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 swept millions into their graves, disease epidemics whose victims have run into the billions, yes, even the destructive forces unleashed during two world wars—all these were accounted by Jesus of little consequence when compared to the great tribulation or time of trouble he was foretelling!

And Jeremiah, God’s prophet, foretold that our whole terrestrial globe would be in the path of this unparalleled tempest. Under inspiration he wrote: “Look! A calamity is going forth from nation to nation, and a great tempest itself will be roused up from the remotest parts of the earth. And those slain by Jehovah will certainly come to be in that day from one end of the earth clear to the other end of the earth.”—Jer. 25:32, 33.

Just as the tornado smashes everything in its path, sparing neither the wealthy nor the influential, so the warning of the coming great world storm declares: “Neither their silver nor their gold will be able to deliver them in the day of Jehovah’s fury; but by the fire of his zeal the whole earth will be devoured, because he will make an extermination, indeed a terrible one, of all the inhabitants of the earth.”—Zeph. 1:18.

NO TIME TO LOSE

But how do we know that the foretold world storm did not already come in the past? Because, since the great deluge of Noah’s time, no world calamity has measured up to the intensity of this calamity. Consider these further words of the prophet Jeremiah, for example: “They will not be bewailed, neither will they [the victims] be gathered up or be buried. As manure on the surface of the ground they will become.” (Jer. 25:33) Nothing so all-consuming and destructive has yet taken place. It is yet future.

But how far into the future? Not far, for all the evidences around us point to this time in which we live as the “last days” spoken about by so many of God’s inspired penmen. You have only to look around in this restless world of men and compare what you see with the apostle Paul’s prophecy at 2 Timothy 3:1-4; and with the apostle Peter’s words at 2 Peter 3:3, 4; and with Jesus’ own words recorded at Luke 21:25, 26. Note the rising tide of senseless violence and crime, the ridiculing of things that are sacred and true by men devoid of faith in God’s existence, the anguished fear of those who sense impending catastrophe but who see no way out. Yes, we are facing the greatest crisis of all times!

Further stressing the shortness of the time remaining, Jesus prophesied about a generation that would witness the fulfillment of the many-featured “sign” marking the conclusion of this system of things, such as global wars, followed by food shortages and earthquakes, and by the worldwide heralding of the good news of God’s kingdom. Said he: “This generation [witnessing these events] will by no means pass away until all these things occur.”—Matt. 24:34.

You belong to a generation that has either seen those world developments or one that has been told about them by your parents. You have heard about the heralding of the Kingdom message by Jehovah’s witnesses throughout the earth, a work now shared in by more than a million Witnesses in 197 lands, a work that began almost fifty years ago and has continuously increased in intensity. Proof, all this, that the “generation” spoken of by Jesus is now close to passing away! The time is truly short!

WHERE DO YOU STAND?

In view of all this, where do you stand? Have you lived your life thus far with