come now into the loving favor and protection of Abraham’s God, Jehovah. From that vantage position you can start experiencing now the happy contrasts that make life so endlessly interesting and worth while, with the wonderful prospect of everlasting life in God’s new system of things with its further promise of delightful contrasts, for its Creator says: “Look! I am making all things new.”​—Rev. 21:5.

A Harlot Executed by Her Lovers

IT IS not uncommon to read in the newspapers an account about a clandestine affair in which there is a falling out between lovers and the woman is murdered by her paramour. Usually it is a love triangle and jealousy is the motive. Sometimes we read of where a harlot is murdered by her lovers, even stripped naked, tortured and thrown alongside the road. Often this is because of their disgust at her complete filthiness and degradation or because she was disloyal in some scheme of theirs.

The harlot we are discussing here, however, is no ordinary harlot. She is one that has had kings and rulers as her paramours. Nevertheless, she is executed by them, and not for reasons of jealousy, but because she has deceived them. She has made the world situation much more difficult for the rulers to handle. Actually she leads them into a position where they are found to be fighting against God. They come to the point of disgust and hatred toward her that causes them to want to obliterate her and all thoughts and memories of her.

This harlot, whose activities have affected the lives of everyone on earth, is the one that was portrayed in vision to the apostle John. She is an international harlot and her activities and her final destiny and execution at the hand of her lovers are clearly described in the record John made of the vision. We read in the book of Revelation that John saw a woman, a harlot named Babylon the Great, riding a scarlet-colored beast. He writes: “And he says to me: ‘The waters that you saw, where the harlot is sitting, mean peoples and crowds and nations and tongues. And the ten horns that you saw, and the wild beast, these will hate the harlot and will make her devastated and naked, and will eat up her fleshy parts and will completely burn her with fire. For God put it into their hearts to carry out his thought, even to carry out their one thought by giving their kingdom to the wild beast, until the words of God will have been accomplished. And the woman whom you saw means the great city that has a kingdom over the kings of the earth.’”​—Rev. 17:15-18.

A RELIGIOUS EMPIRE OVER THE NATIONS

As explained in previous issues of The Watchtower, the scarlet-colored beast is the international peace organization now known as the United Nations. The ten horns represent the complete number of the earthly rulers that make up this organization. They are the powers that hold political control over their respective nations and peoples. The harlot is said to be sitting on many waters (Rev. 17:1), which mean peoples and crowds and nations and tongues. (Re 17 Vs. 15) These have included people of all nations of the earth. Therefore, Babylon the Great is larger than a kingdom​—she is an empire, a religious empire wielding religious influence and control over lives of peoples, just as she is shown sitting upon them. She has wielded so much power and influence in this way that power and influence in this way that the kings and rulers of the earth have found it advantageous to adopt a form of religion, in some places even making a Babylonish religion the state religion. It is in this way that Babylon the Great has a “kingdom over the kings of the earth.” Babylon the Great, being made up of the world empire of multitudinous sects, is therefore greater than Christendom, and older, but includes Christendom.

What is the “one thought” that the “ten kings” have, and how does God put it into their hearts to carry it out? Well, God knows how to reserve the ungodly to the day of judgment to be punished. (2 Pet. 2:9) In letting them go to great limits in their schemes he has a purpose. He, too, has a “thought” of his own regarding the “ten kings” that involves the fate of Babylon the Great the harlot. He maneuvers them all into the position in which he wants them and causes them to be exposed and to show their true colors before they are destroyed.

GOD BRINGS THE HARLOT AND HER LOVERS TO JUDGMENT

The “one thought” the ten kings have is opposition to God’s kingdom in the hands of his Lamb, Jesus Christ. Just as Jehovah did with Pharaoh of ancient Egypt, who he told Moses beforehand would not listen to his voice until He had struck Egypt with all his wonderful acts (which finally ended in Pharaoh’s destruction at Jehovah’s hands in the Red Sea), so Jehovah knows these kings’ heart attitude. He puts them on judgment before him and makes them produce the evidence. On the basis of this evidence he can righteously sentence them to destruction and execute the sentence.​—Ex. 7:3-5.

The critical year for the “ten kings” was 1914 C.E., because the Gentile Times ran out in the fall of that year. The “ten kings” as well as Babylon the Great herself were warned of this through some of the clergymen of Christendom as well as by Jehovah’s witnesses, but all of them ignored the warning. But what would the “ten kings” do when their power ran out? Jehovah foreknew their “one thought” and their course of action. In 1914 war over world domination broke out in Christendom. The leaders of the world were unwilling to turn over their sovereignty to Jehovah God’s king, but, instead, wanted to continue their rule and entered into this war. It was accompanied by food shortages,