovah’s anointed remnant are not authorized to act as his executioners of men who persecute them for preaching God’s message, the religious clergy are left alive to suffer the tormenting pain from God’s judgment message. Not that the clergy would not prefer to die rather than endure this judgment proclamation any longer; but as the apostle John says of them: “And in those days the men will seek death but will by no means find it, and they will desire to die but death keeps fleeing from them.” God’s execution of judgment, his infliction of death upon these hypocritical Christian clergy, is delayed till he begins his universal war of Armageddon.

27. How does John describe the looks of the locusts, and, according to this, for what were the remnant brought forth in 1919?

²⁷ What do these symbolic locusts look like? John says: “And the likenesses of the locusts resembled horses prepared for battle; and upon their heads were what seemed to be crowns like gold, and their faces were as men’s faces, but they had hair as women’s hair. And their teeth were as those of lions; and they had breastplates like iron breastplates. And the sound of their wings was as the sound of chariots of many horses running into battle. Also, they have tails and stings like scorpions; and in their tails is their authority to hurt the men five months.” From this description we note that the remnant of Jehovah’s anointed witnesses were brought forth in 1919 for warfare, a spiritual warfare from that year till the actual outbreak of the “war of the great day of God the Almighty,” commonly called Armageddon. (Rev. 16:14-16) Hence they looked like horses, which in Bible times were used for warfare. “The horse is something prepared for the day of battle,” says Proverbs 21:31.

31. (a) How, like locusts, do the Witnesses move forward, and of what quality is this indicative? (b) What keeps them united?

³¹ The symbolic locusts who must proclaim the judgment message before the judgment is executed in the “low plain of the decision” have Jesus Christ as their King, but he is invisible. They have no visible king any more than literal locusts have: “The locusts have no king, and yet they go forth all of them divided into groups.” For the reason that they move forward in groups or swarms, they are “instinctively wise,” although being among the “smallest” things on earth. (Prov. 30:24, 27) The symbolic locusts, the anointed witnesses of Jehovah, move forward united, grouped according to their local congregations. But this is not due to any locust instinct. It is due to the heavenly wisdom imparted by God’s spirit. Also, their following their heavenly King Jesus Christ as the Leader whom God had enthroned is what keeps them united in their attack upon the men not sealed. (Rev. 7:2-8; 9:4) Willingly, obediently, they subject themselves to his command; and this is what may also be pictured by the fact that the symbolic locusts “had hair as women’s hair,” since a woman’s long hair naturally is a sign of her subjection, a sign of having authority on her head.—1 Cor. 11:10, 15; Ps. 110:3.

UNSTOPPABLE, IRRESISTIBLE

32, 33. (a) As what does Joel, chapter two, describe the locusts of the plague, and in what way are they mighty? (b) How has this been true of the anointed remnant?

³² The unitedness of the symbolic locusts is described more fully in Joel 2:2-11. There they are described as a people, which they actually are in the fulfillment of Joel’s prophecy. “There is a people numerous and mighty; one like it has not been made to exist from the indefinite past, and after it there will be none again to the years of generation after generation. Ahead of it a fire has devoured, and behind it a flame consumes. Like the garden of Eden the land is ahead of it; but behind it is a desolate wilderness, and there has also proved to be nothing thereof escaping.”

³³ Locusts are insects small in themselves, but when they migrate in a swarm they are mighty. Then they are mighty for their numerousness as a group, a united band. So numerous are they that their swarm will cover square miles of area, and they fly along with a roaring noise like a cataract. They literally darken the heavens and cast a great shadow upon the ground. So it has been since 1919 with respect to the symbolic locusts, the anointed remnant of the joint heirs of Christ’s kingdom. In themselves each one is small and insignificant; but when united in worship and action, they are a mighty people, “full of power, with the spirit of Jehovah.”—Mic. 3:8.

34. In what way is it that a fire has devoured before the invasion of the symbolic locusts?

³⁴ Locusts come in the hot summer months. Likewise the heat of Jehovah’s anger against his professed people in Christendom precedes the invasion of his symbolic locust swarm who proclaim the “day of vengeance on the part of our God.” (Isa. 61:2) Jehovah God had a reason for burning like a “consuming fire,” for in 1919, after Christendom had destroyed human lives and property by her first world war, she rejected God’s kingdom as proclaimed by Jehovah’s anointed witnesses and came out in support of a League of Nations that paraded under the disguise of being “the political expression of the kingdom of God on earth.”—Deut. 4:24; Heb. 12:29.

35, 36. (a) In what way does a flame consume behind the locust invasion? (b) What notice did the symbolic locusts serve upon Christendom that affected her future?

³⁵ First, Jehovah’s military host of symbolic locusts passes over Christendom with his judgment message. After this Jehovah’s angelic hosts under the King Jesus Christ will sweep over her and consume her like a fire, leaving nothing but ashes. Before the symbolic locust invasion began, Christendom’s premises looked like a religious garden of Eden. She had her Councils of Churches, her Catholic Action, her nationalist movements holding in check atheistic international communism, her relations with political states, and her so-called political expression of God’s kingdom on earth.