“In later periods of time some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to misleading inspired utterances and teachings of demons, by the hypocrisy of men who speak lies.”​—1 Tim. 4:1, 2.

21. How far has this gloom-infesting “pestilence” spread?

²¹ True to prophecy, this pestilence of demon-inspired moral and religious teachings, including man-made traditions contrary to the Bible, has spread beyond pagandom all through Christendom. Thus the churchgoing people of Christendom have been infected and reduced to their sick religious condition, endangering their salvation. But God has enlightened us against pestilence-breeding “gloom.”

“A thousand will fall at your very side and ten thousand at your right hand; to you it will not come near.”​—Ps. 91:7.

²⁶ Those spoken of as being at the “very side” of these dedicated worshipers of Jehovah God would be the people of Christendom and Jewry who profess to worship the God of the Holy Bible. They “fall” in spiritual death because they are not in Jehovah’s place of spiritual security. Hence, they are exposed to the spiritually death-dealing things described by the psalmist, the dreadful thing of earth’s night, the flying arrow of the day, the gloom-infesting pestilence, the “destruction that despoils at midday.” They have not really made God their strong “refuge.”

27. Who are the “ten thousand” that fall “at your right hand”?

²⁷ As if a thousand to one were not a big enough contrast, the psalmist says that those falling will be “ten thousand at your right hand.” As in the case of the Almighty God, the “right hand” is pictorial of the hand and side that is the stronger. (Ps. 98:1) So those to whom we have had to offer the stronger spiritual resistance because of their greater religious strength fall victim because they are not proof against worldliness, modernism, antireligious propaganda, popular theology and demon-inspired religious doctrines and practices. They are not immunized by the help of God’s spirit.

28. How has it literally become true that ten thousand have fallen at the right side of the anointed remnant, and whom has God raised up to be companions to the remnant?

²⁸ Today, when we contrast the reported number of the anointed remnant of spiritual Israel, around ten thousand, with the thousands of millions of members of religious Babylon the Great, we can see it to be literally true that ten thousand have fallen at the right hand of this remnant of the “seed” of God’s “woman.” (Rev. 12:17) But in place of those tens of thousands that have fallen in spiritual death at the right hand of this remnant, Jehovah God has raised up a “great crowd” of sheeplike believers who have dedicated their lives to Jehovah God through Jesus Christ the Fine Shepherd. (Rev. 7:9-17; John 10:16; Matt. 25:31-46) Jehovah has been raising these up as companions of the remnant notably since the year 1935. Today they number into the hundreds of thousands, so that Jehovah’s Christian witnesses now number close onto two million who proclaim God’s kingdom.

29. To whom has the destructive, faith-ruining agency from worldly sources not come near, but to whom has it done so?

²⁹ To those who have fallen spiritually the destructive, faith-ruining agency from worldly sources has come near. But to those standing in God’s place of spiritual security, “to you it will not come near.” Since the postwar year of 1919 C.E., the remnant have accepted the spiritual healing provided by the Great Physician, Jehovah God. (Ps. 103:1-3) But not so Christendom, as foretold in Isaiah 6:9-12; Matthew 13:14, 15. Consequently, Christendom’s more than a thousand million members succumb to the spiritually ruinous influences and pressures of this disease-ridden world.

6. Why is spiritual calamity more serious, and who are those who suffer therefrom?

⁶ Spiritual calamity, however, is different. From it there is no recovery, as in the case of religious Christendom and Jewry. These religious groups are, just like pagandom, not spiritually prosperous. They continue in their sick, diseased religious state, with destructive calamity ahead of them in the coming “great tribulation.” (Matt. 24:21, 22; Rev. 7:14)