Jehovah’s witnesses, who were informed on the prophetic Scriptures.

41. What comments by world leaders show the United Nations to be like its predecessor, full of blasphemous names?

⁴¹ Such dwellers on earth wondered admiringly at the revived scarlet wild beast. Much reliance was placed in its ability to be a power for world peace and security. Great expectations were held out for it, and it was given designations that were really blasphemous from the standpoint of the Holy Bible. How so? In that to this “wild beast” powers were ascribed and tasks were assigned that really belong to God’s kingdom and its Messiah or its Christ. Back in 1919 the scarlet League of Nations had been seriously called “the political expression of the Kingdom of God on earth.” And now the United Nations, the successor of that League, has been called the best means for peace, yes, even more than that, the “last hope for peace.” So today we can see in actuality what the apostle John saw in symbol, that that scarlet-colored wild beast is “full of blasphemous names.” Those expressions of admiration for it turn false religionists, not to the worship of Jehovah God the Creator, but to idolatry of a man-made creation, the worship of a political image, the worship of an international organization for world peace and security.—Rev. 17:3.

ITS RIDER

42. (a) Why will those worshiping this beast not be saved? (b) What timely question is thus asked, with what startling answer?

⁴² Is such worship of the scarlet wild beast going to save such admiring dwellers on the earth? No! For it is written that “their names have not been written upon the scroll of life from the founding of the world.” (Rev. 17:8) But why is their religion not holding them back from committing idolatry, which is contrary to the first and second of the Ten Commandments of Jehovah God? Revelation, chapter seventeen, symbolically shows us why. It is because there is a woman riding the scarlet beast. We read:

43. (a) Describe the appearance of the woman riding this beast. (b) What is her name, and on what has she gotten drunk?

⁴³ “And he [the angel who appeared to John] carried me away in the power of the spirit into a wilderness. And I caught sight of a woman sitting upon a scarlet-colored wild beast that was full of blasphemous names and that had seven heads and ten horns. And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet, and was adorned with gold and precious stone and pearls and had in her hand a golden cup that was full of disgusting things and the unclean things of her fornication. And upon her forehead was written a name, a mystery: ‘Babylon the Great, the mother of the harlots and of the disgusting things of the earth.’ And I saw that the woman was drunk with the blood of the holy ones and with the blood of the witnesses of Jesus. Well, on catching sight of her I wondered with great wonderment [but, of course, not admiringly].”—Rev. 17:3-6.

44. (a) Her being drunk with the blood of God’s servants proves what about her? (b) What is the significance of her name, Babylon the Great?

⁴⁴ The fact that the woman was “drunk with the blood of [God’s] holy ones and with the blood of the witnesses of Jesus,” what does that prove? It proves she is against Jehovah God and against his Son Jesus the Messiah or Christ. She is therefore not on the side of the one true worship, the one true religion. The name on her forehead, although a mystery, betrays who the woman is. The main part of her name is the name of Jehovah God’s ancient enemy, Babylon. But she is greater than that city built under Nimrod’s direction on the Euphrates River; that is why she is called “Babylon the Great.” The ancient city of Babylon was, clear down to its disastrous fall in 539 B.C., outstandingly religious; she was a leader in false worship. Ah, now, we see that the mysterious Babylon the Great is, not pagan Rome of the seven hills, but the world empire of Babylonish religion that gathers all the world in under its dominion.

45. (a) What do the waters where the harlot sits represent, and how long has she been astride those waters? (b) What agility has this harlot shown over the years?

⁴⁵ That is why the angel said to John in explaining the mystery: “The waters that you saw, where the harlot is sitting, mean peoples and crowds and nations and tongues. And the woman whom you saw means the great city that has a kingdom over the kings of the earth.” (Rev. 17:15, 18) She sat on those symbolic waters and held kingdom over earth’s rulers long before the scarlet beast was set up as an idolatrous image. As soon as this symbolic wild beast appeared after World War I she climbed on its back. In view of her religious power, that was easy for her. When the scarlet “wild beast” went into the abyss during World War II she continued to sit “on many waters,” namely, on the peoples, crowds, nations and tongues, and to exercise “kingdom over the kings of the earth.” (Rev. 17:1) When the “wild beast” ascended out of the abyss with the help of especially its seventh head, the Anglo-American World Power, Babylon the Great at once climbed upon its back, and there she sits till this day.

46. How has this wicked woman shown herself to be “the mother of the harlots”?

⁴⁶ It was but to be expected that she would ride this beast, it being a political organization, a world power. Babylon the Great is a harlot and is named “the mother of the harlots.” God’s angel said she is the “great harlot who sits on many waters, with whom the kings of the earth committed fornication, whereas those who inhabit the earth were made drunk with the wine of her fornication.” (Rev. 17:1, 2) Since the scarlet wild beast symbolizes a political organization, the Eighth World Power, and its seven heads symbolize “seven kings” or seven world powers, Babylon the Great would follow her regular course and commit fornication with it just as she had committed fornication with the previous seven world powers and other “kings of the earth.” Symbolically speaking, she would be committing fornication with a wild beast, which act is bestiality, a sin that is loathsome and that is condemned by God’s law.—Lev. 20:15, 16.

47. Why is this harlot so interested in world politics, and to what extent has she gone to win the favor of world governments?

⁴⁷ Her fornication consists in her uniting of her religion with politics, playing along with politics for her own enrichment. She is intensely interested in politics, but this is especially in order that she may control worldly politics for her own advantage, dictating to the politicians. She presumes to have the divine right to crown and uncrown kings. She has prostituted herself to the political rulers. She has yielded her religious power to serve the ambitions of the rulers, even to blessing their armies with slaughter weapons and sanctifying their selfish wars, and giving to those who get killed while trying to kill others in warfare a direct passport into heavenly glory. No wonder she is so brilliantly dressed.

48. Explain the expression “those who inhabit the earth were made drunk with the wine of her fornication.”

⁴⁸ What, though, have the common people got from her committing her fornication with worldly rulers? This, as stated: “those who inhabit the earth were made drunk with the wine of her fornication.” They have been made to suffer from all the selfish, ambitious, aggressive, covetous schemes that she blessed and in which she cooperated just to please the political rulers, her handsomely paying paramours. The people have been made to reel and have been stupefied by all the trouble, affliction, privation, hardship and oppression that have been given them to drink from the “golden cup” of Babylon the Great. The fact that she has religiously told the suffering peoples that these things are Heaven’s will for them has not lightened their sufferings, healed their wounds or comforted their aching hearts. Her golden cup is filthy inside.

49. Who are the daughter organizations that Babylon has produced?

⁴⁹ Babylon the Great’s harlotry has made her a mother, but a mother of bastard children, who take after their mother’s ways. So she is the “mother of the harlots and of the disgusting things of the earth.” Locally, in the various nations, she has produced daughter organizations, religious systems either united with the local government in unions of Church and State or closely tied in with the national political system and serving as a handmaiden, a concubine for it. She also mothers disgusting things, things that are particularly disgusting to God, such as persons sanctified for prostitution at her temples, gambling on religious property for receiving her percentage of the unjust gain, idolatries with images, and so forth.

50. Name the various ways in which Babylon is responsible for heavy bloodguilt.

⁵⁰ A heavy bloodguilt before God the Creator weighs down on Babylon the Great. She shares in the blame for the wars she has not used her mystical power to prevent. She shares in the guilt for the bloodshed of those she blessed as she offered them for sacrifice to the god of war, even though they fought on opposite sides of the conflict, religious brother against religious brother. In the name of religion she has carried on intolerant persecution. She has stirred up brutal religious wars, of one religion against another. She has proclaimed holy wars, with promises of heavenly rewards for those who die fighting in them. She has promoted fanatical crusades, not only against the so-called infidel, but against those whose religion she has tried to wipe out with flame and sword. Her religious inquisitions have been hideous, fiendish. History records how subserviently she played her mighty part in both of those bloodiest conflicts of mankind, World War I and World War II. In these ways she killed off mainly her own religionists, yet these have all been God’s creatures, and he holds Babylon the Great accountable for their blood.

51. How has she specially sinned against God?

⁵¹ In her religious persecutions she has specially sinned against God the Creator. The apostle John calls attention to her bloodguilt in this respect by saying: “And I saw that the woman was drunk with the blood of the holy ones and with the blood of the witnesses of Jesus.” (Rev. 17:6) Drinking blood has been no problem for her, even though Noah, the great-grandfather of Nimrod, was given God’s command to drink no blood. (Gen. 9:3, 4) Babylon the Great, however, has experienced intoxicating pleasure by drinking the blood of God’s holy ones and the witnesses of Jesus Christ, by declaring them heretics, a menace to Babylonish religious society, and persecuting them to the death with help of the State.

52. What words of one of the seven angels are next of particular interest?

⁵² Is it any wonder, then, that a vision was given to one of these suffering “witnesses of Jesus” to picture how divine judgment will be executed upon this world empire of Babylonish religion? Not at all! John introduces this particular part of the Revelation to us, saying: “And one of the seven angels that had the seven bowls [full of the anger of God] came and spoke with me, saying: ‘Come, I will show you the judgment upon the great harlot who sits on many waters, with whom the kings of the earth committed fornication, whereas those who inhabit the earth were made drunk with the wine of her fornication.’” (Rev. 17:1, 2) How was the judgment executed?

EXECUTING THE JUDGMENT

53. Then what judgment takes place, and whose will is it that this judgment is executed?

⁵³ John gives us a picture of it with these words: “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.”—Rev. 17:16, 17.

54. What do the ten horns of the scarlet-colored beast represent, and why ten?

⁵⁴ Those ten horns were pictured as being on the seven heads of the scarlet-colored wild beast. What do they represent? The heavenly angel told John, saying: “And the ten horns that you saw mean ten kings, who have not yet received a kingdom, but they do receive authority as kings one hour with the wild beast. These have one thought, and so they give their power and authority to the wild beast.” (Rev. 17:12, 13) Thus the horns symbolize governmental rulers. (Compare Daniel 8:2-8, 20, 21.) As the number ten in Scripture is a symbol of completeness, “ten kings” would stand for all the governmental rulers, particularly those who are part of the symbolic scarlet wild beast, the international organization for world peace and security.

55. What did not Babylon or the ten horns do at the close of World War I?

⁵⁵ At the close of World War I Babylon the Great did not tell those symbolic “ten horns” to yield over their national and imperial sovereignties to God’s Messianic kingdom that had been born in the heavens to take over the rulership of all the earth. Neither did those “ten horns” want to make such a surrender. During World War I they persecuted Jehovah’s Christian witnesses and disdainly refused to accept the message of God’s established kingdom.

56. How do the ten horns now carry out God’s thought?

⁵⁶ God purposed the destruction of these symbolic “ten horns,” even as he had long previously foretold this. It was his thought to maneuver them now to their destruction, to destroy them in a combination, all at one time. Accordingly, by his unseen maneuvering, “God put it into their hearts to carry out his thought.” How would they carry out God’s thought for them to get into combined opposition to Him? By their coming to a oneness of thought or idea and chartering an international organization for world peace and security and then joining it as one family of nations, joining particularly the United Nations of today. So, instead of giving their kingdom to God in surrender of their earthly sovereignty to his Messianic government, they proceeded, as Revelation 17:17 says, “to carry out their one thought by giving their kingdom to the wild beast, until the words of God will have been accomplished.”

57. How did the nations give power and authority to the “wild beast”?

⁵⁷ So from 1919 onward, when the Charter of the League of Nations was ratified, they began giving their kingdom to the scarlet-colored “wild beast.” They gave their power and authority to it. By becoming member nations of the international organization for world peace and security, the Eighth World Power, “they do receive authority as kings one hour with the wild beast.” (Rev. 17:12, 13) In a comparative sense, it is only “one hour” to the beast’s destruction. It has only “one hour” of life.

58. How did Babylon feel about this “wild beast,” and what will be the final result to her and to the beast?

⁵⁸ Babylon the Great, who was eager to ride such a “wild beast,” approved of this international action, even though it was against the heavenly kingdom of the Lamb of God that Jehovah’s Christian witnesses were proclaiming. What is and will be the result of this giving of national power and authority to the “wild beast,” the pet of Babylon the Great? Revelation 17:14 answers: “These will battle with the Lamb, but, because he is Lord of lords and King of kings, the Lamb will conquer them. Also, those called and chosen and faithful with him will do so.” In that way, or, for that reason, the scarlet “wild beast” that is now present after getting out of the abyss will “go off into destruction.” When that takes place, “the words of God will have been accomplished.”—Rev. 17:8, 17.

59. However, who goes into destruction first and at whose hands?

⁵⁹ Will Babylon the Great, the rider of the scarlet “wild beast,” be destroyed at the same time with the “wild beast” and thus enjoy her ride as a harlot on it till its finish? No! Not according to the already recorded judicial decision of Jehovah God. His sentence already handed down is that the very objects of her love must destroy her, before they themselves are destroyed. She has long had the selfish love of a harlot or fornicatrix for that “wild beast” and its ten horns. She feels that she will be always attractive to them and be able to hold their patronage by satisfying their selfish immoral pleasure. But in this she fools herself and opens herself to a shocking surprise.

60. Describe the disastrous end of the harlot.

⁶⁰ God Almighty will break up that selfish unity between the harlot and the ten-horned wild beast. He will turn their selfish love to contemptuous hatred and will present reasons to the beast and ten horns to hate the harlot on top of them and to vent their hatred furiously upon her. They will drive her from a religious paradise into devastation. They will strip off her purple and scarlet garments, her adornments of gold and precious stones and pearls, and knock that golden cup full of disgusting things out of her hand. She will be exposed nude as a religious fraud. No longer will her flesh hold an attraction for petting and immoral union, but the “wild beast” and its ten horns will feed in a beastly way upon her fleshy parts. Her skeleton they will reduce to mere lime by burning it with fire. Thus the world empire of Babylonish religion will be reduced to ashes, to be trampled underfoot by the surviving worshipers of the true God, Jehovah, the faithful followers of his reigning Son Jesus Christ.—Mal. 4:3.

61. Who will see to it that the scarlet “wild beast” goes into destruction?

⁶¹ After that the scarlet “wild beast” and its ten horns will go, no, not back into the abyss, but into total destruction forever. The conquering Lamb, against whom they fight, will see to that.

62. What advice is given to those who do not wish to share Babylon’s fate?

⁶² Knowing now in advance the judgment to be executed shortly upon false religion, what shall we the people do? The Babylonish harlot sits upon “many waters,” many peoples, crowds, nations and tongues. Is she still sitting upon any of us? If she is, then, in order to escape suffering destruction with her at the time of the execution of divine judgment upon her, there is one thing to do, without delay: In the love of the one true religion, get out from under her! She is doomed! By the judgment of Jehovah God, Babylon the Great experienced a fall in 1919, since which year more than a million men, women and children have marched out of her into religious freedom as Christian witnesses of Jehovah. Now in her fallen condition she is approaching her terrible eternal destruction. Hence we say to seekers after God who are still under her religious sway: Forsake Babylon the Great!

63, 64. Who will such not join to escape Babylon’s fate, but with whom will they take sides for everlasting salvation?

⁶³ This does not mean joining with the “wild beast” and its “ten horns” in violently destroying that world empire of Babylonish religion. Such violent action by the “wild beast” and its “ten horns” will not gain salvation for them or salvation for anyone who joins in with them in such violence. Let those disillusioned political powers do that as visible agents of God in the execution of his divine judgment on false religion. But that work is not for us!

⁶⁴ The one true religion is our salvation, for by it we worship the one living and true God who offers us salvation through his Son Jesus the Messiah, the Christ. Remember the words of Jesus in prayer to Jehovah God: “Your word is truth.” (John 17:17) It is this truth that sets us free from Babylon the Great. Let us enter that glorious religious freedom by embracing God’s word in his Holy Bible and then following in the footsteps of the victorious Lamb of God. He will conquer the political paramours of Babylon the Great and usher us into full freedom under the triumphant kingdom of God. Let God’s Messianic kingdom rule forevermore!

‘Never Have Enough of That Literature’

Two witnesses of Jehovah in Texas called at a prison to talk to the assistant warden. Their report says: “We sat and talked for about an hour. We asked if the prisoners needed some Watchtower and Awake! magazines to help them in their Bible reading and study. He promptly replied, ‘We never have enough of that type of literature. We would be glad to have it, and I will go to your car and bring it in.’ So we left seventy copies of The Watchtower and Awake! I asked about the New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures that we had left on a previous call. His reply: ‘It has just come back from the lower wing where it was widely used and now I am sending it to the upper wing where we have gotten a lot of requests for it.’ I asked him if the only copy was adequate for that unit, and he said, ‘They could use several more copies.’ The assistant warden spoke with keen appreciation for our calls and for the New World Translation, as well as the magazines. He stated that while in the air force he had read the literature while flying back and forth. We look forward to calling again at the prison.”