Occupying “a Holy Place”

18. (a) Where do the Scriptures show “a holy place” to be located? (b) According to Daniel 8:12, what happens at this location?

¹⁸ Today these remaining ones occupy “a holy place,” and they represent on earth the “heavenly Jerusalem” and its temple arrangement. Daniel describes this (in Da 8 verse 11) as “the established place of [Jehovah’s] sanctuary” here at His “footstool,” the earth. (Isaiah 66:1) He says: “From him [Jehovah] the constant feature was taken away, and the established place of his sanctuary was thrown down. And an army itself was gradually given over, together with the constant feature, because of transgression; and it kept throwing truth to the earth, and it acted and had success.” (Daniel 8:11, 12) How was this fulfilled?

19. (a) What do we here understand by the ‘small horn’s transgression’? (b) How did it keep “throwing truth to the earth”?

¹⁹ Well, what was the experience of faithful Bible students​—Jehovah’s Witnesses—​during World War II? Intense persecution! This amounted to a “transgression,” an effort to desolate God’s “sanctuary” class, and so take away from Jehovah the “constant feature” of daily public worship. It started in Nazi-Fascist countries. But soon ‘truth was being thrown to the earth’ throughout the vast domain of the ‘small horn whose power became mighty.’ The “army” of kingdom proclaimers and their work of preaching kingdom truth was banned in almost all of the British Commonwealth. When these nations conscripted their manpower they refused to grant exemption as ministers to Jehovah’s Witnesses; they showed no respect for their theocratic appointment as ministers of God. Mob violence and other indignities were heaped upon Jehovah’s faithful servants in the United States.

20. (a) What assurance does Daniel 8:14 give us? (b) How did the ‘holy place emerge victorious’? (c) As World War II drew to a close what developments were there in Jehovah’s organization?

²⁰ However, according to Daniel 8:13, 14, after a period of ‘twenty-three hundred days’ (six years, four months and twenty days), the “holy place” would be brought again “into its right condition,” or would “emerge victorious” (New English Bible). Indeed, Jehovah’s Witnesses had been fiercely persecuted because of their insistence on ‘obeying God as ruler rather than men.’ (Acts 5:29) But during the closing months of World War II they reaffirmed their determination to magnify Jehovah’s rulership and to adhere to it within their organization. To that end, a rearrangement of the work and governing structure of Jehovah’s Witnesses was initiated in 1944. The Watchtower of October 15, 1944, took as its theme “Organized for Final Work.” This and other service-oriented articles of the same period showed that the “holy place” was again in its “right condition” from Jehovah’s viewpoint.a

21. Up to this point, how had the kingdom triumphed?

²¹ The enemy’s vicious attempt to desolate and destroy the “holy place” completely had failed. The remaining “holy ones” on earth, along with their companions of the “great crowd,” had come off victorious. The kingdom of the Supreme One, Jehovah, and of his Christ, had triumphed!

High Time to Flee!

1. (a) During World War II, what happened on earth in the sanctuary of the “holy place”? (b) What question therefore arises?

AS WE have noted, the true “holy place” is in the domain of the “heavenly Jerusalem,” God’s messianic kingdom. During World War II, the “holy ones” who serve with their companions, the “great crowd,” in the sanctuary of that “holy place” on earth were trampled down principally in lands of the Anglo-American dual world power. (Daniel 7:27; 8:10-12; Revelation 7:9, 15) Do we then conclude that Britain and America are “the disgusting thing that causes desolation”? No, for the “transgression” by the dual world power includes another feature. What is that?

2, 3. (a) How has a counterfeit kingdom of God been brought forth? (b) How is this described in Revelation? (c) What, then, is the modern-day “disgusting thing” of Daniel 11:31 and Matthew 24:15?

² The Anglo-American world power has served Satan’s purpose in another way. It has brought forth a counterfeit kingdom of God. As in Daniel’s prophecy, so also in the Bible book of Revelation, “beasts” and their “horns” are used to symbolize worldly political powers. Revelation chapter 13 describes the seventh world power of Bible history, Britain and America, as a two-horned wild beast that gives life to an “image” of the beastlike human rulerships. This “image” of the beast is a composite ‘scarlet-colored wild beast that has seven heads and ten horns.’ (Revelation 17:3) It appeared first as the League of Nations in 1920, and again with Britain and America as its principal advocates, along with the Soviet Union, it was revived in 1945 as the United Nations. (Revelation 13:11, 15; 17:8) This also fulfilled Daniel 11:31, which reads: “And they will certainly put in place the disgusting thing that is causing desolation.”a

³ Here, then, is the modern-day “disgusting thing” of which Jesus spoke at Matthew 24:15. But how has it been made to ‘stand in a holy place’? What do the facts show?

4. (a) Why can the League of Nations be described as “disgusting”? (b) What “disgusting” claims have religious leaders made for the UN?

⁴ When Britain and America took the lead in proposing the League of Nations in 1918, the churches of Christendom gave wholehearted support. The Federal Council of Churches of Christ in America hailed it as “the political expression of the Kingdom of God on earth.” What blasphemy! To say that a combine of the political nations of Satan’s world could be God’s kingdom on earth! A disgusting thing, an abomination, indeed, in the sight of Jehovah and of those truly standing in the “holy place” as ambassadors on earth of the now ruling “heavenly Jerusalem”! And what have the world’s clergy said of the League’s successor, the United Nations? They have described it variously as ‘the sole hope of survival’ for mankind, “the last hope of concord and peace” and the “supreme forum of peace and justice.” As with the League of Nations, they place it in “a holy place” by claiming that it will bring about what God’s kingdom alone is capable of accomplishing.

5. Why can we say that the UN does not belong in the “holy place”?

⁵ The clergy of Christendom have opted for putting the UN in “a holy place” that rightly belongs to the “heavenly Jerusalem,” God’s kingdom, and to the “holy ones” representing it on earth. But there is nothing “holy” about the UN. It has its prayer chapel and its Buddhist bell, and inscribed on its plaza wall are the words of Isaiah 2:4 (AV): “They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.” But these things do not make it “holy.” Its member nations are squabbling continually one with another, and an impressive number of them are now antireligion, anti-God. However, in another sense, also, we find “the disgusting thing . . . standing in a holy place.”

She takes no account of the fact that this “disgusting thing” of a political kind stands where it ought not to stand, trespassing in the “holy place” that is now rightly the domain of the “heavenly Jerusalem,” God’s kingdom by Messiah.

14. How will those in the true “holy place” be threatened also?

¹⁴ However, what of those who worship in the real “holy place”​—those here on earth doing “sacred service” in support of the “heavenly Jerusalem”? These, too, will come under attack by militaristic “horns,” which even now make up part of the membership of the UN. According to Revelation 17:14, that political combine will demonstrate that it has no right to stand in “a holy place,” for it “will battle with the Lamb.”

15. (a) Who will be prominent in the attack on the “holy ones”? (b) How will ‘he come to his end’?

¹⁵ Daniel 11:40-45 shows that the Communistic “king of the north” will be prominent in this attack against the “holy ones,” but “he will have to come all the way to his end, and there will be no helper for him.”b Thus, all nationalistic “horns” and the “scarlet-colored wild beast” itself will be executed by Christ Jesus and his angelic armies. “Because he is Lord of lords and King of kings, the Lamb will conquer them.” There, at Armageddon, the reigning king of the “heavenly Jerusalem” will gain the decisive victory over all nations that have given “their power and authority to the wild beast.”​—Revelation 17:12-14; 16:16.