Chapter 10 – THE TEMPEST

When Charles Taze Russell formed the original Allegheny Bible study group in 1874, it had been less than a decade since the American Civil War had ended. To put things into some perspective, at that time, the last wave of the westward-heading pioneers were still plodding across the open prairie in ox and horse-drawn covered wagons, and wars were still being waged using muskets, bayonets, and iron cannon balls. When the Watchtower originally began publishing its message to the world, it was still more than a decade before the first crude “horseless carriages” would appear on city streets and country lanes. And the Wright brothers had not even launched the era of aviation when the first International Bible Students in America and Europe began to anticipate the great and fearful sights that Jesus foretold would appear in the heavens as a sign.

There were no telephones, no radios, no televisions, no computers, no iPads, or earth-orbiting satellites back then. There was no artificial intelligence. The man-powered printing press and the telegraph were the state-of-the-art means of communication at the time, and the bicycle was the most modern form of personal transportation. The world was a much bigger and simpler place, or at least it must have seemed that way.

But that was the setting on the world’s stage when the forerunners of the modern movement of Jehovah’s Witnesses first came on the scene and began to announce the coming of the great tempest of Jehovah. And for a brief period during the terrible tumult of the First World War, especially as it was accompanied by the horrific Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918, it surely must have seemed to many as though the horsemen of the Apocalypse had been unleashed and that civilization itself was in its death throes.

But of course, that was not the case at all. Instead of marking the start of the calamitous conclusion of the system of things, since 1914, the world has developed in ways unimaginable to that bygone generation.

There is no question that mankind has benefited greatly from technological progress since the Industrial Revolution began. In the nations that have been allowed to develop at least to some extent, the ultimate benefits of applied science and innovation have been many. At the very least, the world has benefited in practical terms by a reduction in infant mortality; the eradication of some diseases; the mitigation of food shortages and famines; and an increase in lifespan and overall quality of life.

At the same time, though, people in developed nations have become increasingly dependent on an intricate, complex system. And most unsettling is the growing vulnerability of all the nations to the threat posed by a variety of fiendish weapons of mass destruction and the specter of a nuclear holocaust and ecological collapse.

But to illustrate the profound social change that has taken place as a result of industrialization, around the turn of the 20th century, the majority of people in the now-developed nations still lived on small family farms or in small towns and rural villages. Although perhaps poor, people back then were more self-sufficient, though to varying degrees. That is one reason why the Great Depression of the 1930s did not result in mass starvation in America. Besides the government safety nets that were provided during that bleak time, such as soup kitchens, the Civilian Conservation Corps, and Social Security, except for areas of the Dust Bowl, many unemployed city dwellers migrated back to the family farm, where they were able to scratch out a living until the depression ended.

But now the majority of earth’s 8.2 billion souls live in cities and hundreds of millions of people around the world even live in sprawling mega-cities and are dependent upon the continual function of an increasingly complex but fragile labyrinthian system; such as a fragile electric grid, transportation infrastructure, just-in-time delivery schemes, fuel transport and storage systems, water purification and sewage systems and a maze of interconnected communications networks. Life’s necessities, such as food, fuel, clothing, and medicines, may come from a myriad of different suppliers and middlemen from the farthest corners of the planet. A break in any link of the global chain could be calamitous.

We are a long, long way from Eden, mankind’s original home, where everything needed for life, health, and happiness was within arm’s reach—literally.

One of the most profound and far-reaching ways in which technology has changed the world over the past decades is the development of the incomprehensibly complex, computer-driven global financial system. Although it is assumed to be beneficial to the peoples of the world, to underscore the susceptibility of the nations to risks inherent in such a system, the financial crash that began in earnest in September 2008 sent shock-waves reverberating around the globe, instantaneously causing economic distress in places far removed from the Wall Street eye of the storm, such as Iceland, Indonesia and India. Even the industrial powerhouses, such as Germany, South Korea, China, and Japan, were sent reeling by the crash of the Wall Street system.

Although just a few weeks before the crisis erupted as front-page news, politicians and businessmen scoffed at the suggestion of a severe economic downturn. But in a short time, some of those same “experts” warned of the very real possibility of a systemic meltdown and the need for a global solution to the intractable difficulty that has overtaken them.

Now, of course, the globalists money men have stated their intention to bring about a so-called great reset. What is that, exactly?

The great reset is a euphemism for crashing the entire system and implementing a new one, ostensibly based upon a central bank-issued digital currency.

Even without an intentional “reset,” collapse is inevitable. That is because it is physically impossible for the trillions upon trillions of dollars in mounting debt and fictitious financial claims, called derivatives, to ever be satisfied. The present global financial system is usurious, non-productive, speculative, and predatory by design. The gargantuan, must-expand-or-implode credit bubble must inevitably reach the end of its ability to extract any more blood from its depleted host. What is likely to happen then?

Simply put, the stage is set for an unimaginable catastrophe, namely, the collapse of the U.S. Dollar-based financial system. The collapse is already in motion.

While on the one hand, scientific progress and computer technology have brought many benefits, they have also given governmental authorities nearly omnipotent powers of surveillance and empowered the money mavens to defraud and plunder on a global scale. And though science has brought about a green revolution, increasing harvests, the complexities of the market system and the monopolistic concentration of corporate power over all aspects of food production mean that a breakdown anywhere in the chain could create massive food shortages and famines, even in developed nations.

Yes, science has given mankind many lifesaving medicines and surgical devices, but it has also developed bacteriologic and viral agents and super-toxins and empowered evil men with the ability to annihilate the human race with push-button ease. The COVID episode was just a practice run.

In short, the world has unwisely constructed the means of its own destruction, and the principle of Jehovah’s decree is that those who have sown the wind must in the end reap the whirlwind. But how else ought such an ungodly and morally corrupt civilization conclude except in a maelstrom of its own madness?

A GREAT TEMPEST WILL BE ROUSED UP

Although having been in expectation of it for a long time, Jehovah’s Witnesses are, nonetheless, laboring under the delusion that the great tempest of Jehovah emanates directly from heaven and will be manifest as an awesome display of divine power; however, that is not what the tempest of Jehovah is.

According to the word of God, the storm originates from within the nations themselves. Jehovah merely allows it to occur and uses it to accomplish his judgments. That is apparent from the 25th chapter of Jeremiah, which reads: “A noise will certainly come clear to the farthest part of the earth, for there is a controversy that Jehovah has with the nations. He must personally put himself in judgment with all flesh. As regards the wicked ones, he must give them to the sword,’ is the utterance of Jehovah. This is what Jehovah of armies has said, ‘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.’”

In the days of Jeremiah the prophet, the “great tempest” that was “roused up from the remotest parts of the earth” came in the form of the onward-sweeping legions of mighty Babylon. Nation after nation was crushed by the Babylonian juggernaut. No people in the region escaped the calamity, not even Judah with its city on the hill where Jehovah placed His holy name.

Isaiah described Babylon’s army as a ferocious, unstoppable force; commissioned by God himself, saying of it: “And he has raised up a signal to a great nation far away, and he has whistled to it at the extremity of the earth; and, look! in haste it will swiftly come in. There is no one tired nor is anyone stumbling among them. No one is drowsy and no one sleeps. And the belt around their loins will certainly not be opened, nor the laces of their sandals be torn in two; because their arrows are sharpened and all their bows are bent. The very hoofs of their horses will have to be accounted as flint itself, and their wheels as a storm wind. The roaring of theirs is like that of a lion, and they roar like maned young lions.” (Isaiah 5:26-29)

But Babylon’s conquest, as terrible and extensive as it was, was not by any means a global calamity. Nor did Jehovah “put himself in judgment with all flesh” back then, as the prophecy of Jeremiah states. This leads to the inescapable conclusion that the Hebrew prophecies regarding the “world” conquest by imperial Babylon have a much broader application to the last kingdom of man, the so-called eighth king of Revelation.

To be sure, Jeremiah 23:19-20 indicates that the whirling tempest of Jehovah will have an ultimate realization “in the final part of the days.” Those verses read: “Look! The windstorm of Jehovah will burst out in fury; like a whirling tempest it will whirl down on the head of the wicked. The anger of Jehovah will not turn back until he has carried out and accomplished the intentions of his heart. In the final part of the days you will clearly understand this.”

A THUNDEROUS STORM OF FLOODING WATERS

Although Jehovah’s Witnesses are convinced that the final part of the days began in 1914, it is obvious that “the windstorm of Jehovah” has not yet begun to rage. Indeed, and neither will Jehovah’s Witnesses be idle bystanders— witnessing the tempest as if from afar, as some may assume. Quite to the contrary, the coming storm of tyranny will be the means by which Jehovah will put himself in judgment with his people first, flushing out wicked and faithless men from their places of concealment within his organization.

God has issued a global storm warning in the form of an edict against his nation/congregation, saying: “Look! Jehovah has someone strong and mighty. Like a thundering hailstorm, a destructive windstorm, like a thunderstorm of powerful floodwaters, He will forcefully hurl it down to the earth.” – Isaiah 28:2

“Someone strong and mighty” is in reference to the earthly agency that God will use to bring about his judgments. That the “thundering hailstorm” will cast down that which belongs to Jehovah is evident from the fact that a faithful remnant of “his people” will not be swept away in the flooding downpour of Jehovah’s denunciation. But not only will the faithful survive the denunciatory deluge, but verses 5-6 also foretell that Jehovah will distinguish them during the heat of battle. Those hope-inspiring verses read: “In that day Jehovah of armies will become a glorious crown and a beautiful garland to those left of his people. And he will become a spirit of justice to the one who sits in judgment and a source of mightiness to those who repel the attack at the gate.”

The expression “those left of his people” may also be expressed as ‘the remnant of his people.’ “The remnant” is a biblical expression frequently used by Jehovah’s Witnesses to refer to the anointed, a holdover from the King James Bible. Most noteworthy, though, is the similarity between this portion of Isaiah’s prophecy and the 12th chapter of Revelation. Specifically, the “flood” of persecution disgorged by the symbolic satanic dragon directed at the woman of the covenant is precisely the same event as the thunderous storm of powerful, flooding waters. How may that be conclusively determined?

The book of Revelation reveals that the Devil will be permitted to bring “woe” upon the earth and sea when he unleashes shock and awe against the remnant of the offspring of the woman, which comes about as a direct result of the dragon being forcibly cast down from heaven by the first act of Christ’s incoming Kingdom. Isaiah’s prophecy is in harmony with that ordering of events.

The prophecy indicates that the tempest occurs concurrently with the establishment of the Kingdom. Alluding to Jesus Christ as the foundational stone of Zion, Zion being the symbolic capital of God’s heavenly Kingdom. The prophecy goes on to say: “Here I am laying as a foundation in Zion a tested stone, The precious cornerstone of a sure foundation. No one exercising faith will panic. And I will make justice the measuring line and righteousness the leveling tool. The hail will sweep away the refuge of lies, and the waters will flood out the hiding place. Your covenant with Death will be dissolved, and your agreement with the Grave will not stand. When the raging flash flood passes through, you will be crushed by it. As often as it passes through, it will sweep you away; for it will pass through morning after morning, during the day and during the night. Only terror will make them understand what was heard.”

The flooding torrent of Jehovah’s condemnation will inevitably sweep away “The Lie” that Christ began ruling in 1914. It will flood out and expose as corrupt those who continue to perversely cling to the Society’s “artfully contrived false stories.”

For a certainty, the persistent belief that salvation is only attainable for those who remain loyal to the Watchtower Society, as if they have established a covenant with Death, will be dissolved and violently washed away. Their place of refuge within the fabricated lie of the supposed inviolability of “Jehovah’s earthly organization” will be swept away like a child’s sandcastle at high tide.

As an example of how the Society has tried to conceal itself from God’s denunciation, consider how it has misapplied the 54th chapter of Isaiah. The prophecy is directed to God’s own beloved, but “tempest-tossed” woman of the covenant. Verses 7-8 say: “For a little moment I left you entirely, but with great mercies I shall collect you together. With a flood of indignation. I concealed my face from you for but a moment, but with loving-kindness to time indefinite I will have mercy upon you…”

It should be apparent that the “flood of indignation” that Jehovah causes to be unleashed against his people is the same “raging flash flood” referred to in the 28th chapter of Isaiah. However, that is not how the Society interprets it.

According to the Watchtower’s Isaiah commentary, the flood of Jehovah’s indignation against the congregational “woman” was expressed in 1918 against the International Bible Students; whereas, the flood that washes away “your covenant with death” is construed as a denunciation of Christendom, to be fulfilled during the desolation of the “holy place,” during the great tribulation. Essentially, the Watchtower teaches that the prophecies of Isaiah pertain to two separate metaphoric floods of denunciation directed against two unrelated entities, both of which Jehovah claims as his own possession.

As a footnote, since the third edition of this publication (2016), the Watchtower has made yet another revision. Now, no such flood of punishment came upon the Christian organization in 1918. Instead, God abandoned Christianity hundreds of years ago when Constantine became the arbiter of a dispute over Jesus’ identity. And since then, over the course of 1,600 years, it is supposed to be the “little moment”  of God’s indignation. The blindness is impenetrable!

This latest “adjustment” shows even more clearly how Bethel has gone to such lengths to interpret the prophetic visions in a manner that nullifies God’s judgments against itself; it is as though Bethel has affected a vision with Death and struck an agreement with the Grave to preserve itself alive.

However, Jehovah has decreed that the oncoming tempest will nullify their contract with Death. As a result of Jehovah canceling their illicit pact with Death and the Grave, the Watchtower organization is destined to become a mere “trampling place”; soon to resemble the wreckage strewn in the aftermath of a great and terrible tempest, as it were.

Those who have been deceived into putting their faith in the Watchtower’s deal with Death are destined for disappointment. Jehovah’s Witnesses who are cocksure of their righteousness due to their standing within the organization will be flushed out of their “place of concealment” and made to stand before the judgment throne of Christ without the buffering mediation of any earthly organization. The oncoming storm of war, global financial collapse, and relentless tyranny will cause mere organizational men to quake in terror.

“A HIDING PLACE FROM THE WIND”

The 32nd chapter of Isaiah also correlates the coming of Christ with a great tempest of tyranny. The opening verses of that chapter read: “Look! A king will reign for righteousness itself; and as respects princes, they will rule as princes for justice itself. And each one must prove to be like a hiding place from the wind and a place of concealment from the rainstorm, like streams of water in a waterless country, like the shadow of a heavy crag in an exhausted land.”

The Watchtower teaches that the prophecy has already been fulfilled in modern times within the organization of Jehovah’s Witnesses. The princes who rule for justice and provide shelter from the storm are supposedly the congregation elders. But that cannot possibly be true, as the “rainstorm” has not begun yet. It seems more reasonable to conclude that the princes symbolize the holy ones of the Kingdom after they have been appointed over all their master’s belongings. The princes, along with Christ—the King of kings, the Lord of lords, and the Prince of princes—will, during that bleak and desperate day, provide a place of refuge for the redeemed in the post-Watchtower period.

The 25th chapter of Isaiah conclusively establishes that the tempest of Jehovah is not a supernatural phenomenon but merely a symbol of a storm of tyranny that is soon to engulf the nations. Accordingly, Isaiah 25:7 says: “In this mountain he will do away with the shroud that is enveloping all the peoples and the covering that is woven over all the nations.”

The mountain obviously symbolizes the established Reign of Christ over the earth. However, “the envelopment that is enveloping over all the peoples” is not mere Adamic death, as the Watchtower wrongly teaches. The context concerns Jehovah’s judgment against “the town of tyrannical nations,” a symbolic reference to the capital city of Satan’s post-system-collapse world government.

The “envelopment” that “is interwoven upon the nations” has to do with the ultimate “success” of the ongoing conspiracy to enmesh the nations into a genocidal net. In harmony with that, the prophecy of Habakkuk, which is a vision yet for the time appointed, pictures the Chaldean entrapping all the nations in his net as if they were hapless fish. Elsewhere in prophecy, the Chaldean is called “the despot of the nations.” No wonder Jesus exhorted his disciples not to be terrified by the events that will unfold with the desolation of the holy place during the conclusion of the system of things. Happily, however, although Jehovah allows the tempest of tyranny to sweep the world, he also promises to provide a place of refuge for the faithful.

Isaiah further foretells: “For you have become a stronghold to the lowly, a stronghold to the poor in his distress, a refuge from the rainstorm, and a shade from the heat. When the blast of the tyrants is like a rainstorm against a wall, as the heat in a parched land, you subdue the uproar of strangers. Like heat is subdued by the shadow of a cloud, so the song of the tyrants is silenced.”

Just as Almighty spoke to Job and set matters straight from the midst of a tempestuous wind and Moses had an encounter with Jehovah God atop Mount Sinai, whilst the mountain quaked and was enveloped in billowing smoke and shook from bone-rattling thunder, and the prophet Elijah had a similar experience as the mountain on which he sought refuge quaked with wind and flames, in the same manner the now-onrushing global tempest will be the backdrop in which Jehovah breaks his silence and speaks to his people today.

The 50th Psalm points forward to the occasion when God will “speak” from the tempest to judge his people: “The God of gods, Jehovah, has spoken; He summons the earth from the rising of the sun until its setting. Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God shines forth. Our God will come and cannot remain silent. Before him is a consuming fire, and a great storm rages all around him. He summons the heavens above and the earth, so as to judge his people:  ‘Gather to me my loyal ones, those making a covenant with me over sacrifice.’”

Although the Watchtower Society has falsely announced the presence of Christ and the imminence of the day of Jehovah since 1878, and as a result has stumbled countless Christians and will cause many more to stumble, and will ultimately lose all credibility, that in no way negates the purpose of God to bring the world into judgment. On the contrary, the errors and hypocrisy of the Watchtower Society and Jehovah’s Witnesses are what precipitate the very storm wind of Jehovah.