1917_The_Finished_Mystery_Text

until the year 73 A. D., as I fully proved tomyself by consulting the historians, what thenare we to expect in the parallel year 1918?'Brother Russell put the question to threeprominent brethren, all of whom replied that theydid not know, but were willing to wait and see.When he called upon me I said, ‘Since the year73 A. D. saw the complete overthrow of nominalNatural Israel in Palestine, so in the parallel year1918, I infer we should look for the completeoverthrow of nominal Spiritual Israel; i. e., thefall of Babylon. (Rev. 18.) Brother Russellreplied: ‘Exactly. That is exactly the inference todraw.'" The conclusion of the Church's careercomes first. (Rev. 3:14.)"If you see the ‘door' of opportunity for sacrificeand service open before you, enter in. But enterquickly; for the night of darkness and of intenseopposition to the truth will ere long be upon usand will hinder you from engaging in the service.‘The morning cometh, and also the night.' ‘Thenight cometh in which no man can work.' Whenthat is true, you may know that ‘the door is shut,'that all the wise virgins have entered in, that allhave been proved, and that all vacancies havebeen acceptably filled. All the special ‘servantsof God' having by that time been ‘sealed in theirforeheads' (given an intellectual appreciation ofGod's Plan), the four winds will be loosed andwill produce the great ‘whirlwind' of trouble inthe midst of which the remnant of the Elijahclass will be ‘changed,' and exalted to Kingdomglory."— C225.Revelation 7:4And I heard the number of them which weresealed.— "We have every reason to believe thatthe definite, fixed number of the Elect is thatseveral times stated in Revelation, namely,144,000 ‘redeemed from amongst men.' " (F179;Rev. 14:1.) This is the equivalent of one saintfully developed for each five days of the Age.