“And the sixth one poured out his bowl upon the great river Euphrates, and its water was dried up, that the way might be prepared for the kings from the rising of the sun.” (Revelation 16:12)

²² Babylon the Great “sits on many waters.” According to Revelation 17:1, 15, these symbolize “peoples and crowds and nations and tongues”​—hordes of adherents that she has regarded as a protection. But the “waters” are drying up! In Western Europe, where formerly she had great influence, hundreds of millions have openly ignored religion. In some lands, for many years there was a declared policy to try to destroy the influence of religion. The masses in those lands have not risen up on her behalf. Similarly, when the time comes for Babylon the Great to be destroyed, the dwindling number of her adherents will prove to be no protection at all. (Revelation 17:16) Though she claims a membership of thousands of millions, Babylon the Great will find herself defenseless against “the kings from the rising of the sun.”

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“Its Water Was Dried Up”

Even now, support for Babylonish religion is drying up in many places, indicating what will happen when “the kings from the rising of the sun” make their attack.

“A nationwide survey found that 75 per cent of those who live in municipal areas [of Thailand] do not go to Buddhist temples to listen to sermons at all, while the number in the countryside who visit the temples is steadily declining to about fifty per cent.”​—Bangkok Post, September 7, 1987, page 4.

“The magic has gone out of Taoism in the land [China] where it was founded some two millennia ago. . . . Deprived of the magical devices by which they and their predecessors used to gain large followings, members of the priesthood find themselves without successors, facing the virtual extinction of Taoism as an organized faith on the mainland.”​—The Atlanta Journal and Constitution, September 12, 1982, page 36-A.

“Japan . . . has one of the world’s largest concentrations of foreign missionaries, nearly 5,200, yet . . . less than 1% of the population is Christian. . . . A Franciscan priest working here since the 1950s . . . believes that ‘the day of the foreign missionary in Japan is finished.’”​—The Wall Street Journal, July 9, 1986, page 1.

In England during the past three decades, “nearly 2,000 of the 16,000 Anglican churches have been closed because of disuse. Attendance has fallen to among the lowest of avowedly Christian countries. . . . ‘It is not now the case that England is a Christian country,’ [the Bishop of Durham] said.”​—The New York Times, May 11, 1987, page A4.

“After hours of heated debate, [Greece’s] Parliament approved legislation today, enabling the Socialist Government to take over huge estates held by the Greek Orthodox Church . . . Moreover, the law gives nonclerics control of church councils and committees responsible for the administration of prized church investments including hotels, marble quarries and office blocks.”​—The New York Times, April 4, 1987, page 3.