in Isaiah 8:18. Under inspiration the Christian writer of the letter to the Hebrews quoted those words and applied them to Jesus and his 144,000 disciples, saying:

¹⁹ “It was fitting for the one [God] for whose sake all things are and through whom all things are, in bringing many sons to [heavenly] glory, to make the Chief Agent of their salvation perfect through sufferings. For both [Jesus] who is sanctifying and those who are being sanctified all stem from one [Father], and for this cause he is not ashamed to call them ‘brothers’, as he says: ‘I will declare your name to my brothers . . . ’ And again: ‘Look! I and the young children whom Jehovah gave me.’”—Heb. 2:10-13.

20. Although termed “young children,” what are these given ones really to Jesus, and in what work are they associated with him?

²⁰ These “young children” are not the great crowd of “other sheep” to whom Jesus Christ the King will become the “Father forever” in the “inhabited earth to come.” (Isa. 9:6; Heb. 2:5) The “young children” of God are those begotten of his spirit to become his spiritual children. These Jehovah has given to Jesus. In prayer to Jehovah God Jesus said: “I have made your name manifest to the men you gave me out of the world. They were yours, and you gave them to me, and they have observed your word. I make request concerning them; I make request, not concerning the world, but concerning those you have given me, because they are yours, and all my things are yours and yours are mine, and I have been glorified among them.” (John 17:6, 9, 10) The heavenly Father gives Jesus 144,000 of these “young children” of God to be his brothers in the spiritual family of God and to be his associates in God’s work. What work? That of being signs and wonders on earth. Jesus said that he was a sign. He also says that his spirit-begotten, spirit-anointed brothers must be signs and wonders also. To this very day they have been.

21, 22. (a) How did conditions develop for his remaining spiritual brothers to become a modern Shear-jashub? (b) How did the Greater Isaiah get his modern Shear-jashub class?

²¹ Hence they must be like Shear-jashub and like Ma’her-shal’al-hash-baz. Jesus Christ himself is the great Immanuel. His remaining spiritual brothers on earth today are a modern Shear-jashub. The meaning of that Hebrew name applies to them. During World War I they came into a captive state, under bondage to the warring nations of Christendom, in spiritual and physical ways. Even the president and the secretary-treasurer of the Watch Tower Bible & Tract Society were arrested and imprisoned as a result of the passions of that global conflict. These children of God were expecting that World War I would worsen into world revolution and world revolution would turn into world anarchy that would spell Armageddon for all the nations of this world. But had that proved true, and had God Almighty unleashed the foretold battle of Armageddon at that time, these spiritual brothers of the Greater Isaiah under their spiritual bondage to the worldly nations might have been destroyed with the nations. They might have been like Sodom and Gomorrah. But God long ago gave Isaiah a son named Shear-jashub, which name means “A mere remnant will return.” To fulfill that name, Jehovah had to give Jesus Christ the Greater Isaiah a remnant of “young children,” his brothers, who had returned to Jehovah’s organization.

²² Jehovah God did so. In 1918 he stopped the great tribulation that had begun upon the enemy organization of Satan the Devil. Along with it World War I ended on November 11 of that year. His time for Armageddon, “the war of the great day of God the Almighty,” was still future. In this way he cut short the days of that tribulation upon Satan’s organization invisible and visible. Then in the spring of 1919 he brought to his “young children,” to the remnant of those whom Jesus Christ confesses as his brothers, release from their captivity to modern Babylon. By means of their oldest brother, Jesus Christ, God caused them to return to his theocratic organization and its work. Thus a mere remnant of truly dedicated, anointed “young children” of God did return, and God gave them to the Greater Isaiah, Jesus Christ. Jesus foretold that this would occur in the “time of the end” of this world. (Matt. 24:21, 22, 30, 31) It did, and the Greater Isaiah got his Shear-jashub class. For some years during the postwar period the returned remnant increased; but recently their numbers have been getting less as many of them finish their earthly walk in Jesus’ footsteps.

23. How many does this spiritual remnant number now, and yet why are they not to be despised or considered insignificant?

²³ Today the remnant numbers less than sixteen thousand, according to the records of the year 1958. However, let no nations of the world despise them and consider them as of no significance. Let not the sheeplike people look upon them as of no special meaning within the purpose of Jehovah God. This spiritual remnant stands forth as a sign to all the world. Like Isaiah’s son Shear-jashub of old, this spiritual minority is a visible proof from the Most High God that the remnant has returned. They are physical, tangible evidence that Jehovah God is faithful to his word and has fulfilled the prophecy long ago pronounced in his holy name. All men should watch this spiritual remnant as a sign from the Most High God.

24. Why must they serve as a certain evidence, and so on what mission has he sent this remnant, and to where?

²⁴ Since they were liberated as a sign, they must serve as evidence, as indicators of something to all the nations in this time of the world’s end. They must stand forth as living proof that Jehovah is able by his holy arm of strength to deliver and save his people from the power of the enemy. It is true today: “Jehovah has bared his holy arm before the eyes of all the nations, and all the ends of the earth must see the salvation of our God.” (Isa. 52:10) To this end he had to send the remnant, to make them known to the ends of the earth. This he declared he would do, in order that he might carry out a great global gathering of sheeplike people from the four quarters of the earth. He said: “‘I am coming in order to collect all the nations and tongues together, and they will have to come and see my glory. And I will set among them a sign, and I will send some of those who are escaped to the nations, . . . the faraway islands, who have not heard a report about me or seen my glory, and they will for certain tell about my glory among the nations. And they will actually bring all your brothers out of all the nations as a gift to Jehovah, . . . up to my holy mountain, Jerusalem,’ Jehovah has said, . . . ‘For just as the new heavens and the new earth that I am making are standing before me,’ is the utterance of Jehovah, ‘so the offspring of you people and the name of you people will keep standing.’”—Isa. 66:22.

25-27. (a) Whom has Jehovah thus gathered to the Greater Isaiah? (b) What has Jehovah commanded them to do, and so who have associated themselves with Jehovah’s signs and wonders today?

²⁵ By thus setting his liberated remnant among the nations as a sign, Jehovah has now gathered to Jesus Christ the Greater Isaiah the remainder of his remnant class to fill up the foreordained number of 144,000 joint heirs of his Son. In harmony with their function as signs and wonders, Jehovah has commanded his remnant through his Greater Isaiah: “Pass out, pass out through the gates, you men. Clear the way of the people. Bank up, bank up the highway. Rid it of stones. Raise up a signal for the peoples.” (Isa. 62:10) The signal that they raise up is the message of God’s kingdom. Already among 170 nations this Kingdom signal has been raised. Hundreds of thousands of sheeplike persons, “other sheep” of Jehovah’s Right Shepherd Jesus Christ, have beheld this upraised “signal.” With joy they have hailed it They have assembled under it, giving their undivided support to God’s kingdom by Christ and placing themselves under its protection and under its commands. They have taken up the only religion or only worship that this heavenly kingdom authorizes and permits, the lofty worship of Jehovah God at his spiritual temple. Their gathering is a world-wide sign of the “last days” of this world, for in its “time of the end” is when Isaiah foretold that this would occur, saying:

²⁶ “It must occur in the final part of the days that the mountain of the house of Jehovah will become firmly established above the top of the mountains, and it will certainly be lifted up above the hills, and to it all the nations must stream. And many peoples will certainly go and say: ‘Come, you people, and let us go up to the mountain of Jehovah, to the house of the God of Jacob, and he will instruct us about his ways and we will walk in his paths.’ For out of Zion law will go forth, and the word of Jehovah out of Jerusalem. And he will certainly render judgment among the nations and set matters straight respecting many peoples. And they will have to beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning shears. Nation will not lift up sword against nation, neither will they learn war any more. O men of the house of Jacob, come and let us walk in the light of Jehovah.”—Isa. 2:2-5.

²⁷ So they associate themselves with Jehovah’s signs and wonders.

Reading the Meaning of the Signs and Wonders

1. For one to be what kind of sign is it a privilege, and how did Isaiah describe such a sign?

IT IS a joyful privilege for anyone to be a sign of something that is lastingly good. To people who have a right set of values, a person who serves as such a sign is someone handsome, someone welcome and worthy of a hearty reception. So, then, a messenger who brings good news about the true worship of Jehovah God and about the re-establishment of his theocratic organization in the earth would be a handsome sign. Through his prophet Isaiah Jehovah God described such a messenger as due to appear shortly after World War I ended, while his witnesses were yet lying in captivity to the war-mad nations of this world. He said: “‘For that reason my people will know my name, even for that reason in that day, because I am the One that is speaking. Look! It is I.’ How handsome upon the mountains are the feet of the one bringing good news, the one making peace to be heard, the one bringing good news of something better, the one making salvation