distress at its worst. The human family will not die off. It will not be killed off. There will be those of the human family who will emerge from the world distress and pass into a righteous new order in which suchlike world distress will never rise again. We have Almighty God’s own word for that. Our now living with full faith in that divine word will prepare the way for us to be saved out of the world distress. That salvation is at hand!​—Matthew 24:21, 22; Nahum 1:9.

Chapter 18

On Whose Side Are We When World Distress Climaxes?

1. (a) Only by what means will the absolute destruction of the present wicked earthly system of things come about? (b) Why is watchfulness important for all of us?

THE world distress that has gripped the man-made system of things since the year 1914 C.E. has caused incalculable damage. But it has not brought about the dissolution of the political “superior authorities” and of human society organized under such political authorities. (Romans 13:1; Titus 3:1) Symbolically speaking, the old “heavens” and “elements” and “earth and the works in it” are still with us. The absolute dissolution or destruction of such age-old things will be brought about only by the “presence of the day of Jehovah.” Although all Biblical and historical indications are that it is at hand, yet “Jehovah’s day will come as a thief.”​—2 Peter 3:10-12; 1 Thessalonians 5:2.

2. Having in mind that there would still be anointed Christians on earth when Jehovah’s day arrives, what admonition did the apostle Peter write?

² The sure evidence from the Bible is that the final