²⁸ “And from the time that the constant feature has been removed and there has been a placing of the disgusting thing that is causing desolation, there will be one thousand two hundred and ninety days.

The removing of the “constant feature” took place during the “appointed time, appointed times and a half” that ran their course during World War I, from December 28, 1914, to sundown of June 21, 1918. The “constant feature” had to do with Jehovah’s “holy people,” whose spiritual “power” was dashed to pieces back there.

31. What was the “constant feature” offered by Daniel’s people?

³¹ In 537 B.C.E. the prophet Daniel’s people were released from ancient Babylon by the conqueror, Cyrus the Persian, and they returned to the land of Judah to reestablish Jehovah’s worship at Jerusalem. There, at the end of the seventy years of desolation of their homeland, they proceeded to “build the altar of the God of Israel, to offer up burnt sacrifices upon it, according to what is written in the law of Moses the man of the true God.” (Ezra 3:1, 2) From then on the “constant feature” of each day was offered by the priests, with the exception of a temporary interruption by the Syrians during the days of the Levite Maccabees in the second century B.C.E. (Exodus 29:38, 39) What, though, was the “constant feature” of each day that the spiritual Israelites were offering up to God at the beginning of the “time of the end” in 1914?

32. Of what did the “constant feature” since 1914 C.E. consist?

³² It did not consist of animal sacrifices offered upon an altar at Jerusalem in the Middle East. Such sacrifices ceased to be offered there in the year 70 C.E. at the destruction of Jerusalem and its gorgeous temple by the Roman legions. Years before that, the Christian apostle Peter wrote, saying that the anointed spiritual Israelites “are being built up a spiritual house for the purpose of a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.” (1 Peter 2:5, 9) These “spiritual sacrifices” include “a sacrifice of praise, that is, the fruit of lips which make public declaration to his name.” (Hebrews 13:15) After the Gentile Times ended in 1914 and God’s Messianic kingdom was born in the heavens, the “sacrifice of praise” as part of the “constant feature” that was offered by the spiritual Israelites consisted particularly of bearing witness to the established heavenly kingdom in the hands of Jesus Christ.​—Matthew 24:3, 14.

33. When was removal of the “constant feature” accomplished?

³³ By harassing the anointed Kingdom witnesses and finally by dashing to pieces their spiritual “power” for proclaiming God’s kingdom that must supersede all man-made governments on earth, the warring nations suppressed the Kingdom witnesses and thus removed the “constant feature.” This was accomplished by June 21, 1918. For nine months and four days thereafter the sentenced officers of the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society and their colaborers lingered in federal imprisonment, awaiting their being released on bail for a new trial and exoneration from all the false charges. Their unjust imprisonment for so long acted as a great deterrent to the offering of the “constant feature” by the Kingdom witnesses.