Chapter 12

Christendom and Judaism Now Facing Desolation

1. What is the year 1975 on the religious calendar of the Roman Catholic Church, and how often are such celebrations held?

1975 of our Common Era​—the year marked in the religious calendar of the Roman Catholic Church for celebration as a Holy Year, which really began on Christmas Eve, December 24, of the year 1974. In this twentieth century three such Holy Year celebrations were observed, in 1925, in 1933 in commemoration of the nineteen hundredth anniversary of the death of Jesus Christ in 33 C.E., and in 1950. On this subject the New Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume 7, pages 108, 109, has this to say, in part:

A year during which a solemn plenary indulgence is granted to the faithful under certain conditions, and special faculties are given to confessors. Holy Years are ordinary when they occur at regular intervals (every 25 years in modern times) and extraordinary when they are proclaimed for some very special reason, e.g., in 1933, to celebrate the anniversary of the Redemption. Twenty-five general Holy Years were celebrated between 1300 and 1950. . . .

The first Holy Year in 1300 began on the evening of December 24-25 . . . Pope Boniface VIII issued the bull . . . which determined that every 100 years a universal jubilee should be celebrated. . . . In 1342 Clement VI decreed a jubilee every 50 years; . . . In 1389 Urban VI reduced the time to 33 years . . . and proclaimed the third Holy Year for 1390. . . . The fourth jubilee was the centenary year 1400, and the fifth was held in 1425 . . . Finally, in 1470, Paul II reduced the time to 25 years, so that the next Holy Year was in 1475, and up to our days this custom has remained. . . .

2. Current statistics show what as to the size of Christendom?

² The Roman Catholic Church entered the Holy Year for 1975 with an estimated Roman Catholic population of 551,949,000, making it the largest religious organization on earth today. The next-largest religious organization, that of the Hindus, numbers 515,580,500 members. If we add to the Roman Catholic population the estimated 91,580,700 members of the Eastern Orthodox group and the 324,263,750 reported members of the Protestant denominations, it gives to Christendom a membership of at least 967,793,450​—a formidable religious organization that it would ordinarily seem impossible to overthrow or to eradicate from the earth. (See The World Almanac 1975, page 322.)

3, 4. The extent of Christendom’s numerical growth was foretold by Jesus in what illustration?

³ Measured by the size of Christendom at its beginning in the fourth century of our Common Era, her claimed population today bespeaks indeed a tremendous growth. It creates the impression that the One after whom Christendom takes its name has been blessing Christendom. The statistics regarding her growth to nearly a thousand million members would give the impression that Christendom has been flourishing with the luxuriousness of a spiritual paradise. Some may think that she is on her way to her onetime goal, that of world conversion. Her growth to her present numerical proportions should not be surprising, for it was foretold by Jesus Christ himself. In the midst of a series of prophetic illustrations or parables, he gave pictures drawn from everyday life to foretell Christendom’s growth. For example, he said:

⁴ “The kingdom of the heavens is like a mustard grain, which a man took and planted in his field; which is, in fact, the tiniest of all the seeds, but when it has grown it is the largest of the vegetables and becomes a tree, so that the birds of heaven come and find lodging among its branches.”​—Matthew 13:31, 32; Mark 4:30-32.

5. (a) When referring here to “the kingdom of the heavens,” what did Jesus have in mind? (b) Why should this not seem strange, in view of the parable preceding this one?

⁵ In this parable, Jesus Christ was referring to “the kingdom of the heavens” with its counterfeit in mind. This was not strange, for, in the parable just preceding this one, he illustrated how imitation Christians in great numbers would be produced. He, like the sower of the fine wheat seed in the field, was sowing the figurative “fine seed,” the “sons of the kingdom.” However, as, in the parable, the enemy came by night when men slept and oversowed the same field with weed seed, or bearded darnel seed, so later on, when baptized professing Christians did not keep awake and on the watch against the invasion of error and pretenders, Satan the Devil would sow imitation Christians in among the true “sons of the kingdom.” This would call for a separation of the true from the false at God’s appointed time, in the “conclusion of the system of things,” where we find ourselves today.​—Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43; compare Mt 13 verses 47-50.

6. Instead of predicting world conversion, what did Jesus foretell as to the number of the “sons of the kingdom”?

⁶ The Lord Jesus Christ did not expect and did not predict world conversion to true Christianity. He did not predict that all the world of mankind would one day become “sons of the kingdom” in fact. To the prospective “sons of the kingdom,” he said: “Your Father knows you need these things. Nevertheless, seek continually his kingdom, and these things will be added to you. Have no fear, little flock, because your Father has approved of giving you the kingdom.” (Luke 12:30-32) About sixty-five years after the giving of the parable of the mustard seed, the resurrected, glorified Jesus Christ transmitted a revelation to the apostle John and plainly stated that the “sons of the kingdom,” the spiritual Israelites, would number twelve times twelve thousand. Compare this with the present-day membership of Christendom, or 144,000 compared with 967,793,450.​—Revelation 7:4-8.

7. How does the Scriptural context help us to identify the “birds” that find lodging in the mustard tree of Jesus’ illustration?

⁷ So Jesus Christ well knew that true Christianity, “the kingdom of the heavens,” was not to become a figurative “tree,” on the branches of which the birds could lodge or under which they could find ample shadow. In the earlier parable on the four types of soil upon which the fine seed, picturing the “word of the kingdom,” is sown, Jesus brought birds into the picture. Whom did he explain those “birds” to be like? “The wicked one,” “the Devil.” That is to say, the earthly agents of the wicked Devil. (Matthew 13:1-8, 18-23; Luke 8:4-8, 11-15) Mark 4:15 calls him Satan. Reasonably, then, birds mentioned in the same context, in the same series of parables, would picture similar things. So the birds that find lodging in the mustard tree would picture the agents of the “wicked one,” “Satan the Devil.” They would correspond with the “weeds,” the imitation wheat, in the parable of the wheat and the weeds. They are the “sons of the wicked one.”

8. Who, then, in the parable, is the “man” that sowed the mustard seed, and whom did he outstandingly use as an agent in the fourth century?

⁸ It is the fake “kingdom of the heavens,” the counterfeit, namely, Christendom, that is filled with these symbolic birds, “the sons of the wicked one.” Today it is big enough to hold them all. In the parable, the “man” that sowed the mustard grain pictures the “wicked one,” Satan the Devil. Outstandingly in the fourth century C.E. Satan the Devil planted or specially cultivated this symbolic “mustard grain” of contaminated, adulterated, imitation Christianity. He did so by then using a man who became the leading politician of the Roman Empire, namely, Constantine the Great. In 312 C.E. this bloodstained army man professed to be converted to Christianity, really, though, to the apostate Christianity of his day as professed by soldiers in the army. This ambitious man conquered his political rivals and gained the position of emperor of the Roman Empire. In this capacity he acted as the Pontifex Maximus or chief priest of the pagan Roman religion. He held onto this pagan religious title and position and authority despite claiming to be a Christian.

9. (a) What kind of God do all the “birds” in this symbolic “tree” worship? (b) Where do they all eventually expect to go, thus making it fitting to associate them in the illustration with the “kingdom of the heavens”?

⁹ As Pontifex Maximus, Emperor Constantine acted as if he were the visible head of the Christian Church and called a council of so-called “bishops,” the presiding overseers of congregations of professed Christians, at Nicea, Asia Minor, in 325 C.E. At that Council the Pontifex Maximus Constantine settled the episcopal wrangling over who and what God is by taking the trinitarian side and decreeing that God is a triune God, a God in three indivisible persons, namely, God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. To this day the unscriptural doctrine of the “Trinity” is the fundamental doctrine of the sectarian churches of Christendom. To this trinitarian mustard “tree” all the trinitarian “birds” flock to roost thereon. They all expect to go to heaven, like “sons of the kingdom,” and to see this mysterious, unexplainable triune God. Truly in Christendom, the mock “kingdom of God,” is fulfilled the parable of the “mustard grain.”

RELIGIOUS CORRUPTION

10. In Matthew 13:33, what further illustration did Jesus give about the “kingdom of the heavens”?

¹⁰ According to Matthew 13:33, immediately after the parable of the mustard grain Jesus Christ gave another illustration to show something further about the imitation “kingdom of the heavens.” We read: “Another illustration he spoke to them: ‘The kingdom of the heavens is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three large measures of flour, until the whole mass was fermented.’” (Also, Luke 13:18-21) How, now, has this illustration been fulfilled?

11. (a) In Bible times, what was leaven, and what effect does it have? (b) In the Scriptures, how is leaven used figuratively? Illustrate.

¹¹ Leaven, in Bible times, was a piece of sour dough that had been preserved and that was added to a new batch of dough to make it ferment and form gas bubbles that would leaven or lighten the whole mass. The fermentation is really a breaking-down process, a corrupting, so that it often causes spoilage. For this reason it is generally used in the Holy Scriptures in a bad way figuratively. For instance, the unbelieving Pharisees and Sadducees were purveyors of spiritual leaven, regarding which Jesus told his disciples: “Watch out for the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees.” The disciples grasped this to mean the “teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees.” (Matthew 16:6-12) According to Luke 12:1, Jesus told his disciples: “Watch out for the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy.” This doctrinal and ritualistic leaven could also have a political tinge, as represented by the Jewish party followers of King Herod; so that Jesus said: “Keep your eyes open, look out for the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod.”​—Mark 8:15.

12. In 1 Corinthians 5:6-8, leaven was used to represent what, and in contrast with what?

¹² Fully in obedience to that warning, the first-century Christians were celebrating in their daily lives the antitype of the ancient Jewish festival of unleavened bread or cakes, the festival that was celebrated for seven days after the annual Passover. Quite appropriately, then, the apostle Paul warned them against the figurative leaven, saying: “Your cause for boasting is not fine. Do you not know that a little leaven ferments the whole lump? Clear away the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, according as you are free from ferment. For, indeed, Christ our passover has been sacrificed. Consequently let us keep the festival, not with old leaven, neither with leaven of badness and wickedness, but with unfermented cakes of sincerity and truth.” (1 Corinthians 5:6-8) This statement of the apostle contrasted the figurative leaven of badness and wickedness, false sectarian teaching and religious hypocrisy, with sincerity, genuineness and truth.

13. Why did Jesus refer to a woman in his illustration, and how did the amount of leaven compare with the quantity of flour?

¹³ As, back there, the agricultural field was the realm of the man, so the kitchen was the realm of the woman. (2 Samuel 13:6-8; 1 Kings 17:11-13; Jeremiah 7:18; Luke 17:35) Appropriately, then, Jesus used a woman in his illustration as the one putting the little piece of leaven in a big batch of dough in order to leaven it. The lump of dough contained “three large measures of flour.” The New English Bible indicates the quantity of flour that this amounted to by rendering Matthew 13:33 as follows: “The kingdom of Heaven is like yeast, which a woman took and mixed with half a hundredweight of flour till it was all leavened.” The New American Bible describes the process, saying: “The reign of God is like yeast which a woman took and kneaded into three measures of flour. Eventually the whole mass of dough began to rise.” Byington’s translation also emphasizes the quantity that was leavened, saying: “The Reign of Heaven is like a bit of yeast which a woman took and buried in forty quarts of flour till it all grew yeasty.” This illustrates just how figurative yeast acts.

14, 15. (a) What effect does figurative leaven have on a religious organization? (b) With what language did the apostle Peter warn against such an influence in the congregation?

¹⁴ Like literal leaven or yeast, figurative leaven causes a souring of a religious organization. It is an agency that corrupts religiously. It is prepared by Satan the Devil, and he uses earthly human agents to introduce the figurative leaven into a clean religious organization with the design of corrupting it and making it unfit for God’s use and making it a reproach or discredit to God. In a letter written about thirty-one years after the founding of the true Christian congregation on the day of Pentecost in 33 C.E., the apostle Peter warned against such an insertion of religious leaven among the congregation, saying:

¹⁵ “Consequently we have the prophetic word made more sure; and you are doing well in paying attention to it as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until day dawns and a daystar rises, in your hearts. For you know this first, that no prophecy of Scripture springs from any private interpretation. For prophecy was at no time brought by man’s will, but men spoke from God as they were borne along by holy spirit. However, there also came to be false prophets among the people, as there will also be false teachers among you. These very ones will quietly bring in destructive sects and will disown even the owner that bought them, bringing speedy destruction upon themselves. Furthermore, many will follow their acts of loose conduct, and on account of these the way of the truth will be spoken of abusively. Also, with covetousness they will exploit you with counterfeit words. But as for them, the judgment from of old is not moving slowly, and the destruction of them is not slumbering.”​—2 Peter 1:19 through 2:3.

16. Similarly, of what did the apostle Paul warn the congregation at Ephesus?

¹⁶ By word of mouth the apostle Paul warned the elders of the congregation of Ephesus, Asia Minor, about the very same thing, saying: “I have not held back from telling you all the counsel of God. Pay attention to yourselves and to all the flock, among which the holy spirit has appointed you overseers, to shepherd the congregation of God, which he purchased with the blood of his own Son. I know that after my going away oppressive wolves will enter in among you and will not treat the flock with tenderness, and from among you yourselves men will rise and speak twisted things to draw away the disciples after themselves.”​—Acts 20:27-30.

17, 18. (a) In time, what did these false teachers and prophets become? (b) Why were they rightly called the “son of destruction”?

¹⁷ These false teachers and prophets, wolfish men in sheep’s clothing, would gradually build up and form a composite “man of lawlessness.” This human agency of Satan the Devil would cause a rebellion or “apostasy” in the religious organization that claims to be Christian. For this reason, this clerical body of religious leaders would be destined for destruction, so that this composite “man” could rightly be called the “son of destruction.” Of course, the religious organization over which this “man of lawlessness” would assume control would not get God’s favor but would be marked for destruction in His due time. Why?

¹⁸ “Because they did not accept the love of the truth that they might be saved. So that is why God lets an operation of error go to them, that they may get to believing the lie, in order that they all may be judged because they did not believe the truth but took pleasure in unrighteousness.”​—2 Thessalonians 2:3-12.

19. How did the “man of lawlessness” become clearly identifiable in the fourth century C.E.?

¹⁹ Although the “mystery of this lawlessness” was already at work in the days of the apostles, this composite “man of lawlessness” did not take a clearly identifiable form until in the reign of Emperor Constantine the Great in the first quarter of the fourth century C.E. This pagan Pontifex Maximus tried to create a “fusion religion” by making a blend. True Christianity can never blend or fuse with any of the false religions of this world. (2 Corinthians 6:14 through 7:1) However, the religious-political head of the Roman Empire forced the so-called “bishops” that negotiated with him to compromise. So the adulterated Christianity that these “bishops” supervised was merged with the pagan Roman religion, so as to create a “fusion religion” that would be less objectionable, more acceptable to those who were still pagan at heart and who desired to hold onto certain pagan religious ideas and practices of theirs. Like what they were used to in their former pagan religion, they allowed the “bishops” to form a clergy class over them, to govern them as a laity class. This fusion religion became the State religion.

20, 21. (a) As a result of the religious “leaven” kneaded into Christendom at its beginning, what has developed? (b) Though the members of Christendom’s churches think that they are going to heaven at their death, what is indicated by the prevalence of the “works of the flesh” among them?

²⁰ In this manner Christendom was founded, and, during the centuries since, it has grown to be what it is today. It is a huge religious mass today, and yet, from a bit of religious “leaven” kneaded into the organization at its beginning, it has become thoroughly leavened with paganism, worldliness, badness, wickedness, traditions of men, hypocrisy, doctrines of demons. Christendom made herself a part of Babylon the Great, the world empire of false religion, and has grown to be the dominant single unit in that religious empire. (Revelation 17:3-6) The name Christendom may give the idea that her religious members are destined for the heavenly kingdom at their death. But today, more than at any time previous, Christendom is full of the “works of the flesh,” and what these works are and whether they are the basis for admission into the heavenly kingdom is stated by the apostle Paul:

²¹ “A little leaven ferments the whole lump. Now the works of the flesh are manifest, and they are fornication, uncleanness, loose conduct, idolatry, practice of spiritism, enmities, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, contentions, divisions, sects, envies, drunken bouts, revelries, and things like these. As to these things I am forewarning you, the same way as I did forewarn you, that those who practice such things will not inherit God’s kingdom.”​—Galatians 5:9, 19-21.

22. Is Christendom today enjoying a spiritual paradise, and what are her prospects for entering into any other paradise of God?

²² In view of all the oft-mentioned facts, will any honest-hearted person say that Christendom today, with her great membership, is enjoying a spiritual paradise such as is described in the Holy Bible? Are her members destined, at death, to go to heaven and eat of the “tree of life, which is in the paradise of God”? (Revelation 2:7) Or will Christendom be spared by Jehovah God because of her religious name and professions and outlive the present world distress and enjoy the literal earthly paradise during the approaching thousand-year reign of the Son of God, Jesus Christ? (Luke 23:43) There is no Scriptural basis for saying Yes to these questions. Rather, what awaits Christendom was prefigured by what befell the land of Edom in fulfillment of the prophecy of Isaiah, chapter thirty-four.

THE MODERN-DAY COUNTERPART OF EDOM

23. Who today look to Jehovah as their Judge, Statute-giver and King, as foretold by Isaiah, and therefore from what sicknesses are they safeguarded?

²³ The three verses that precede the opening of this thirty-fourth chapter of Isaiah make a declaration of a religious position that has not been taken either by Christendom or by Judaism. The verses read: “Jehovah is our Judge, Jehovah is our Statute-giver, Jehovah is our King; he himself will save us. Your ropes [of the attacking enemy’s sailing fleet] must hang loose; their mast they will not hold firmly erect; they have not spread a sail. At that time even spoil in abundance will have to be divided up; the lame ones themselves [of Jehovah’s delivered people] will actually take a big plunder. And no resident will say: ‘I am sick [spiritually].’ The people that are dwelling in the land will be those pardoned for their error.” (Isaiah 33:22-24) In sharp contrast to Christendom and Judaism, Jehovah’s Christian witnesses, who are residing in the spiritual paradise of his favor and protection, are the ones that have taken Jehovah as their King, their Statute-giver, their Judge, their Savior. They are therefore the ones that are safeguarded from the spiritual sicknesses and maladies and plagues that afflict Christendom and Judaism.​—Psalm 91:1-10.

24, 25. (a) In Isaiah chapter 34, Jehovah notifies the nations that they are involved in what? (b) What are they notified that the outcome of this legal case will be?

²⁴ Following right on the heels of that prophecy, Isa chapter thirty-four of Isaiah’s prophecy presents a horrifying outlook for the worldly nations. This outlook furnishes a contrast background against which the bright spiritual paradise described in the next Isa chapter (35) stands out in bolder relief. Because what is so calamitous is ahead of the nations and because it proceeds forth from Him, Jehovah serves advance notice upon the nations and national groups. The nations today may think that God has nothing to do with the matter, that they are not involved with God in any matter, that as materialistic humans they are running their own affairs and have no responsibility to a Supreme Being, to a Creator. But through the prophet Isaiah, Jehovah God jerks the nations to attention and reminds them that they really do have part in a legal case that is before the Court of the Universe, and that, therefore, they will experience the execution of judgment.

²⁵ So, opening up chapter thirty-four, God’s spokesman says: “Come up close, you nations, to hear; and you national groups, pay attention. Let the earth and that which fills it listen, the productive land and all its produce. For Jehovah has indignation against all the nations, and rage against all their army. He must devote them to destruction [he has vowed them to destruction]; he must give them to the slaughter. And their slain ones will be thrown out; and as for their carcasses, their stink will ascend; and the mountains must melt because of their blood. And all those of the army of the heavens must rot away. And the heavens must be rolled up, just like a book scroll; and their army will all shrivel away, just as the leafage shrivels off the vine and like a shriveled fig off the fig tree.”​—Isaiah 34:1-4, NW; Je.

26. For what are the nations here being called to account by God, and which nations outstandingly so?

²⁶ What is here called to our attention is the bloodguiltiness of the nations, among whom the nations of Christendom have been the most guilty of all. They have soaked the earth, not only with the blood of wild animals wantonly slain, but particularly with the blood of humans. Who is the logical one that should rightly require of the nations all this blood that they have spilled, asking it back from the nations because this blood stands for God-given life? It is no one else but the Creator himself, the Life-Giver, who gifted mankind with a life-sustaining bloodstream. All the nations of today have their standing armies, in greater abundance than ever before, and all equipped, prepared and trained to spill more human blood in international conflicts.

27. (a) How serious is God’s law that soul must go for soul? (b) What is indicated by the statement that “the mountains must melt because of their blood”?

²⁷ Not in mere idle talk did Jehovah God state his just law, Life must go for life; soul must go for soul. (Genesis 9:4-6; Exodus 21:23-25) True to this irrevocable law, He will cause the blood of the nations to flow to their death. The increasing bloodguilt of the nations is so great that the blood asked back in repayment to the Life-Giver would provide enough liquid to melt, to dissolve, as it were, the mountains. Of course, with the complete destruction of the military forces of the worldly nations there would come the fall of their governments, which, sometimes in Bible prophecy, are pictured as “mountains.”

28. In this prophecy, the expression “all those of the army of the heavens” refers to what, and what happens to them?

²⁸ By the prophet’s expression, “all those of the army of the heavens,” he does not mean the stars and planets of our skies such as the sun, the moon and the milky way, and the far distant galaxies of stars. Rather, the governments over mankind are, because of their loftiness as superior authorities, likened to a heavens over earthly human society. (Romans 13:1-4) So the “army of the heavens” would be the combined armies of these heavenlike governments of mankind. This “army,” seemingly the strongest part of the heaven-high governments, will “rot away,” molder away, like something perishable. The literal heavens above us seem to be arched, curved, like an ancient book scroll, the writing on which was generally on the concave side, the inner side. The sun, moon and stars of our skies appear on the stretched-out arch of our skies, like the things written upon the inner side of a book scroll.

29. How do the symbolic heavens prove to be “just like a book scroll” and “like a shriveled fig”?

²⁹ When the material written on the inner side of the scroll has passed before the eyes of the reader, then the finished scroll is rolled up and put away. Similarly, “the heavens must be rolled up, just like a book scroll,” in that the heavenlike governments whose “army” has played its part visibly on the pages of human history must come to their end, must come to the last page of their history, and, hence, must be brought to their finish, done away with, put away and with no further permission from God to exist. Those of their impressive-looking “army” lose the freshness of life and fall, disappear from sight of those who have read their history, just like shriveled leaves that fall off the grapevine and like the shriveled fig that drops off the fig tree. Their season is over.​—Compare the language of Revelation 6:12-14.

CHRISTENDOM, MODERN COUNTERPART OF EDOM

30, 31. How do the following verses of Isaiah’s prophecy show that the “heavens” here referred to are not the invisible spirit heavens of God’s residence?

³⁰ That the “heavens,” the “army” of which rots away or shrivels away, are not to be understood as the invisible spirit heavens of God’s residence is indicated by the further part of Isaiah’s prophecy. Expressing himself therein, Jehovah says:

³¹ “‘For in the heavens my sword will certainly be drenched. Look! Upon Edom [Idumea, Greek LXX] it will descend, and upon the people devoted by me to destruction in justice. Jehovah has a sword; it must be filled with blood; it must be made greasy with the fat, with the blood of young rams and he-goats, with the fat of the kidneys of rams. For Jehovah has a sacrifice in Bozrah [capital city of Edom or Idumea], and a great slaughtering in the land of Edom. And the wild bulls must come down with them, and young bulls with the powerful ones; and their land must be drenched with blood, and their very dust will be made greasy with the fat.’ For Jehovah has a day of vengeance, a year of retributions for the legal case over Zion.”​—Isaiah 34:5-8, NW; Septuagint translation by Thomson.

32. Who were the Edomites, and in what kind of region did they dwell?

³² The territory of the Edomites, which straddled the Arabah between the Dead Sea and the Gulf of ‘Aqaba, was called “the mountainous region of Esau.” (Obadiah 8, 9, 19, 21) Esau was the original name of the man called Edom. The nickname Edom, meaning “Red,” was given to Esau because he sold his Abrahamic birthright to his younger twin-brother Jacob (Israel) for a meal of reddish stew. (Genesis 25:29-34; Hebrews 12:16, 17) Because Jacob supplanted him in the precious birthright, Esau (or Edom) became filled with murderous hate toward his spiritually minded twin-brother. (Genesis 27:30-45) Because of Esau’s taking up residence in the mountainous region, he dwelt high up, as in heaven. Jehovah spoke of matters from that standpoint when, by the mouth of his prophet Obadiah, he said to the Esauites (Edomites):

“‘The presumptuousness of your heart is what has deceived you, you who are residing in the retreats of the crag, the height where he dwells, saying in his heart, “Who will bring me down to the earth?” If you should make your position high like the eagle, or if among the stars there were a placing of your nest, down from there I would bring you,’ is the utterance of Jehovah.”​—Obadiah 3, 4.

33. (a) At Isaiah 34:5, what is meant by the statement that God’s sword would be drenched “in the heavens”? (b) By what terms is reference made to the greater ones and lesser ones in Edom?

³³ Therefore in speaking of his destruction of the nation of Edom by the “sword” of warfare, Jehovah could figuratively say that “in the heavens” his sword would be drenched, filled with blood. He had devoted or vowed the Edomites to destruction in justice, and this destruction would reach to the highest-ranking part of the nation of Edom, as pictured by its capital of Bozrah. The slaughter of this enemy nation Jehovah speaks of as a sacrifice, for it is in execution of his judgment and in vindication of him as the Universal Sovereign. The greater ones and the lesser ones Jehovah speaks of as symbolic “wild bulls” and “young bulls” and as “young rams” and “he-goats.” The land of this murder-minded bloodguilty nation must be drenched with their own blood by means of the slaughtering “sword” of Jehovah.

34-36. What had the Edomites done to deserve this drastic treatment at the hands of God?

³⁴ This drastic treatment of the land of Edom was deserved; otherwise, it would not have been an act of divine justice. “For Jehovah has a day of vengeance, a year of retributions for the legal case over Zion.” (Isaiah 34:8) It was not over so-called “Zionism.” Rather, ancient Zion, where “Jehovah’s throne” had been occupied by the anointed kings of Jehovah’s chosen people, was involved. In the year 607 B.C.E., the armies of Babylon had destroyed the holy city of Jerusalem and overthrown the Kingdom of Judah and deported the surviving Jews to the pagan land of Babylon. On this occasion the attitude of the nation of Edom toward the disciplined people of Jehovah displayed itself unmistakably. How?

³⁵ Jehovah calls it to their attention by means of his prophet Obadiah, saying:

“In the day when you stood off on the side, in the day when strangers [Babylonians] took his [Israel’s] military force into captivity and when outright foreigners entered his gate and over Jerusalem they cast lots, you also were like one of them.

“And you ought not to watch the sight in the day of your brother, in the day of his misfortune; and you ought not to rejoice at the sons of Judah in the day of their perishing; and you ought not to maintain a big mouth in the day of their distress. You ought not to come into the gate of my people in the day of their disaster. You, even you, ought not to peer at his calamity in the day of his disaster; and you ought not to thrust out a hand upon his wealth in the day of his disaster. And you ought not to stand at the parting of the ways, in order to cut off his escapees; and you ought not to hand over his survivors in the day of distress. For the day of Jehovah against all the nations is near. In the way that you have done, it will be done to you. Your sort of treatment will return upon your own head. For in the way that you people have drunk upon my holy mountain, all the nations will keep drinking constantly. And they will certainly drink and gulp down and become as though they had never happened to be.”​—Obadiah 11-16.

³⁶ The inspired psalmist recalled the same malicious conduct on the part of a brother nation, when he prayed to Jehovah and said: “Remember, O Jehovah, regarding the sons of Edom the day of Jerusalem, who were saying: ‘Lay it bare! Lay it bare to the foundation within it!’ O daughter of Babylon, who are to be despoiled, happy will he be that rewards you with your own treatment with which you treated us.”​—Psalm 137:7, 8.

37. (a) Why did Jehovah count the “legal case over Zion” with Edom as being his? (b) When did Jehovah’s expression of vengeance upon the Edomites begin?

³⁷ What the Edomites did to his chosen people in the day of their disaster in 607 B.C.E., Jehovah counted as being done to him. For this reason he had a “legal case over Zion.” So the year must come when he would mete out “retributions for the legal case over Zion” and express his vengeance upon the offending Edomites. (Isaiah 34:8) Jehovah did begin expressing this righteous vengeance upon the Edomites by means of the king of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar, not long after the destruction of Jerusalem.​—Jeremiah 25:17-21.

ACTS OF THE EDOMITE HERODS

38. Of what further acts against Jehovah’s people were such Edomite rulers as King Herod the Great, Herod Antipas and King Herod Agrippa I guilty?

³⁸ The descendants of Edom (Esau), the Idumeans, as the Greeks called them, continued to be guilty of acts against Jehovah’s chosen people. The family of King Herod the Great were Idumeans or Edomites. To his shame, the Bible record discloses that this king who built the gorgeous temple at Jerusalem feared for his kingdom in his family and tried to murder the young child Jesus at Bethlehem-Judah. (Matthew 2:1-22) About thirty years later, at his birthday celebration, foxlike Herod Antipas the district ruler had Jesus’ forerunner, John the Baptist, beheaded. (Matthew 14:1-11; Luke 13:31, 32) In 33 C.E., when Jesus was on trial for his life and was sent by Governor Pilate to the then king of Galilee, Herod Antipas, the son of Herod the Great, this ruler was disappointed in Jesus and discredited him as the Messiah and sent him back to Pilate and to his death. (Luke 23:6-12) Some years later, King Herod Agrippa I tried to please the Jews and executed James the brother of John, one of the twelve apostles of Jesus Christ, by the sword and then imprisoned the apostle Peter with the intention of having him executed after the Jewish Passover. (Acts 12:1-6) And, finally, what about King Herod Agrippa II?

39. Although given an opportunity to become a Christian, of what did King Herod Agrippa II remain an agent?

³⁹ In a special session the apostle Paul was brought before him at Caesarea by arrangement of Governor Festus. When, at the climax of his legal defense of himself, Paul said to the king, “Do you, King Agrippa, believe the Prophets? I know you believe,” what did this Idumean say to Paul? “In a short time you would persuade me to become a Christian.” (Acts 26:27, 28) Although then a circumcised Jewish proselyte, King Agrippa never became a spiritual Israelite, a Christian. He remained in politics as an agent of the pagan Roman Empire.

40. (a) In what conspiracy against Jesus did the party followers of Herod participate? (b) Following what event do the Edomites disappear from history, in fulfillment of Bible prophecy?

⁴⁰ During the lifetime of Jesus, the party followers of Herod cooperated with the Pharisees in trying to trap Jesus in his remarks on whether it was Scripturally lawful for Jews to pay tax to Caesar. They tried to put him on the “horns of a dilemma,” and so bring him into trouble either with the Romans or with the nationalistic party of the Jews. (Matthew 22:15-22) Thus the Herodians did not take a favorable attitude toward Christianity at its beginning. The same was true, according to the Bible record, with regard to the Edomites or Idumeans, headed by the royal family of the Herods. They clung to Judaism. During the siege of Jerusalem by the Romans in 70 C.E., the Idumeans answered a summons from the Jewish faction that was holding the temple area against the opposing faction of the Jews. But the Idumean (Edomite) help proved to be in vain, and Jerusalem fell to the Romans and was destroyed along with its temple of Herod. After this disaster, the Idumeans or Edomites disappear from the scene of Middle Eastern history. Bible prophecy did not fail as to them.

ANCIENT EDOM AND MODERN ANTITYPE

41. What is the modern-day counterpart of the “land of Edom”?

⁴¹ Jehovah’s prophecy will likewise not fail in fulfillment upon the modern-day counterpart, the antitype, of the “land of Edom.” What is that antitype? It is Christendom. Just as the ancient Jewish nation and Jerusalem were used by Jehovah God in a typical way, to foreshadow things with regard to Christendom, so the brother nation of Edom was used by Him in a typical way. (1 Corinthians 10:6, 11; Colossians 2:16, 17) The people of Edom were fleshly descendants of Esau, who was nicknamed Edom (“Red”). Their national forefather was the older twin-brother of Jacob, who became surnamed Israel. Because of his being the firstborn of Isaac and Rebekah, Esau felt that he had a natural right to the birthright that his grandfather Abraham handed down.

42. What developments in connection with the birthright led to Esau’s feeling hatred for Jacob?

⁴² However, Jehovah God disregarded the natural right of a firstborn son, and, before the birth of the twins, he declared in favor of the second-born twin, Jacob (“Supplanter”). Even though this was the case, Esau treated the birthright in a profane way or with a lack of appreciation for spiritual things. In a time of fatigue and hunger, he was willing to sell this birthright to his appreciative brother Jacob for just one meal. Later on, when the time came for his father Isaac to bestow the Abrahamic blessing, Esau disregarded the oath with which he had sworn in order to validate the sale of his birthright and he made preparations to receive the birthright blessing, to which he was no longer entitled. It was only right that he was outwitted in this matter and the blessing went to the one to whom it rightly belonged according to God’s will, Jacob. But Esau felt that he had been unjustly supplanted, cheated. So, in hatred, he purposed to kill Jacob at the earliest convenience.​—Genesis 25:29 through 27:45; Hebrews 12:16, 17.

43. (a) In this matter, of whom did Jacob become a picture? (b) What about Esau?

⁴³ In these regards, Jacob became a picture of the heirs of the Abrahamic promise, the ones who became the spiritual “seed” of Abraham, namely, the anointed disciples of Jesus Christ, who is the principal one of the “seed” of Abraham. (Galatians 3:16-29) As regards the materialistic Esau, he became a type of the nation of natural Israel, who were fleshly descendants of Abraham and who thought that the Abrahamic blessing belonged naturally to them.

44. How did the natural, circumcised Israelites, as a whole, prove that they were indeed like Esau?

⁴⁴ However, these natural, circumcised Israelites failed to qualify for becoming the spiritual seed of Abraham. They rejected the main one of Abraham’s promised “seed,” namely, Jesus Christ, and had him killed and thereafter persecuted his faithful footstep followers. Only a small remnant of the natural Jews met the requirements and became part of the spiritual seed of Abraham. So the remaining needed members of the spiritual seed of Abraham have had to be taken from non-Jews who meet the qualifications. (Romans 2:28, 29; 11:1-29) Thus the majority of the Jewish nation made themselves like their distant uncle Esau or Edom.

45. How did those who were descendants of Esau or Edom come to manifest hostility toward their brother nation, the Israelites?

⁴⁵ Due to his profaneness or lack of spiritual appreciation, Esau was not in position to hand down the Abrahamic birthright to the nation that descended from him, the Esauites or Edomites. (Hebrews 12:15-17) These Edomites were the descendants of Esau by pagan, unbelieving wives. (Genesis 26:34, 35; 27:46; 28:6-9) Naturally they would have reason to think that they had been deprived of being the natural seed of Abraham with a right to the promised blessing, because of the action of their uncle Jacob or Israel. So they easily learned to harbor the hatred that their national ancestor Esau had felt toward Jacob, and this hatred manifested itself in hostility toward their brother nation, the Israelites. During the course of the centuries that followed, the Edomites or Idumeans were made to feel the disfavor of Jehovah God.​—Ezekiel 35:1-9; Malachi 1:2-4.

46. During the time of the Maccabees, how did the Edomites become amalgamated with the Jewish nation?

⁴⁶ During the period of the Maccabean rulers of the repatriated Jews in the land of Judah, the surviving Edomites were obliged to become Jewish proselytes. Approximately between the years 130-120 B.C.E. John Hyrcanus of the Maccabean line subjugated the Edomites and forced them to submit to circumcision as proselytes to Judaism. This accounts for the Jewish toleration of the rulership of the Edomite (Idumean) king, Herod the Great, and members of his royal family. (See Antiquities of the Jews, by Flavius Josephus, Book 13, chapter 9, paragraph 1; Book 15, chapter 7, paragraph 9.) In this way the Edomites (Idumeans) became amalgamated with the Jewish nation of the first century of our Common Era, which Jewish nation was used as a Bible type of Christendom.

47. In what ways has Christendom proved herself to be similar to Esau or Edom?

⁴⁷ Similar to Esau or Edom, Christendom has laid claim to the Abrahamic promise and considers itself to be the spiritual seed of Abraham, the heirs to the heavenly kingdom with Jesus Christ. According to their religious claims, the members of Christendom make themselves twin-brothers of those who are the real Christian heirs of God’s Messianic kingdom, the true disciples of Jesus the Messiah. Nevertheless, Christendom does not love these faithful spirit-anointed disciples of Christ. She hates them with a murderous hate. (1 John 3:12-15) Ever since the founding of Christendom in the fourth century C.E., she has persecuted those who are not imitation Christians. These follow Jesus’ words and example in being no part of this world, but Christendom has made herself a friend of this world by becoming a part of it. Therefore what the world hates, she hates. (1 John 2:15-17; John 15:19; 17:14, 16; James 4:4) By persecuting the true Christians, she imagines that she is rendering to God a sacred service.​—John 16:2.

48. Just like the Edomites at the time of Jerusalem’s destruction in 607 B.C.E., how did Christendom act toward spiritual Israel during World War I?

⁴⁸ Modern twentieth-century history testifies to this fact. During World War I the faithful remnant of spiritual Israel came to be hated by all the nations, just as Jesus Christ had foretold regarding his true footstep followers. (Matthew 24:9; 10:7-22) The reason for this world hatred was the fact that the anointed remnant proclaimed God’s Messianic kingdom as the rightful rule for all the earth, the only hope for all mankind. (Mark 13:10-13) During all the persecution and suffering upon the faithful remnant, Christendom did not express a word of sympathy for them. In fact, the documented evidence shows that Christendom’s religious clergy instigated this persecution upon these proclaimers of the “good news” of God’s Messianic kingdom. She rejoiced with the warring nations of Christendom over the suppression of these Kingdom proclaimers and the killing of their public witness work, just as the Edomites rejoiced with the Babylonians over the destruction of Jerusalem in 607 B.C.E.​—Revelation 11:7-10.

49, 50. (a) During World War II, how did Christendom further show that she had the spirit of ancient Edom? (b) In fulfillment of God’s word through Isaiah, what now faces the modern-day Edomites, the people of Christendom, as well as Judaism?

⁴⁹ Nursing her hatred of the remnant of spiritual Israelites who stood out as true Christians in contrast to her church members who engaged in bloodspilling in violent warfare, Christendom did not rejoice when the suppressed Kingdom witnesses were revived by God’s spirit in 1919 C.E. She did not rejoice at the spiritual paradise into which those restored spiritual Israelites were brought. (Isaiah 35:10) During World War II of 1939-1945 C.E., which broke out within her own borders, Christendom again stirred up religious persecution and fiercely endeavored to wipe out the spiritual paradise of the remnant of spiritual Israel and their companion worshipers of Jehovah God. But all in vain! Jehovah’s Christian witnesses survived and came forth from the second world conflict with greater force of numbers than ever before. In view of such violent hatred on the part of Christendom toward His Christian witnesses, does Jehovah God have a “legal case over Zion”? Has His “year of retributions” arrived upon the modern-day Edomites, Jehovah’s “day of vengeance”?​—Isaiah 34:8.

⁵⁰ The answer is Yes! And so Christendom now faces desolation. Judaism faces the same thing!

Chapter 13

When Christendom and Judaism Are No More!

1. (a) In the first century C.E., were the adherents to Judaism and the Edomites in agreement on their attitude toward Christianity? (b) Why are the Bible prophecies concerning Edom of interest to us today?

THE ancient nation of Edom (Idumea) was against the faithful worshipers of Jehovah God. Even in the days of the apostles of Jesus Christ, in the first century C.E., the staunch adherents to Judaism were one with the Edomites (Idumeans) in fighting against the newly begun Christianity. (Acts 4:25-28; 12:1-6) In the course of time the nation of Edom disappeared from the pages of history, but, for the major and complete fulfillment of Bible prophecy, that notorious nation has her modern counterpart. It is Christendom. So the Bible prophecies concerning Edom must today be understood from the standpoint of what befalls this modern-day counterpart.

2, 3. (a) Against whom is Jehovah’s “day of vengeance,” as foretold in Isaiah 34:8, now at hand? (b) In the following verses of Isaiah chapter 34, what “retributions” are foretold?

² In the outstanding prophecy against Edom as contained in Isaiah, chapter thirty-four, we read this ominous statement: “For Jehovah has a day of vengeance, a year of retributions for the legal case over Zion.” (Isaiah 34:8) Jehovah’s “day of vengeance,” his “year of retributions,” is at hand with reference to the modern-day counterpart of ancient Edom. So, as we consider the further part of this prophecy of Isaiah, we can have Christendom of today in mind. Foretelling the “retributions” that were to come for the hateful misconduct of Edom against ancient Zion or Jerusalem, the prophet Isaiah proceeds to say:

³ “And her torrents must be changed into pitch, and her dust into sulphur; and her land must become as burning pitch. By night or by day it will not be extinguished; to time indefinite its smoke will keep ascending. From generation to generation she will be parched; forever and ever no one will be passing across her. And the pelican and the porcupine must take possession of her, and long-eared owls and ravens themselves will reside in her; and he must stretch out over her the measuring line of emptiness and the stones [the plumb stones] of wasteness. Her nobles​—there are none there whom they will call to the kingship itself, and her very princes will all become nothing. On her dwelling towers thorns must come up, nettles and thorny weeds in her fortified places; and she must become an abiding place of jackals, the courtyard for the ostriches. And haunters of waterless regions must meet up with howling animals, and even the goat-shaped demon will call to its companion. Yes, there the nightjar will certainly take its ease and find for itself a resting-place. There the arrow snake has made its nest and lays eggs, and it must hatch them and gather them together under its shadow. Yes, there the gledes must collect themselves together, each one with her mate.”​—Isaiah 34:9-15.

4. (a) In brief, what is the condition there described? (b) For how long was this condition to continue?

⁴ That is anything but a description of a “garden of Eden” or “paradise of pleasure.” Rather, it is nothing less than a picture of utter desolation and ruin, a region unfit for humans to live in, but a well-suited haunt for wild animals and birds. The land of Edom is thus portrayed as becoming so parched that it appears as if its torrent valleys were running with pitch, and its dust were sulphur and then these combustible substances were set afire. This parched state of the land of Edom was to continue “forever and ever,” and there was to be no restoration of its former residents or their descendants. The “smoke” ascending from the symbolic burning of the land of Edom will be like the “smoke” from the fiery destruction of Babylon the Great, concerning which it is written: “The smoke from her goes on ascending forever and ever.”​—Revelation 19:3; 18:18.

5. How does Obadiah 18 indicate what the spiritual Israelite remnant of today are to do with this fiery message against modern-day Edom?

⁵ In an application of this prophecy to Christendom’s coming destruction, the restored remnant of spiritual Israelites have the commission from God to declare this divine “vengeance” upon Christendom, as indicated in Obadiah’s corresponding prophecy, which reads: “And the house of Jacob [Israel] must become a fire, and the house of Joseph a flame, and the house of Esau as stubble; and they must set them ablaze and devour them. And there will prove to be no survivor to the house of Esau; for Jehovah himself has spoken it.” (Obadiah 18) For declaring such a fiery message against modern-day Edom, Christendom, the spiritual Israelite remnant of today incur her hatred all the more.

6. What assurance is embodied in the language of Isaiah 34:16, 17?

⁶ After painting a prophetic picture of how the “land of Edom” was to become a wild wasteland with only wild beasts and birds and snakes in it, the prophet Isaiah assures us that there will be no failure on Jehovah’s part in having this prophecy come true. He says to the students of Bible prophecies: “Search for yourselves in the book of Jehovah and read out loud: not one has been missing of them; they actually do not fail to have each one her mate, for it is the mouth of Jehovah that has given the command, and it is his spirit that has collected them together. And it is He that has cast for them the lot, and his own hand has apportioned the place to them by the measuring line. To time indefinite they will take possession of it; for generation after generation they will reside in it.”​—Isaiah 34:16, 17.

7. In detail, what is the meaning of the language of Isaiah 34:16, 17?

⁷ Thus, instead of male and female Edomites pairing up again in their former land and producing one generation of Edomites after another, the wild beasts and birds will pair up. The females will not fail to have their mates. Jehovah God is the One who makes the once-populous land of Edom now an ideal place for such wild creature life. His hand of active power is the one that appointed this place for them and brought them together there. It is as if He were an architect and had stretched out the measuring line and dropped down the plumb line to measure off and guide straight the construction of the situation in the “land of Edom.” According to his measuring and guiding of things, it was to be a land of “emptiness” as far as humans are concerned and an area of “wasteness” as far as new human structures of any height are concerned. There was to be no rebirth of that land as the homeland of the Edomites, “the people devoted by me to destruction in justice.”​—Isaiah 34:5, 11.

8. (a) What does that portend for Christendom? (b) How certain is it that this will happen to Christendom?

⁸ What an awe-striking end that prophecy portends for the modern-day “land of Edom,” namely, Christendom! It may strike the religionists with horror to think that Christendom, with her tremendous church population, her wealth and her religious buildings and institutions should come to such an end, with no hope of reconstruction. But just as certainly as the prophecy had its miniature fulfillment upon that now extinct people of Edom, just so surely will prophecy have a final and complete major fulfillment upon Edomitish Christendom. For, just as it is said with respect to the destruction of Babylon the Great, “Jehovah God, who judged her, is strong.”​—Revelation 18:8.

9, 10. At the close of the prophecy, what outlook for the restored remnant of spiritual Israel is foretold by Obadiah?

⁹ How different in outlook is the situation for the restored remnant of spiritual Israelites! The prophecy of Obadiah regarding the “mountainous region of Esau” follows the pattern of Isaiah’s prophecy in contrasting the outcome of things for the Edomites and for the Israelites whom the Edomites rejoiced to see deported to Babylon. Turning from his description of the divine punishment to come upon the unbrotherly, malicious Edomites, the prophet Obadiah proceeds on to the close of his prophecy, saying:

¹⁰ “And in Mount Zion is where those escaping will prove to be, and it must become something holy; and the house of Jacob [Israel] must take possession of the things for them to possess. . . . And saviors will certainly come up onto Mount Zion, in order to judge the mountainous region of Esau; and the kingship must become Jehovah’s.”​—Obadiah 17-21.

11. (a) What is the “Mount Zion” onto which “saviors will certainly come up”? (b) How does the contrast of spiritual conditions emphasize the beauty of the spiritual paradise?

¹¹ It is upon the heavenly Mount Zion that Jehovah, in fulfillment of Psalm 2:5, 6, installs his Messianic King of the royal house of David, namely, Jesus Christ. It is upon the heavenly Mount Zion that the Savior, the Lamb of God, assembles to him the 144,000 spiritual Israelites, to reign with him for a thousand years. (Revelation 14:1-3; 7:4-8) It is the anointed remnant yet on earth of the 144,000 spiritual Israelites that now declares the judgment message of Jehovah against the modern-day “mountainous region of Esau,” the “land of Edom,” namely, Christendom. As these proclaimers of Jehovah’s judgments that foretell his vengeance and retributions to be executed upon the antitypical Edomites, they appreciate all the more fully the beauteous spiritual paradise into which He has ushered them since 1919 C.E.​—Isaiah 35:1-10.

THE END OF CHRISTENDOM AND JUDAISM

12. Where does the Bible describe how the end of Christendom and Judaism will occur?

¹² Understandably when Christendom, who is boasting today of nearly a thousand million church members, is reduced to the desolated estate once predicted for the land of Edom, it will cause great wonderment. How could such an almost unbelievable thing occur? Especially within this generation that experienced the end of the Gentile Times more than sixty years ago​—in 1914 C.E. Also, how will the end of Christendom and of its close religious associate, Judaism, occur? Jehovah God, who inspired the prophecies of Isaiah and of Obadiah against Edom, has inspired the prophecy that tells us how. That prophecy is specifically recorded for us in the last book of the Holy Bible, Revelation, chapter seventeen.

13. Why was Christendom not mentioned by name in Revelation, chapter 17, but, significantly, what is there named?

¹³ In objection to such an idea, a defender of Christendom might argue that Christendom is not mentioned at all in Revelation, chapter seventeen. That is true, for Christendom was not in existence at the time that the apostle John wrote the book called Revelation. Instead of trying to create a fusion religion by bringing about a compromise between Rome’s pagan religion, and Christianity, and thus providing a suitable State religion, the Roman Empire was in the apostle John’s time trying to stamp out Christianity by cruel persecution. That was why the apostle John was an exile on the penal island of Patmos. (Revelation 1:9) So Christendom was not established until more than two centuries later, by Emperor Constantine the Great. However, something already existing is made the chief figure in Revelation, chapter seventeen, and that is Babylon the Great.

14. In the book of Revelation, what two symbolic women are set in contrast with each other, and what do they represent?

¹⁴ In the book of Revelation two symbolic women are set in contrast with each other. The one is this Babylon the Great, and the other is the “wife” of the Lamb of God. (Revelation 19:1-8) The one, Babylon the Great, is branded as a “harlot.” The other, “the bride, the Lamb’s wife,” is a virgin. (Revelation 17:1-5; 21:9) Both are religious organizations, the one unclean, the other clean. The “bride, the Lamb’s wife,” is the congregation of the 144,000 virginlike faithful followers of the Lamb Jesus Christ, all of them being spiritual Israelites. (Revelation 7:4-8; 14:1-5) Babylon the Great is composed of those who practice religions in opposition to true Christianity as practiced by the 144,000 spiritual Israelites. That is why the apostle John “saw that the woman was drunk with the blood of the holy ones and with the blood of the witnesses of Jesus.” (Revelation 17:6) The religion of the members of Babylon the Great is, therefore, not Christian, but Babylonish, hence false.​—Isaiah 47:1, 12-15.

15. Who are the “kings of the earth” over whom Babylon the Great has exercised kingship?

¹⁵ Concerning Babylon the Great, it was explained to the apostle John: “The woman whom you saw means the great city that has a kingdom over the kings of the earth.” (Revelation 17:18) Because she thus sits as a “queen” over the kings of the earth, Babylon the Great stands for the world empire of false religion. (Revelation 18:7) She has exercised such imperial kingship, not merely over the earth’s kings during any given period or century, but also over a series of world powers (symbolic “kings”) down through millenniums of time. Down till the end of the Gentile Times in 1914 C.E., there was a succession of seven such world powers, namely, (1) the ancient Egyptian Empire, (2) the Assyrian Empire, (3) the neo-Babylonian Empire, (4) the Medo-Persian Empire, (5) the Grecian Empire, (6) the Roman Empire, and (7) the Anglo-American Dual World Power. This is portrayed by the fact that the beast ridden by the “harlot” has seven “heads.”

16. When saying, with regard to the heads of the “scarlet-colored wild beast” ridden by the “harlot,” that “one is,” what did the angel mean?

¹⁶ Telling the meaning of the various parts of this “scarlet-colored wild beast,” the angel said to John: “The seven heads mean seven mountains, where the woman sits on top. And there are seven kings: five have fallen, one is, the other has not yet arrived, but when he does arrive he must remain a short while.” (Revelation 17:9, 10) By the expression “one is,” the angel meant the sixth world power, the Roman Empire, that was holding the Christian apostle John a prisoner on the isle of Patmos.

17, 18. How was Christendom, right from her beginning, a part of Babylon the Great?

¹⁷ In the fourth century of our Common Era this sixth world power, by means of Emperor Constantine the Great as its Pontifex Maximus, brought about a fusion of the Roman pagan religion and the apostate Christian religion of some hundreds of “bishops” of religious congregations. By imperial decree, Constantine made the fusion religion the State religion. Thus nominal Christianity, which was Christian in name only, became the established religion of the Roman Empire. In this manner Christendom was brought to birth. By becoming the dominant religious organization of the Roman World Power, over which world power Babylon the Great had her kingdom, Christendom was made a part of Babylon the Great. Christendom was thus, in effect, a daughter organization of Babylon the Great, of whom it is said:

¹⁸ “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.’”​—Revelation 17:5.

19. (a) From what source do the outstanding doctrines and practices of Christendom come? (b) How, in imitating her religious mother, has Christendom shown herself to be a “harlot”?

¹⁹ It is no wonder, therefore, that the outstanding doctrines of the religious sects of Christendom and also her practices are pagan, Babylonish, stemming from ancient Babylon on the river Euphrates of Mesopotamia. Neither is it any wonder that Christendom imitates her religious mother, of whom it is said: “With whom the kings of the earth committed fornication, whereas those who inhabit the earth were made drunk with the wine of her fornication.” (Revelation 17:1, 2) Spiritually speaking, Christendom is a “harlot,” for she has intimate friendship with this wicked world, concerning which unclean friendship James 4:4 says: “Adulteresses, do you not know that the friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever, therefore, wants to be a friend of the world is constituting himself an enemy of God.” The State churches of Christendom, her unions of Church and State, do not stand to her credit. They brand her as a spiritual fornicatrix, a meddler in world politics.

20. (a) So why is Christendom, though not named, to be understood as included in Revelation, chapter 17? (b) What does the future hold for her?

²⁰ Can there be any question that Christendom is a part of Babylon the Great, with a church membership that makes her the dominant part of that world empire of false religion? None! Hence, even though Christendom is not mentioned by name in Revelation, chapter seventeen, she is included, and is to be understood, in that chapter. Consequently, what is there pictured as happening to the “great harlot,” Babylon the Great, must happen also to Christendom. Revelation, chapter seventeen, does show, then, how Christendom is to be destroyed. This must be so, because no part of Babylon the Great will escape destruction. The religious “harlots” that she has mothered must perish with her. So, then, as we now consider the divine “judgment upon the great harlot who sits on many waters,” we must keep Christendom in mind as being inseparably involved, included.​—Revelation 17:1, 5.

THE ROLE OF THE EIGHTH WORLD POWER

21. What did God’s angel tell the apostle John about “an eighth king”?

²¹ To the wondering apostle John, God’s angel said: “I will tell you the mystery of the woman and of the wild beast that is carrying her and that has the seven heads and the ten horns: The wild beast that you saw was, but is not, and yet is about to ascend out of the abyss, and it is to go off into destruction. And when they see how the wild beast was, but is not, and yet will be present, those who dwell on the earth will wonder admiringly, but their names have not been written upon the scroll of life from the founding of the world. . . . And the wild beast that was but is not, it is also itself an eighth king, but springs from the seven, and it goes off into destruction.”​—Revelation 17:7-11.

22. What is that “eighth king,” and how did it ‘spring from the seven’?

²² The symbolic wild beast with seven heads and ten horns pictures “an eighth king,” that is to say, an eighth world power. This world power came into existence after the end of the Gentile Times in 1914 C.E. and after World War I. Modern history identifies this Eighth World Power as being the international organization for world peace and security. This was formed in 1919 and went into operation early in 1920. The Seventh World Power, namely, the Anglo-American World Power, was largely responsible for the formation of that organization for world peace and security. (Revelation 13:11-15) It began under the name “The League of Nations.” It sprang from the preceding seven world powers in that it combined in itself the Seventh World Power and all the relics of the preceding six world powers.

23. (a) When did that “wild beast . . . ascend out of the abyss,” and with what name? (b) What part do Christendom and Judaism have in the United Nations?

²³ In 1939 C.E. the League of Nations went into the abyss of deathlike impotency because of the outbreak of World War II. After the close of World War II in the summer of 1945, this Eighth World Power that was assigned to safeguarding world peace and security ascended out of the wartime abyss, especially by the aid of the Seventh World Power, the dual world power of Britain and America. It took on a new name, United Nations. Beginning with fifty-one member nations, it today has one hundred and thirty-eight member nations. Christendom has a large representation in the United Nations by its many nations that are members of that world organization. Judaism, with its worldwide membership of 14,443,925 Orthodox and Reform Jews, has its representation in the United Nations by means of the Republic of Israel since the year 1949. So Babylon the Great dominates Judaism.

24. How did Babylon the Great get on the back of the “scarlet-colored wild beast,” and how does she view her position there?

²⁴ When the scarlet-colored wild beast with seven heads and ten horns ascended out of the abyss in the form of the United Nations, Babylon the Great immediately got on its back again as a “queen” with a “kingdom over the kings of the earth.” She took this action by putting her faith in that man-made organization for world peace and security rather than in the Messianic kingdom of God that was being proclaimed world wide by Jehovah’s Christian witnesses. She put her dependence upon this antichrist organization for her preservation from annihilation in the postwar period. Confidently, riding that symbolic wild beast, Babylon the Great “keeps saying, ‘I sit a queen, and I am no widow, and I shall never see mourning.’” (Revelation 18:7) But she has miscalculated!

25. By what means, as God’s angel told the apostle John, would the harlotrous world empire of false religion come to its end?

²⁵ The “ten horns” of that symbolic scarlet-colored wild beast are destined to turn upon the harlotrous world empire of false religion. Said God’s angel to the apostle John as he watched the prophetic vision: “And the ten horns that you saw mean ten kings, who have not yet [in John’s day] received a kingdom, but they do receive authority as kings one hour with the wild beast [by joining the modern world organization for peace and security]. These have one thought, and so they give their power and authority to the wild beast [now the United Nations]. . . . 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. . . . And the woman whom you saw means the great city [Babylon the Great] that has a kingdom over the kings of the earth.”​—Revelation 17:12-18.

26, 27. (a) What change in attitude on the part of the political rulers will evidently lead up to this violent action? (b) Why is their ‘burning her with fire’ appropriate?

²⁶ The symbolic “ten horns’ (the member nations of the world organization for peace and security) will lose their passionate attraction to the harlotrous world empire of false religion and will gore her to death. In fact, the whole symbolic wild beast (now the United Nations) will cease to find satisfaction in their lustful relationship with the “great harlot,” Babylon the Great, and the mouths of the “seven heads” of the scarlet-colored “wild beast” will “eat up her fleshy parts.” To the whole “wild beast” organization, “ten horns” and all, she will become as a worn-out old harlot, no longer desirable for greedy, selfish use. Realistically, under stress of the global crisis, the political rulers, whose nations are members in the United Nations, will become hardheaded in the light of the worsening world conditions. Ignoring all sentimentality, they will be forced to take drastic, heartless action for the preservation of their political institutions and social, economic structure. They will see that the world empire of false religion is an international nuisance and a hindrance to their emergency operations because of the Babylonish religious beliefs, practices and customs.

²⁷ The many gods and goddesses that Babylon the Great has worshiped will not come to the aid of the world empire of false religion, to save her from action by her former lustful paramours. Her former lovers, the political and military elements, will realize that those deities of Babylon the Great are helpless and have been of no saving powers to them when prayed to by the priests, chaplains, clergymen and religious potentates of the world empire of false religion. Those political and military elements will feel deceived, tricked, fooled and will lose respect for worldly religion. They will not have to turn Communist in order to “hate the harlot,” but will simply turn radical and thus be able to cooperate with “godless Communism” in doing away with the hypocritical religious organization. They will give her the treatment that was meted out to some harlots in ancient times, “completely burn her with fire.”​—Genesis 38:24.

28. When all of Babylon the Great is brought to desolation, why will Christendom not be exempt?

²⁸ We can imagine what this will mean to the Vatican and its Basilica of Saint Peter, to the religious cathedrals, churches, mosques, temples, synagogues, shrines, and to other religious structures! We can imagine what is in store for those who officiate in impressive vestments in those religious buildings. Let not Christendom imagine that she will escape because she parades before the world in the name of Christ. She, too, has played the religious “harlot” like her mother, Babylon the Great. The friendship that she has cultivated and maintained with the political and military elements of this world will fail her. She will be shocked at finding that adulterous friendship with this world made her an “enemy of God” and of his Christ. (James 4:4) Even the celebrating of the Holy Year of 1975 does not alter her status before Jehovah God. She must be reduced to the state of emptiness and wasteness like that foretold for ancient Edom.​—Isaiah 34:11-13; compare Revelation 18:2, 8.

29. (a) In what way has Judaism identified itself with Babylon the Great? (b) Are there any who have come out of Judaism, so as to avoid its fate?

²⁹ As respects Judaism, it has taken its stand with Babylon the Great. The Republic of Israel, as one of the 138 Jewish, Arab, Moslem, Hindu, Buddhist, so-called “Christian,” Communist members of the United Nations, has been under the rider of that Eighth World Power, namely, Babylon the Great. (Revelation 17:3-6) In the first century of our Common Era the Jewish Pharisee named Saul of Tarsus came out of Judaism and became the Christian apostle surnamed Paul. (Galatians 1:1, 13-17; Philippians 3:3-6) Dissimilar to this Saul of Tarsus, the vast majority of the natural, circumcised Jews have clung to the traditional Judaism.

30. What lies ahead for both Christendom and Judaism, and how do events of the first century indicate that?

³⁰ In the year of 70 C.E., their stronghold of Judaism, Jerusalem, was destroyed by the pagan Romans, just as Jesus Christ foretold. (Matthew 24:1-3, 15-22; Luke 21:20-24) That destruction of Jerusalem and its temple and the desolation of the land of Judah by the Romans became a prophetic type of the destruction and desolation now due to come upon Christendom in the “great tribulation” ahead. Since Judaism holds to the stand that it took in the first century C.E., and that brought disaster on it in 70 C.E., it will suffer the same fate as its antitype, Christendom, will suffer.

31. Who are the people that stand out as separate and distinct from Christendom and Judaism, and what conditions do they enjoy even now?

³¹ So, the time is approaching when Babylon the Great is no more! This means that the time must come when Christendom and Judaism are no more! But what about the proclaimers of the established Messianic kingdom of God, namely, Jehovah’s Christian witnesses? What about the spiritual paradise in which they are now residing? The inspired prophetic Scriptures reveal to them what to expect.​—Amos 3:7; Revelation 1:1-3.

Chapter 14

When Man’s Old Order Makes Way for God’s New Order

1, 2. (a) By what agency will Babylon the Great be destroyed? (b) What does Revelation 17:17 say about the “ten horns” of that scarlet-colored “wild beast”?

WHEN the “great harlot,” Babylon the Great, is destroyed in the impending “great tribulation,” a longtime part of man’s old order will pass away. That Babylonish world empire of false religion is destroyed by former lovers. That is to say, her destruction will come by the agency of the symbolic “ten horns” on the “seven heads” of the scarlet-colored “wild beast,” namely, the international organization for world peace and security. That postwar organization was formed in the year 1919 C.E. and operated first under the name The League of Nations.

² As regards the “ten horns” that give the symbolic “wild beast” a formidable appearance, Revelation 17:17 says: “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.”

3. (a) What is symbolized by the “ten horns”? (b) As respects the relationship that would exist between the political states, what does Revelation 17:17 say?

³ By the peace conference of 1919 new political states were created. Thus there were more symbolic “horns” after World War I than immediately before it. The question then became urgent, namely, What was to be the relationship between all the political states of the world? (All of them were symbolized by the “ten horns,” inasmuch as the number ten is used in the Bible to mean allness, the complete number.) As respects this question, “God put it into their hearts to carry out his thought.” How could that be?

4. As to government, what took place in the year 1914?

⁴ Well, for decades the obedient remnant of spiritual Israelites had been declaring the end of the Gentile Times in the year 1914. At that date God’s permission of the Gentile nations to exercise world control without interference from his Messianic kingdom stopped. He signalized such an end of his permission by establishing the Messianic kingdom in the heavens, in the hands of the everlasting Heir of King David, Jesus Christ. Never again was the Messianic kingdom in David’s royal line to be trampled underfoot, as it had been trampled underfoot 2,520 years previously, in 607 B.C.E.​—Luke 21:24.

5. What notification was given to the political powers of the earth that the time had come for them to surrender their ruling power to God’s ruling Messiah?

⁵ To the anointed remnant of spiritual Israelites, the raging of World War I in 1914, with food shortages and pestilences accompanying it, was a confirmation that God’s Messianic kingdom was fully established, fully brought to birth in the heavens, at the end of the Gentile Times in that year. So they went preaching the good news of God’s established kingdom until war conditions and bitter persecution practically stopped them. This Kingdom-preaching was a notification to all the Gentile political powers of the earth, the symbolic “ten horns.” It notified them that God’s authorizing them to rule the world uninterruptedly had expired. The time had come for them to recognize his universal sovereignty and to surrender their ruling power to God’s Messiah enthroned in the heavens.

6. How had God already expressed “his thought” as to what the Gentile nations would do, and what was that thought?

⁶ However, God had thought out and foretold that the symbolic “ten horns” would not do this. For example, Psalm Two expressed his thought on this, that the Gentile kings of the earth and high officials would mass up together in opposition to Him and his installed king. (Compare Acts 4:24-30.) Already, in Daniel 2:44, he had foretold the destruction of them all as unchangeable resisters of his universal sovereignty. His thought now was that the Gentile nations, represented by the “ten horns,” should definitely adopt a certain course of action that would justify him before all creation in destroying such nations. His thought was that they should take united action as a consolidated group of nations, so that he might destroy them all together at one time. This is the very thing that they did. Thus we can see how God, by his own course of action, put it into the hearts of the symbolic “ten horns” to carry out his thought.

7. (a) How did the “ten horns” ‘give their kingdom to the wild beast’? (b) What is the “one hour” during which they are to have authority with the “wild beast”?

⁷ In proof of this, Revelation 17:17 continues on to say: “Even to carry out their one thought by giving their kingdom to the wild beast.” Even so, they did not give their kingdom to God’s Messianic kingdom as proclaimed by the remnant of spiritual Israel. Instead, they gave it to the symbolic “wild beast,” the man-made organization for world peace and security, at that time called The League of Nations. As time went on, more and more nations entered the League, in that way giving their “kingdom” to it. In that way it was true, “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.” (Revelation 17:12, 13) Since they are to “receive authority as kings one hour with the wild beast,” the existence of the symbolic “wild beast” is to be relatively short, as it were, “one hour.” Thus far the “wild beast” organization has been in existence only fifty-five years, less time than that of the neo-Babylonian World Power (607-539 B.C.E.).

8. As foretold, what task do the “ten horns” have to perform as the agents of Jehovah God?

⁸ The symbolic “ten horns,” the member nations of the world peace and security organization, have a task to perform as the agents of Jehovah God. What is that? It is to destroy the world empire of false religion, symbolized by Babylon the Great. Says God’s angel to the apostle John: “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.”​—Revelation 17:16.

9. In practical terms, what will that mean?

⁹ This signifies that what marriages of Religion and State, Church and State, have existed till then, will be dissolved. What national or State churches still exist will be disestablished. Tax exemption for religious organizations will be discontinued. Even Bible publishing and distributing societies of Christendom will be suppressed. Missionary work by the churches of Christendom will come to a halt. Army and congressional chaplains will be discharged. The celebration of Easter and Christmas and Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement) and Passover will be discontinued. The tremendous material wealth of the religious institutions, what may be left of it after the looters take what they want by force, will be expropriated by the political governments in their dire financial straits. For anyone, man or woman, to wear a distinctive religious garb identifying such a one as a member of a religious organization of Christendom, will expose one to assault or arrest as being hostile or a menace to the State. Amazing as it may yet seem to many, Christendom will be gone​—forever!

10-12. (a) Is it only Christendom that will be destroyed? (b) In Isaiah 2:10-22, what effects on humans as a result of Jehovah’s day of judgment are foretold?

¹⁰ Since that will be the case with Christendom, the most powerful part of Babylon the Great, what is to be expected in the case of all the other long-established, deeply entrenched religious organizations outside of Christendom? All of Babylon the Great must disappear from the earth! It will be the foretold day of judgment of Jehovah God the Almighty, regarding which we read:

¹¹ “Enter into the rock and hide yourself in the dust because of the dreadfulness of Jehovah, and from his splendid superiority. The haughty eyes of earthling man must become low, and the loftiness of men must bow down; and Jehovah alone must be put on high in that day. For it is the day belonging to Jehovah of armies. It is upon everyone self-exalted and lofty and upon everyone lifted up or low; . . .

¹² “And the valueless gods themselves will pass away completely. And people will enter into the caves of the rocks and into the holes of the dust because of the dreadfulness of Jehovah and from his splendid superiority, when he rises up for the earth to suffer shocks. In that day the earthling man will throw his worthless gods of silver and his valueless gods of gold that they had made for him to bow before to the shrewmice and to the bats, in order to enter into the holes in the rocks and into the clefts of the crags, because of the dreadfulness of Jehovah and from his splendid superiority, when he rises up for the earth to suffer shocks. For your own sakes, hold off from the earthling man, whose breath is in his nostrils, for on what basis is he himself to be taken into account?”​—Isaiah 2:10-22; compare Revelation 6:15-17.

13. (a) As indicated in that prophecy, how will they then treat things that pertain to religion? (b) Where will worldly-minded men seek refuge, and with what language did Isaiah foretell this?

¹³ On that day of Jehovah’s judgment against man’s old order, what will worldly-minded men do? Being faced with the deteriorating earth-wide conditions, they will lose faith in and turn away from religious things and will discard them as worthless, valueless. They will consider as being of no account the professional religionists, who are nothing more than men dependent upon the air they breathe in through their nostrils. Being now disillusioned about such ones, men will turn exclusively to materialistic things. Abandoning religion of all worldly kinds, they will seek refuge, protection and preservation in nonspiritual, earthly organizations that they hope will shield them like mountains and crags. They will trust no longer in religious men whom they once regarded as gods, as having connections with the superhuman spirit realm. One of the mountainlike organizations in which they will take refuge is the United Nations, the “Eighth” World Power, for that symbolic “wild beast” with its “ten horns” will destroy Babylon the Great.

14. Whose judgment really is it that is expressed in the destruction of Babylon the Great, and how does this serve as a vindication of him?

¹⁴ Although the devastating, denuding, consuming and burning of Babylon the Great may be the direct work of the symbolic “ten horns” of the scarlet-colored “wild beast,” it is nonetheless the execution of the judgment from Jehovah God. In line with that view of matters, it is written in Revelation 18:8 concerning the world empire of false religion: “That is why in one day her plagues will come, death and mourning and famine, and she will be completely burned with fire, because Jehovah God, who judged her, is strong.” So, to Jehovah God the Almighty goes the credit for liberating mankind from the reign of the religious “great harlot,” Babylon the Great. It will be a vindication of Him as not being the Author of the world empire of false Babylonish religion, not even of Christendom.

JOY OVER DESTRUCTION OF BABYLON THE GREAT

15-19. Among whom will there be rejoicing when Babylon the Great is destroyed, and what did the apostle John write about this?

¹⁵ Whereas for Babylon the Great one of the plagues coming upon her from God’s hand is to be “mourning,” great joy will be experienced by those on the side of Jehovah God and of His pure form of worship. The inspired apostle John describes this rejoicing on the part of Jehovah’s worshipers. After seeing a prophetic picture of how “Babylon the great city [will] be hurled down, and she will never be found again,” the apostle John writes:

¹⁶ “After these things I heard what was as a loud voice of a great crowd in heaven. They said: ‘Praise Jah, you people [Greek: Hallelujah]! The salvation and the glory and the power belong to our God, because his judgments are true and righteous. For he has executed judgment upon the great harlot who corrupted the earth with her fornication, and he has avenged the blood of his slaves at her hand.’ And right away for the second time they said: ‘Praise Jah, you people [Hallelujah]! And the smoke from her goes on ascending forever and ever.’

¹⁷ “And the twenty-four elders and the four living creatures fell down and worshiped God seated upon the throne, and said: ‘Amen! Praise Jah, you people [Hallelujah]!’

¹⁸ “Also, a voice issued forth from the throne and said: ‘Be praising our God, all you his slaves, who fear him, the small ones and the great.’

¹⁹ “And I heard what was as a voice of a great crowd and as a sound of many waters and as a sound of heavy thunders. They said: ‘Praise Jah, you people [Hallelujah!], because Jehovah our God, the Almighty, has begun to rule as king.’”​—Revelation 19:1-6; 18:21-24.

20. Where does that praising of Jehovah take place, but who else participates?

²⁰ All such praising of Jehovah because of his executing upon the “great harlot” the foretold judgments is represented, apparently, as taking place up in heaven among the holy angels. However, the voice that was heard from the heavenly throne after the third Hallelujah said: “Be praising our God, all you his slaves, who fear him, the small ones and the great.” This command from the throne embraces the “slaves” of Jah Jehovah who still remain on earth after the destruction of the “great harlot,” Babylon the Great. These “slaves” are the ones that obeyed the earlier divine command from heaven: “Get out of her, my people, if you do not want to share with her in her sins, and if you do not want to receive part of her plagues. For her sins have massed together clear up to heaven, and God has called her acts of injustice to mind. Render to her even as she herself rendered, and do to her twice as much, yes, twice the number of the things she did; in the cup in which she put a mixture put twice as much of the mixture for her. To the extent that she glorified herself and lived in shameless luxury, to that extent give her torment and mourning.”​—Revelation 18:4-7.

21. Who are the ones that, since 1919 C.E., have got out of Babylon the Great, and so what fine prospect do they have?

²¹ Jehovah’s Christian witnesses, both the remnant of spiritual Israelites and the “great crowd” of sheeplike companions, are the ones that, since 1919 C.E., have got out of Babylon the Great, in order to prove themselves to be Jehovah’s “people.” They did not “want to share with her in her sins,” and they did not “want to receive part of her plagues.” Accordingly they will not share with Babylon the Great in her plagues of “death and mourning and famine” and in being “completely burned with fire.” (Revelation 18:8) So these obedient Christian witnesses of Jehovah will survive the destruction of the Babylonish world empire of false religion. They will be witnesses of that destruction. And since the heavenly hosts, including those symbolized by the “twenty-four elders,” will praise Jah Jehovah over his executing of divine vengeance upon that “old harlot,” these surviving Christian witnesses of His on earth will be justified in their rejoicing and shouting out “Hallelujah!” But then what?

BATTLE OF “TEN HORNS” AND “BEAST” AGAINST THE LAMB

22. (a) Following the destruction of Babylon the Great, what confrontation will take place? (b) What is it that Jehovah’s Christian witnesses will really be confronting at that time?

²² Then​—a confrontation between those then left on the earth. The seven-headed, ten-horned scarlet-colored wild beast and earth’s inhabitants who still “wonder admiringly” at the beast will be on the one side of the controversy. The surviving Christian witnesses of Jehovah will be on the other side. Inasmuch as the scarlet-colored wild beast is merely an “image” of the seven-headed, ten-horned wild beast that ascended out of the sea and that is worshiped by the people who think that nobody “can do battle with it,” this means that the Christian witnesses of Jehovah will really be confronting this symbolic “wild beast” of which an image was made. This wild beast out of the sea symbolized the worldwide political system of human rulership, to which system Satan the Devil gave “its power and its throne and great authority.” (Revelation 13:1-8) This earth-wide political system has 138 nations that represent it in the present-day United Nations, the international organization that is now the “image” of the wild beast that ascended out of the “sea” of humankind. This is what Jehovah’s witnesses must then confront!

23. (a) What is the two-horned “wild beast” that ‘speaks as a dragon,’ as foretold at Revelation 13:11-13? (b) The United Nations is referred to as an “image” of what “wild beast,” and who proposed the making of this political “image”?

²³ Among those national groups that have members in the “image” of the wild beast are the former British Empire (which, since 1931 C.E., has been reorganized as the British Commonwealth of Nations), and the United States of North America. These two English-speaking groups have acted together in world crises, so that the two make up a dual world power, an Anglo-American world power, the Seventh World Power of Bible prophecy. In a general way this Seventh World Power has worked along with the symbolic wild beast, and has acted as a mouthpiece or prophet for the beastly worldwide political system. For this reason it is pictured in Revelation 13:11-13 as a dragon-mouthed wild beast that ascends out of the “earth” and that has two horns like those of a lamb. Quite properly this two-horned or dual world power has membership in the United Nations of today, for it was this Anglo-American World Power that proposed and put through the making of a political “image” of the “wild beast” that ascended out of the “sea.”​—Revelation 13:14, 15.

24. (a) According to the facts of history, how did the formation of the League of Nations and of the United Nations come about? (b) In reality, the United Nations is an expression of what on the part of worldly politicians?

²⁴ During the throes of World War I, the then British Prime Minister Lloyd George thought of the formation of a postwar League of Nations to act as an impediment to another world war. America’s wartime president, T. W. Wilson, worked hard to set up the League. Similarly, in the closing months of the second world war, the United States as the other member of the two-horned “wild beast” promoted the formation of a successor to the then defunct League of Nations. In October of 1945 this revised organization for world peace and security emerged as the United Nations. It was, in effect, the same old “image” of the political “wild beast,” but under a new name. It was proposed and put in operation by worldly politicians in defiance of God’s Messianic kingdom that Jehovah’s Christian witnesses had been proclaiming and recommending since the end of the Gentile Times in 1914.

25. (a) Thus, according to the real significance of Revelation, chapter 17, what is it that Jehovah’s Christian witnesses will have to confront after Babylon the Great is destroyed? (b) What government is it that these Witnesses represent?

²⁵ In the light of the foregoing, when Revelation, chapter seventeen, speaks of the scarlet-colored, seven-headed, ten-horned “wild beast,” we should think of the real power that is behind this symbolic “image,” namely, the worldwide political system of government symbolized by the wild beast that ascended out of the sea. The two-horned wild beast that ascended out of the earth, namely, the Anglo-American Dual World Power, is the dominant section of the larger political system pictured by the sea beast. Consequently, after the nations that are members of the symbolic “image” have destroyed religious Babylon the Great, it is the irreligious worldwide system of political government that the Christian witnesses of Jehovah will have to confront. They will still be standing firm for God’s Messianic kingdom as the only rightful rulership for the world of mankind. It is this heavenly government that they represent. In fact, the anointed remnant of spiritual Israelites are the “ambassadors” of the Messianic government.​—2 Corinthians 5:20; Ephesians 6:20.

26. (a) What will be the only “kind of religion” remaining after Babylon the Great is destroyed? (b) How does this religion affect one’s attitude toward involvement in the world’s political affairs, and why?

²⁶ With the destruction of religious Babylon the Great, the first part of the “great tribulation” predicted by Jesus Christ closes. (Matthew 24:21, 22; see also Daniel 12:1.) The critical point of time on earth will now have been reached! The surviving Christian witnesses of Jehovah will stand as the only worshipers of the one living and true God, Creator of heaven and earth. Their form of worship is the only “religion” that the now radical political governments have been unable to wipe out; and that will be so because this is “the kind of religion which is without stain or fault in the sight of God our Father.” (James 1:27, The New English Bible) Till this “kind of religion” is effaced from the earth the ungodly nations will feel dissatisfied with themselves. It is this “kind of religion” that has kept the surviving Christian witnesses of Jehovah from amalgamating with the new political setup, from making themselves a “part of the world.” (John 15:19; 17:14, 16) They stand first, last and all the time for the universal sovereignty of the Most High and Almighty God, Jehovah.

27. (a) What question will then press for settlement? (b) How will the nations show that they are united in their opposition to Jehovah’s Messianic kingdom?

²⁷ The hot question, Who shall rule the earth without rivalry? has now reached the burning point. The irreligious nations are determined that God’s Messianic kingdom shall not take over the control of all the earth, which they claim as their territory. Unitedly, as by the agency of the United Nations organization, they will manifest their do-or-die opposition to the Messianic kingdom of the Sovereign Lord Jehovah, which is in the hands of his Lamb, Jesus Christ. The end of the “times of the Gentiles” in 1914 means nothing to them. They will refuse to get out, refuse to surrender their national sovereignties to God’s installed Messianic King, the Lamb. They will never give in without a fight, and for such a last-ditch fight the nuclear-powered nations feel at the height of their battle strength. So, now, to the showdown fight!

28. Explain the description of these matters as found at Revelation 17:12-14.

²⁸ Says Revelation 17:12-14 concerning this war of the ages: “The ten horns that you saw mean ten kings [all earthly political powers], who have not yet [in the apostle John’s day] received a kingdom [by membership in the League of Nations​—United Nations], 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 [the world organization for peace and security]. 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.”

29. Will the political rulers be able to see the Lamb Jesus Christ in order to fight against him directly, and how does the apostle Paul show this?

²⁹ The apostle Paul describes this once-sacrificed Lamb of God in his present glorified state, when he writes to his missionary companion Timothy and says: “In the sight of God, who preserves all things alive, and of Christ Jesus, who as a witness made the fine public declaration before Pontius Pilate [the Roman governor of Judea], I give you orders that you observe the commandment in a spotless and irreprehensible way until the manifestation of our Lord Jesus Christ. This manifestation the happy and only Potentate will show in its own appointed times, he the King of those who rule as kings and Lord of those who rule as lords, the one alone [out of all those lords and kings] having immortality, who dwells in unapproachable light, whom not one of men has seen [in his glorified immortal state] or can see.” (1 Timothy 6:13-16) Consequently, the symbolic “ten horns” of the United Nations “wild beast” will be unable to see the Lamb Jesus Christ to fight against him directly over world domination.

30. Against whom, then, will the “ten kings” direct their assault?

³⁰ However, the battle that the “ten kings” will carry on will be directed against those who are the visible earthly representatives of the royal Lamb, Jesus Christ. These will be the Christian witnesses of Jehovah, including the anointed remnant of spiritual Israelites and the “great crowd” of dedicated proclaimers of “this good news of the kingdom.” (Matthew 24:14) These, in spite of world pollution and distress of nations, will still be enjoying the spiritual paradise of God’s favor, protection and pure worship along with all the fruits of His spirit in their lives.

31. Against whom, in reality, are the nations making war when they attack Jesus’ faithful disciples?

³¹ For their encouragement, the Lamb Jesus Christ made a statement in his prophecy concerning the “conclusion of the system of things,” and the statement was that whatever was done to “one of the least of these my [spiritual] brothers” was as if done directly to him the King. (Matthew 24:3; 25:40) Now, when we are actually in that “conclusion of the system of things,” that rule still applies. So, in making war on the faithful disciples of Jesus Christ for the purpose of exterminating them, the nations are making war upon the glorified Lamb of God. So Jehovah’s Christian witnesses will appreciate that the war is, not against them fundamentally, but against God and his Lamb.

BATTLING UNDER “GOG OF THE LAND OF MAGOG”

32. (a) What long-time enemy of true worshipers will be missing when that final war takes place? (b) Nevertheless, who urges on the “ten horns” to fight?

³² In this final war upon the anointed remnant of spiritual Israelites and their loyal companions who make up a “great crowd” of the Fine Shepherd’s “other sheep,” there will be one former assailant of them missing. That is Babylon the Great, the world empire of false religion. In the past she used the “arm of the State” as her agency for waging spiritual warfare in a violent way against Jehovah’s “holy ones” who follow in the footsteps of Jesus Christ. The apostle John put her criminal record into the Holy Scriptures, when he wrote: “I saw that the woman was drunk with the blood of the holy ones and with the blood of the witnesses of Jesus.” (Revelation 17:6) But now, because of her destruction by the “ten horns,” she no longer rides the scarlet-colored “wild beast” to influence it in any way. Nevertheless, there is an invisible power that urges on the “ten horns” to battle with the Lamb as represented by his faithful disciples surviving on earth. That unseen superhuman power is Satan the Devil.​—Revelation 13:1, 2.

33. (a) What position will Satan the Devil still occupy at that time? (b) How do the Scriptures show that the Devil is really the one responsible for the war waged against worshipers of Jehovah on earth?

³³ The destruction of religious Babylon the Great has not deposed Satan the Devil from being what Jesus called him, “the ruler of this world,” or from being what the apostle Paul called him, “the god of this system of things.” (John 12:31; 14:30; 16:11; 2 Corinthians 4:4; Revelation 13:3, 4) After the destruction of Babylon the Great, who had promoted Devil worship, his wrath against Jehovah’s Christian worshipers on earth is hotter than ever. He intensifies the warfare that he has waged against them ever since his being ousted from heaven, which warfare is reported on prophetically in these words: “The dragon grew wrathful at the woman [God’s heavenly organization that gave birth to the Messianic kingdom], and went off to wage war with the remaining ones of her seed, who observe the commandments of God and have the work of bearing witness to Jesus.”​—Revelation 12:17.

34. How does Revelation 16:12-16 show that the Devil and his political system are promoters of war against God at Har–Magedon?

³⁴ So now the time comes for the outbreak of the “war of the great day of God the Almighty” at that stage of world developments called Har–Magedon. Satan’s pushing the worldly nations into that final war is indicated, in Revelation 16:12-16, where the apostle John writes: “I saw three unclean inspired expressions that looked like frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon [Satan the Devil] and out of the mouth of the wild beast and out of the mouth of the false prophet [those who proposed and forwarded the making of a political ‘image’ to the wild beast]. They are, in fact, expressions inspired by demons and perform signs, and they go forth to the kings of the entire inhabited earth, to gather them together to the war of the great day of God the Almighty. . . . And they gathered them together to the place that is called in Hebrew Har–Magedon.” So the worldwide political system and the Anglo-American World Power work together with the Dragon in promoting all-out war with God at Har–Magedon.

35. (a) The role that the Devil plays in the developments after the destruction of Babylon the Great is described in what prophecy? (b) Who is there referred to as “Gog,” and what is “the land of Magog”?

³⁵ The role that the ousted Devil plays after the destruction of Babylon the Great in assembling what remains of his earthly visible organization to battle with the Lamb of God is vividly pictured in the prophecy of Ezekiel 38:1 through 39:16. In that prophecy the ousted Satan the Devil at the earth’s vicinity is addressed as “Gog of the land of Magog.” That land is pictured as being located in the far north, in “the remotest parts of the north,” and it pictures the debased condition far removed from God’s favor, the vicinity of our earth to which Satan the Devil and his demons have been restrained for a short period of time before being hurled into an abyss of complete inactivity. (Ezekiel 38:6, 15; 39:2; Revelation 20:1-3) As the symbolic Gog of the land of Magog, Satan the Devil is pictured as gathering together a great military force of troops from north and south and from Persia, east of where Babylon once stood on the Euphrates River.

36, 37. (a) When does Gog’s attack take place? (b) What is the “land” against which Gog directs his attack, as referred to in Ezekiel 38:8, 9?

³⁶ The time for the attack by Satan the Devil as Gog of the land of Magog is timed by Jehovah God and is due to occur “in the final part of the years,” “in the final part of the days.” (Ezekiel 38:8, 16) This signifies a time close to the end of the Devil’s visible organization on earth. It therefore locates his attack as coming a considerable period of time after the restoration of the repentant remnant of spiritual Israel to their rightful spiritual estate in Jehovah’s favor. This means years after 1919 C.E., when the remnant of spiritual Israelites were delivered by God’s power from bondage to Babylon the Great and were reinstated in his free Kingdom service. Not to the Republic of Israel in the Middle East, but to the restored spiritual estate of the Christian “Israel of God” he refers, when he says to Satan the Devil, alias Gog of the land of Magog:

³⁷ “After many days you will be given attention. In the final part of the years you will come to the land of people brought back from the sword, collected together out of many peoples, onto the mountains of Israel, that have proved to be a constantly devastated place; even a land that has been brought forth from the peoples, where they have dwelt in security, all of them. And you will be bound to come up. Like a storm you will come in. Like clouds to cover the land you will become, you and all your bands and many peoples with you.”​—Ezekiel 38:8, 9.

38, 39. (a) For what reasons will this attack upon the remnant of spiritual Israel take place? (b) How is the spiritual condition of God’s people at this time depicted in Ezekiel 38:10, 11?

³⁸ What will be the reason for this final attack upon the restored remnant of spiritual Israelites? It will be the fact that their prosperous spiritual estate on earth under divine blessing is a worldwide testimony to the universal sovereignty of Jehovah God. Added to that is the fact that they have boldly come forward as being no part of this world and as keeping absolute Christian neutrality toward worldly dissensions and are relying upon no deadly weapons of war for defense and protection. Also, they are enjoying the worship and active service of Jehovah in a spiritual paradise. That is why the following words are put into Gog’s mouth:

³⁹ “I shall go up against the land of open rural country. I shall come in upon those having no disturbance, dwelling in security, all of them dwelling without wall, and they do not have even bar and doors.”​—Ezekiel 38:10, 11.

40. What further evidence do the following verses in the prophecy contain showing that Jehovah’s worshipers on earth are then enjoying a spiritual paradise?

⁴⁰ Testifying to the spiritual paradise of his restored worshipers, Jehovah says to Gog of the land of Magog: “It will be to get a big spoil and to do much plundering, in order to turn your hand back upon devastated places reinhabited and upon a people gathered together out of the nations, one that is accumulating wealth and property, those who are dwelling in the center of the earth.” This is why the worldly observers ask the invading Gog of the land of Magog: “Is it to get a big spoil that you are coming in? Is it to do much plundering that you have congregated your congregation, in order to carry off silver and gold, to take wealth and property, to get a very great spoil?”​—Ezekiel 38:12, 13.

41. Why is it not material wealth of the inhabitants of the spiritual paradise that invites this international attack?

⁴¹ The restored remnant of spiritual Israelites and the “great crowd” of fellow inhabitants of the spiritual paradise do not have material wealth and property that Babylon the Great has accumulated over the centuries. They have followed the counsel of Jesus Christ and sought first the kingdom of God and His righteousness rather than the material goods of this materialistic world. (Matthew 6:33) So what in the way of earthly goods would they have to invite such an international attack by the military forces under the invisible command of the modern-day Gog of the land of Magog?

42. (a) What does the spiritual paradise of Jehovah’s Christian witnesses really represent, and how so? (b) What are the worldly nations determined to do about this?

⁴² Not material wealth, but what the spiritual paradise of the Christian witnesses of Jehovah represents is the valuable thing that invites a worldwide invasion by the visible earthly organization of Satan the Devil after Babylon the Great is reduced to ashes. Their spiritual paradise that Jehovah God has planted on the earth represents God’s claim to sovereignty over all the earth. But sovereignty over the earth is what the worldly nations claim for themselves, each member nation in the United Nations still continuing to insist upon its own national sovereignty. The inhabitants of the spiritual paradise form the foundation for a “new earth,” a new earthly society; hence, the worldly nations under modern-day Gog of Magog want to despoil that foundation of a “new earth” and thereby keep the old earthly society going for its own selfish benefit, independent of the Sovereign Lord Jehovah. To accomplish this means more than silver and gold and material wealth and property to the self-governing nations.

43. (a) What effect can the invasion of Gog’s hordes be expected to have on the legal corporations used by Jehovah’s Christian witnesses and the properties that these hold? (b) Does this mean that Jehovah’s Christian witnesses will cease to exist?

⁴³ What the coming in of Gog’s hordes upon the “soil of Israel” after the destruction of Babylon the Great will mean for Jehovah’s Christian witnesses, the developments on earth will then eloquently tell. It should not be surprising if the ninety-seven branches of the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania should be shut down and even the properties thereof be expropriated by the antireligious governments. What will happen to the thousands of Kingdom Halls that Jehovah’s Christian witnesses have built around the globe in which to meet for spiritual edification, the future will disclose. State or national governments that issued charters and registrations to the various corporations that Jehovah’s witnesses use as agencies for carrying on the printing and distributing of Bibles and Bible literature could hardly be expected to recognize or authorize such corporations then. The antagonistic political governments cannot, of course, dissolve Jehovah’s Christian witnesses world wide, for these are not incorporated under the man-made laws of “Caesar” in any land.

44. Why will the political governments not be able to dissolve the “faithful and discreet slave” and its governing body?

⁴⁴ Likewise, the national and state governments under the leadership of the modern-day Gog of Magog cannot disincorporate the “faithful and discreet slave” whom the reigning King Jesus Christ has found reliable and has appointed “over all his belongings” on the earth. They cannot do so, for this corporate “slave” was never incorporated under the laws of any political government of the world. (Matthew 24:45-47; Luke 12:42-44) This “slave” class has existed from the first century C.E., when the royal Master, Jesus Christ, organized it, and it has continued active in his service down to this time and is responsible to him and not to “Caesar” or to Gog of the land of Magog. This holds true, also, with respect to the Scriptural governing body of the anointed “faithful and discreet slave” class. The political governments of the symbolic “wild beast” may dissolve the corporation of the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania and its Board of Directors and also other legal corporations of Jehovah’s Christian witnesses in various lands, but they cannot dissolve or revoke the theocratic appointment of the governing body that represents the “faithful and discreet slave” class.

45. Will it be anything new for Jehovah’s Christian witnesses to carry on their activities underground?

⁴⁵ It will be no new experience for Jehovah’s Christian witnesses to go underground in carrying on their spiritual activities. In the first century of our Common Era, according to secular history, the faithful Christians met together in the catacombs of the Roman Empire during its beastly persecution. In this twentieth century the Christian witnesses of Jehovah have carried on with their disciple-making operations in spite of bans and proscriptions, maintaining a successful underground system.

46. (a) Even if driven underground, what will Jehovah’s people do, out of concern for one another? (b) Will that attack by Gog of Magog result in destruction of the spiritual paradise?

⁴⁶ For decades now, they have continued their worship and service of their God behind the so-called Iron Curtain that screens off the Communist lands. Even if, during the invasion of the hordes of Gog of Magog, they are obliged to go underground world wide, they will keep organized. They will try to keep in communication with one another. Especially will they pray for one another when physically scattered from fellow worshipers of Jehovah. They will continue to rejoice in their spiritual paradise, for they know that the violent persecution at the hands of Gog of Magog does not mean that they have lost divine favor, approval and blessing. Their spiritual qualities will shine more brightly than ever before, and they will not permit their spiritual lives to be snuffed out by men who can kill only the body, but, after that, can do no more to a faithful Christian who keeps his integrity to Jehovah God.​—Luke 12:4; Matthew 10:28.

47. How does the prophecy given through Ezekiel show that there will be an actual invasion under Gog of Magog?

⁴⁷ Just how far in depth Jehovah God the Almighty will permit the hordes under the modern-day Gog of Magog to penetrate, the alerted witnesses of Jehovah must wait and see. That there will be an invasion, the prophecy given through Ezekiel shows. “‘And it must occur in that day, in the day when Gog comes in upon the soil of Israel,’ is the utterance of the Sovereign Lord Jehovah, ‘that my rage will come up into my nose. And in my ardor, in the fire of my fury, I shall have to speak. Surely in that day a great quaking will occur in the soil of Israel. And because of me the fish of the sea and the flying creatures of the heavens and the wild beasts of the field and all the creeping things that are creeping on the ground and all mankind that are upon the surface of the ground will be bound to shiver, and the mountains will actually be thrown down and the steep ways will have to fall, and to the earth even every wall will fall.’”​—Ezekiel 38:18-20.

48. When under attack by the armed forces of Gog of Magog, how will the Christian witnesses of Jehovah react, and why?

⁴⁸ Although under violent attack by the “military forces” of Gog of Magog, the Christian witnesses of Jehovah will have spiritual security, they being within his love and under his approval. “Dwelling,” according to the prophecy, “in security, all of them dwelling without wall,” and not having “even bar and doors,” these worshipers of the Sovereign Lord Jehovah will not raise a hand in violent action against the heavily armed forces of Gog of Magog. They will let their God manifest his protective power over them. They will remember and put faith in the words of the prophet spoken under stress of a similar invasion against Jehovah’s worshipers: “Do not you be afraid or be terrified because of this large crowd; for the battle is not yours, but God’s.” (2 Chronicles 20:15) Their trust in the Almighty God will not be misplaced. He will make it His battle, for the fight is really, not against them, but against Him their God. Now he is truly angry, and he is fully justified in expressing his anger!

49. (a) What is that “place” referred to in the Bible as Har–Magedon? (b) At his appointed time, whom does Jehovah use to carry out the war against his earthly enemies?

⁴⁹ Now the “great day of God the Almighty” has arrived, and it is the time for the “war” that will mark that day for the vindication of Jehovah’s universal sovereignty. That figurative “place,” that explosive stage of hostilities between God the Almighty and Gog’s forces, called in Hebrew Har–Magedon, has been reached. (Revelation 16:14, 16) Not Jehovah’s Christian witnesses on earth, but Jehovah himself starts the battle against the earthly enemies now drawn up in battle formation. Jehovah signals to his Grand Field Marshal, the Warrior King Jesus Christ. Immediately acting upon the signal, in the name of Jehovah he and his heavenly forces plunge into the battle as if riding upon war horses. The war of universal importance that follows, and what happens to the worldwide lineup of military forces under the present-day Gog of Magog, are pictured for us in the last book of the inspired Holy Scriptures.

THE WAR AT “HAR–MAGEDON”

50. In an advance report on the war at Har–Magedon, what description did the apostle John give of those who would be fighting on the side of righteousness?

⁵⁰ The battlefield is symbolically called Har–Magedon. The time is located after the fiery destruction of Babylon the Great by the symbolic “ten horns . . . and the wild beast.” (Revelation 17:16 through 19:9) Like a war correspondent for some newspaper or newsmagazine, the apostle John gives us an advance report on the war at “Har–Magedon,” writing: “And I saw the heaven opened, and, look! a white horse. And the one seated upon it is called Faithful and True, and he judges and carries on war in righteousness. His eyes are a fiery flame, and upon his head are many diadems. He has a name written that no one knows but he himself, and he is arrayed with an outer garment sprinkled with blood, and the name he is called is The Word of God. Also, the armies that were in heaven were following him on white horses, and they were clothed in white, clean, fine linen. And out of his mouth there protrudes a sharp long sword, that he may strike the nations with it, and he will shepherd them with a rod of iron. He treads too the winepress of the anger of the wrath of God the Almighty. And upon his outer garment, even upon his thigh, he has a name written, King of kings and Lord of lords.”​—Revelation 19:11-16.

51. (a) Why will great faith be needed on the part of the witnesses of Jehovah on earth at that time? (b) What is the “sharp long sword” that protrudes out of the mouth of the King of kings?

⁵¹ These “armies that were in heaven,” under the command of the King of kings, will not make themselves visible to the embattled nations on earth. So it will take faith on the part of the harmless, unarmed witnesses of Jehovah on earth to believe that these heavenly armies will come to their rescue in their direct need. Yet those invisible armies will make their activity in battle felt by all the nations under the leadership of Gog of Magog, Satan the Devil. The King of kings will “shepherd” the nations “with a rod of iron,” and they will feel it as they are shattered like earthenware vessels of a potter. He is the Word of God, and so the “sharp long sword” that protrudes out of his mouth is the words of judgment that issue out of his mouth for the execution of the nations; and what his mouth says will be executed upon the nations, striking them fatally.

52. (a) How will the experience of the nations be like that of grapes in a winepress? (b) Jehovah’s wrath will be expressed by what means, as it were, according to the Scriptures?

⁵² Since the King of kings “treads too the winepress of the anger of the wrath of God the Almighty,” this signifies that the nations will be squashed, as it were. To fit the picture, they will be dumped like ripe grapes into the tremendous “winepress” where the “anger of the wrath of God the Almighty” will be brought to bear upon them with crushing effect. The King of kings and his heavenly armies on horseback will join in the crushing work, the treading of this symbolic winepress. The form that the symbolic treading will take will correspond with how Jehovah God the Almighty says that he will express his wrath and fiery fury against the hordes of Gog of Magog, as it were with earthquake, pestilence, a flooding downpour, hailstones, fire and sulphur, with much bloodshed.​—Ezekiel 38:18-22; compare Joel 3:9-16; Revelation 14:18-20.

53, 54. (a) Who, obviously, will be the victor in the universal war at Har–Magedon? (b) Even before the conclusion of the war, what invitation is extended to “all the birds that fly in midheaven”?

⁵³ How can the multination armies in battle array under their spiritual Gog of Magog expect to stand their ground against the King of kings and Lord of lords, who fights for the universal sovereignty of the Most High and Almighty God, Jehovah? Never, even as a United Nations organization and as nuclear-powered nations, can they possibly do so! Who the victor in the universal war at Har–Magedon will be is a foregone conclusion. The corpses of the enemy dead with which God the Almighty causes the battlefield to be strewn provide what is called “the great evening meal of God” for all the carrion-eating birds that fly in midheaven. Before ever the war is fought to a conclusion, a heavenly angel arrayed with sunlight is pictured as extending an invitation to all these birds to come to the grand meal that God spreads for them at Har–Magedon. Concerning this, our news reporter John says:

⁵⁴ “I saw also an angel standing in the sun, and he cried out with a loud voice and said to all the birds that fly in midheaven: ‘Come here, be gathered together to the great evening meal of God, that you may eat the fleshy parts of kings and the fleshy parts of military commanders and the fleshy parts of strong men and the fleshy parts of horses and of those seated upon them, and the fleshy parts of all, of freemen as well as of slaves and of small ones and great.’”​—Revelation 19:17, 18.

55. (a) Why is it not upon the “wild beast” and the “false prophet” that the birds are invited to feed? (b) In Ezekiel’s prophecy, what creatures besides the birds are invited to the feast?

⁵⁵ We note that “all the birds that fly in midheaven” are not invited to feed upon the carcasses of the political “wild beast” and the political “false prophet.” (Revelation 13:1-8, 11-13; 16:13) The picture here drawn is strictly that of a battlefield strewn with the carcasses of the fighting forces of an army. It is not a picture of the pursuit of a savage wild beast and of a military attack upon a lone “false prophet.” In the prophet Ezekiel’s vision of the attack by the forces of Gog upon Jehovah’s restored people in their spiritual paradise, more than the “birds of every sort of wing” are invited to feed upon the carcasses of the defeated enemies, “All the wild beasts of the field” are also invited to feed upon the “flesh of mighty ones,” upon “horses and charioteers, mighty persons and all sorts of warriors.” (Ezekiel 39:17-20) Jehovah’s disdain and contempt for those crushed by his heavenly armies in the “winepress of the anger of the wrath of God the Almighty” are shown by letting the carcasses of the slain enemies lie unburied as carrion food for birds and beasts.

56. How does Revelation chapter 17 depict the combined earthly forces under Gog of Magog in their attack against Jehovah’s King?

⁵⁶ The entire combined visible organization of Satan the Devil will be in the fight. The combining of the earthly forces under Gog of Magog against Jehovah’s King of kings is pictured as an attack by a lone, collective “wild beast” with its seven heads and ten horns. This scarlet-colored “wild beast” is pictured as first destroying Babylon the Great, the world empire of false religion. Concerning the antireligious political rulers that are pictured by the ten horns of the collective “wild beast,” it was said to the apostle John: “These have one thought, and so they give their power and authority to the wild beast [to the United Nations]. 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.”​—Revelation 17:13, 14.

57. (a) What is the significance of the fact that the Lamb is called “Lord of lords and King of kings”? (b) Who will be the objects of that assault by the “wild beast” that represents the United Nations?

⁵⁷ The fight of a seven-headed, ten-horned wild beast against a lamb seems like an unequally matched warfare. But the symbolic Lamb in this prophecy is Jehovah’s appointed Lord of lords and King of kings, superior therefore to all the lords and kings that are combined in the symbolic “wild beast,” the 138-member United Nations. Being earthly, they cannot see the Lamb with their human eyes so as to fight directly against him. But they can see on earth in the flesh the anointed remnant of “those called and chosen and faithful with him.” Because these represent the King of kings and Lord of lords, the member nations of the United Nations battle with him by warring expressly with the anointed remnant of his Kingdom joint heirs. Associated with this faithful remnant are the unnumbered members of the “great crowd,” who firmly take their stand on the side of Jehovah’s universal sovereignty and who follow the Fine Shepherd, Jesus Christ the royal Son of Jehovah. So those disciples belonging to the “great crowd” also share with the anointed remnant the onslaught of the antireligious United Nations.

58. What kind of conquest will take place at that time (a) on the part of the King of kings? (b) on the part of his earthly subjects?

⁵⁸ The symbolic “ten horns” and the scarlet-colored “wild beast” will fail to destroy all the faithful representatives on earth of the King of kings. As in the prophetic picture of the attack by Gog of Magog, they will fail to wipe out the spiritual paradise in which the “called and chosen and faithful” and the “great crowd” find themselves under protection of the King of kings. (Revelation 7:9-17; 12:17) With his celestial angelic armies the King of kings will literally conquer the battling “ten horns” belonging to the world organization of the “wild beast.” On earth “those called and chosen and faithful with him [the King of kings]” will conquer by Christian faith, never renouncing the right of the King of kings to rule all the earth, never denying the universal sovereignty of the King of Eternity, Jehovah God. (Revelation 15:3) The “great crowd” of fellow inhabitants in the spiritual paradise will likewise refuse to compromise and to yield to the claim of the ten-horned, seven-headed “wild beast” to world domination over all the earth.

59, 60. (a) May some who conquer by faith nevertheless die at the hands of the enemy at that time? (b) What hope will strengthen them to prove their loyalty to Jehovah’s sovereignty in this way? (c) Is there any possibility that the anointed remnant and the “great crowd” will be completely wiped out by the enemy at that time?

⁵⁹ Some of those who conquer by faith may be permitted by God the Almighty to prove their loyalty to His universal sovereignty by suffering death at the hands of the violent opposers of Jehovah’s Messianic kingdom. This, however, will not signify their being executed by Jehovah’s angelic armies under his Field Marshal, Jesus Christ.

⁶⁰ These faithful martyrs for divine sovereignty of the universe will die faithful, as vindicators of Jehovah’s rightful rule by Christ. They will die within Jehovah’s favor and appreciation. They will not be cast into the “second death” of everlasting destruction as symbolized by the “fiery lake that burns with sulphur.” (Revelation 19:20; 20:10, 14, 15; 21:8) They will die unconquered as Jesus Christ himself did, with the strengthening hope of a resurrection from the dead in God’s due time. (Revelation 2:10; 14:13; 20:4, 6, 11-13) However, the full membership of the anointed remnant will not be killed off by the battling opposers of Jehovah’s Messianic kingdom. Also, Revelation 7:9-14 assures us that other survivors of this climax of the “great tribulation” will be the unnumbered members of the “great crowd.” Individuals may be permitted to die, but not the remnant and “great crowd” as a whole.

ANNIHILATION OF THE KING’S OPPOSERS

61. At Revelation 19:19-21, what description does the apostle John give of those who are executed at Har–Magedon?

⁶¹ Those on earth who are executed as unfit for everlasting life, in the “war of the great day of God the Almighty” at Har–Magedon, are reported on by the apostle John in Revelation 19:19-21. In that advance-news report, John writes: “And I saw the wild beast and the kings of the earth and their armies gathered together to wage the war with the one [the King of kings and the Lord of lords] seated on the horse and with his army. And the wild beast [Satan’s worldwide political system] was caught, and along with it the false prophet that performed in front of it the signs with which he misled those who received the mark of the wild beast and those who render worship to its image [the United Nations]. While still alive, they both were hurled into the fiery lake that burns with sulphur. But the rest were killed off with the long sword of the one seated on the horse, which sword proceeded out of his mouth. And all the birds were filled from the fleshy parts of them.”

62. To what extent will irreligiousness characterize the nations at that time?

⁶² By the time of the waging of this war at Har–Magedon, Babylon the Great will have been killed off. This is why the destruction of that world empire of false religion is not here described. By this time also when total irreligiousness pervades the nations, there will have disappeared any “kings” who might for a while weep because of not being able to commit fornication with Babylon the Great any longer, likewise any “traveling merchants” that wept and mourned because of no more being able to do selfish commercial business with her, also “every ship captain and every man that voyages anywhere, and sailors and all those who make a living by the sea,” all of whom weep and mourn because they can no longer ply their selfish trade with Babylon the Great. (Revelation 18:9-19) Such ones, if they want to survive after the destruction of Babylon the Great, will be obliged to turn radically antireligious, with the exception of worship to the political “image” of the seven-headed, ten-horned “wild beast” to which Satan the Dragon gave power, authority and a throne.​—Revelation 13:1-8; 14:9-11; 16:2.

63. Does the destruction of the world empire of false religion by the earthly rulers indicate love for God’s Messianic kingdom on their part, and how do they show this?

⁶³ So at the time for the fulfillment of the battle vision of Revelation 19:19-21, the symbolic “wild beast” and the “kings of the earth and their armies” have disposed of Babylon the Great in expression of their hatred of that religious “harlot.” She never did represent Jehovah’s theocratic government, not even that part of her called Christendom did so. Destruction of Babylon the Great as false religion does not bespeak, however, any love on the part of the “kings of the earth and their armies” for God’s Messianic kingdom. Those earthly kings and their armies hate that kingdom because of love for their own political sovereignty over all the earth. So now, with Babylon the Great gone, they can concentrate on waging the war against Jesus Christ and the heavenly kingdom that he operates.

64. (a) Why are the remnant and the “great crowd” offensive to the “kings of the earth and their armies”? (b) By what means can the enemies of Jehovah’s people be expected to war against them?

⁶⁴ The surviving remnant of Christ’s anointed joint heirs and also the “great crowd” of their loyal companions have made themselves the target of the worldly nations because of having proclaimed in all the inhabited earth the good news of the Messianic kingdom for a witness to all the nations down to the end. (Matthew 24:14) Such advocates of Jehovah’s universal sovereignty are offensive, obnoxious to the “kings of the earth and their armies.” So they express their hostility to the invisible King of kings by waging war with what political, military, judicial, economic means that they have at their disposal. Exterminate them! will be the slogan of the “kings of the earth and their armies.” The heavenly King of kings will count their hostile action against the anointed remnant and the “great crowd” as being against himself. At the precisely timed signal from the Supreme Commander, Jehovah God, he and his angelic armies will charge into the battle against the God-defying enemies on earth.

65, 66. (a) How is the unity of God’s earthly enemies broken up at Har–Magedon, as described at Revelation 19:20? (b) What is indicated by the fact that the “wild beast” and the “false prophet” are “still alive” when this action takes place? (c) What is indicated by the fact that they are hurled into “the fiery lake that burns with sulphur”?

⁶⁵ The first move is to break up the unity of the earthly enemies. This means breaking to pieces the world political system as symbolized by the “wild beast” out of the sea. With the dissolution of that comes the breaking up of the Eighth World Power, the United Nations as the global organization for world peace and security, which was symbolized by the “image of the wild beast,” and also the Seventh World Power, namely, the Anglo-American Dual World Power, as symbolized by the “false prophet.” Hence, the apostle John tells us:

⁶⁶ “And the wild beast was caught, and along with it the false prophet that performed in front of it the signs with which he misled those who received the mark of the wild beast and those who render worship to its image. While still alive, they both were hurled into the fiery lake that burns with sulphur.” (Revelation 19:20) These political organizations being “still alive” when this action takes place, it indicates that these worldly organizations of today will still be functioning when the “war of the great day of God the Almighty” at Har–Magedon starts. Both the world-dominating “wild beast” and the Anglo-American “false prophet” will be caught in the midst of their destructive efforts against the anointed remnant and the “great crowd” within their spiritual paradise. Disorganization of them will follow, and, instead of destroying the remnant and the “great crowd,” these political organizations of God-defying men will be annihilated for all time to come. Their violent death will be a “second death” from which there is no reorganization. So they are pictured as being hurled into the fiery “lake that burns with sulphur.”

67. When will Satan the Devil and his demons join the “wild beast” and the “false prophet” in that “fiery lake”?

⁶⁷ Thus it is seen that, even at the time of the “war of the great day of God the Almighty” at Har–Magedon and before the abyssing of Satan the Devil and the beginning of Christ’s reign of a thousand years over mankind, there is an enforcement of the “second death” upon those who wage war at Har–Magedon against the King of kings and his Messianic kingdom. The penalty of the “second death” is symbolized by the “fiery lake that burns with sulphur.” In God’s due time, after the close of Christ’s thousand-year reign, the man-made political organizations pictured by the “wild beast” and the “false prophet” will be joined in that “fiery lake” by Satan the Devil and all his demon angels. (Revelation 20:10) That will be the “everlasting fire prepared for the Devil and his angels.”​—Matthew 25:41.

68. With the removal of man’s visible old order, what will be the grand prospect of the survivors?

⁶⁸ Thus with the violent passing away of religious Babylon the Great and the political organizations pictured by the seven-headed “wild beast” and the “false prophet,” man’s visible old order will give way to God’s new order for the earth. It will be the hardest period of human history through which to live. (Matthew 24:21, 22; Daniel 12:1) Yet there will be survivors of it on earth. Happy will these be who survive into God’s blessed new order!

Chapter 15

Disaster for Fighters Against God’s New Order

1. What will come to its end at Har–Magedon?

IN THE “war of the great day of God the Almighty” at Har–Magedon the Devil’s visible organization on earth will be destroyed. This will signify the violent end of the governmental organizations established by worldly men under the unsuspected supervision of Satan the Devil, (Revelation 13:1, 2; 16:14, 16; John 14:30) Just as might be expected, the rulers and the supporters of those human governments battle against God’s Messianic kingdom at Har–Magedon.

2. What will happen to those who operated and supported those organizations?

² What about the political rulers and their backers and subjects who made those governmental organizations function? They must suffer destruction with their political organizations that they have operated in defiance of God’s Messianic kingdom as proclaimed by Jehovah’s Christian witnesses world wide. Their destruction is the thing signified by what the Revelation to John says about the outcome of the battle: “But the rest [that is, the kings of the earth and their armies] were killed off with the long sword of the one seated on the horse, which sword proceeded out of his mouth. And all the birds were filled from the fleshy parts of them.”​—Revelation 19:21.

3. As shown at Revelation 19:17, 18, who are included among the dead ones on the battlefield at Har–Magedon, and what kind of destruction is it in their case?

³ The “birds that fly in midheaven” fill themselves from the decaying flesh of the slain kings, military commanders, strong men, horses, cavalrymen, freemen and slaves, great ones and small. (Revelation 19:17, 18) Their active support of the war against the King of kings is far worse than a mere failing to do something helpful toward Jesus Christ and his faithful disciples. If anything, these are all symbolic “goats” as portrayed in Jesus’ parable of the sheep and the goats. By the symbolic “long sword” that proceeds out of the mouth of the warring King of kings, they are ordered to depart into the “everlasting fire prepared for the Devil and his angels.” At the swordlike orders that proceed out of the King’s mouth, these “cursed” fighters against God and his Christ will “depart into everlasting cutting-off,” a wiping out of existence as an eternal punishment.​—Matthew 25:31-46.

4. In view of what is known about the fiery Gehenna outside of ancient Jerusalem, why might a question be raised as to what is said about the disposal of carcasses at Har–Magedon?

⁴ That is why the apostle John did not see the carcasses of these goatlike slain ones buried in graves in hope of a resurrection for them from the dead. But why are all these dead bodies not “hurled into the fiery lake that burns with sulphur,” the lake that is mentioned in Revelation 19:20? We recall that in the Jerusalem of the days of Jesus and his apostles, the dead bodies of executed criminals who were considered as being so vile that they were not worthy of a resurrection were hurled over the southern walls of the city to land in the Valley of Hinnom, into “Gehenna,” to be consumed there in the incinerating fires mingled with sulphur. Or, if the bodies did not land directly in the sulphurous fires, they would lie exposed in the warm neighborhood to be consumed by the maggots that would breed and swarm and wriggle all over the bodies. Just as Jesus said: “And if your eye makes you stumble, throw it away; it is finer for you to enter one-eyed into the kingdom of God than with two eyes to be pitched into Gehenna, where their maggot does not die and the fire is not put out.”​—Mark 9:43-48.

5. What is unusual about the fact that the “wild beast” and the “false prophet” are hurled into the lake of fire “while still alive,” and, evidently, what does this indicate?

⁵ Since the bodies of condemned criminals that were pitched into the fires of the Valley of Hinnom (or, into Gehenna) were dead bodies, it is remarkable that when the symbolic “wild beast” and the “false prophet” are hurled into the “fiery lake that burns with sulphur,” it occurs that, “while still alive, they both were hurled” there. (Revelation 19:20) Evidently this means that they come to an abrupt end. While still actively in operation, those political organizations are suddenly halted, disintegrated, dissolved, forever, with no vestiges, no remains of them around. They leave no carcasses of themselves on the battlefields for scavenger birds to feast upon, picking their bony skeletons clean.

6, 7. (a) As for persons who war against the Kingdom at Har–Magedon, how is their everlasting destruction pictured? (b) How does the Bible describe the means for disposing of the flesh of all the dead bodies?

⁶ However, the everlasting destruction of persons warring against the Kingdom at Har–Magedon was pictured in another way. How? Well, with the dead bodies of these opposers and fighters against Jehovah’s universal sovereignty he purposed to make a gory feast for “all the birds that fly in midheaven.” (Revelation 19:17, 18) The bodies of the slain will not molder in honorable burial places. Unburied, their flesh will be picked away clean to the bone, beyond identifying the bare skeletons. Because of the multitude of the slain, it will be a huge feast for the scavengers. Directing his words to the King of kings, the Lord Jesus Christ who was foreshadowed by ancient King Melchizedek, King David said in Psalm 110:5, 6: “Jehovah himself at your right hand will certainly break kings to pieces on the day of his anger. He will execute judgment among the nations; he will cause a fullness of dead bodies.” Or: “smashing their skulls, he heaps the wide world with corpses.” (Je) Quite evidently there will be many more bodies strewn over the earth as a result of the war at Har–Magedon than there will be scavenger birds enough to dispose of them all in a reasonable time for human health reasons. So it is reasonable to expect that God will dispose of excess bodies by other means.

⁷ We remember that, in the corresponding prophecy of the attack of Prince Gog of the land of Magog and his hordes upon the restored remnant of Jehovah’s people, the “birds of every sort of wing” will be assisted by “all the wild beasts of the field” in disposing of the dead corpses of the defeated fighters against God. To these scavenger creatures, it is prophetically said: “‘And you must get satisfied at my table on horses and charioteers, mighty persons and all sorts of warriors,’ is the utterance of the Sovereign Lord Jehovah.” (Ezekiel 39:17-20) So, instead of having their bones eaten clean of all decaying flesh by the maggots at the Valley of Hinnom (or, at Gehenna), the carcasses of the slain enemies at Har–Magedon will, as it were, be eaten clear to the bone by nature’s sanitation force, the carrion-eating birds and wild beasts.

8-12. (a) In Ezekiel 39:11-20, what provision for the disposal of the bones of the onetime opposers of the Messianic kingdom is described? (b) What is indicated by the fact that this burying is said to go on for “seven months”?

⁸ What a well-deserved, contemptible end for all these opposers of Jehovah and his Messianic kingdom at Har–Magedon! But what about their bones that are left to bleach in the sun or to disintegrate as perishable, unclean, hideous relics of once-living opposers of the Sovereign Lord Jehovah? In Ezekiel 39:11-20 it is indicated with reference to the slain hordes of Gog of Magog that an odious place, of foul memory, is reserved for the bones of those executed by the Lord God Almighty at Har–Magedon. This is implied by His words:

⁹ “‘And it must occur in that day that I shall give to Gog a place there [a place of name (renown), Greek Septuagint; Latin Vulgate], a burial place in Israel, the valley of those passing through on the east of the sea [the Dead Sea], and it will be stopping up those passing through. And there they will have to bury Gog and all his crowd, and they will be certain to call it the Valley of Gog’s Crowd. And those of the house of Israel will have to bury them for the purpose of cleansing the land, for seven months. [This indicates a tremendous number of bones.] And all the people of the land will have to do the burying, and it will certainly become for them a matter of fame in the day that I glorify myself,’ is the utterance of the Sovereign Lord Jehovah.

¹⁰ “‘And there will be men for continual employment whom they will divide off, passing along through the land, burying, with those passing through, those left remaining on the surface of the earth, in order to cleanse it. To the end of seven months they will keep making search. And those passing through must pass along through the land, and should one actually see the bone of a man he must also build beside it a marker, until those who do the burying will have buried it in the Valley of Gog’s Crowd [or, Valley of Hamon-Gog]. And the name of the city will also be Hamonah [this name meaning “Crowd,” as Ha·mo·nahʹ is the feminine form of the Hebrew word Ha·monʹ in Eze 39 verses 11, 15]. And they will have to cleanse the land.’

¹¹ “And as regards you [Ezekiel], O son of man, this is what the Sovereign Lord Jehovah has said, ‘Say to the birds of every sort of wing and to all the wild beasts of the field: “Collect yourselves together and come. Gather yourselves together all around to my sacrifice, which I am sacrificing for you, a great sacrifice on the mountains of Israel. And you will certainly eat flesh and drink blood. The flesh of mighty ones you will eat, and the blood of the chieftains of the earth you will drink, rams, young male sheep, and he-goats, young bulls, the fatlings of Bashan all of them. And you will be certain to eat fat to satisfaction and to drink blood to drunkenness, from my sacrifice that I will sacrifice for you.”’

¹² “‘And you must get satisfied at my table on horses and charioteers, mighty persons and all sorts of warriors,’ is the utterance of the Sovereign Lord Jehovah.”​—See marginal reading.

GLORY VERSUS EVERLASTING SHAME

13, 14. (a) What names, reflecting a reproachful memory, are associated with the place of burial of Gog’s human hordes? (b) In Isaiah 66:23, 24, how is the lasting contempt that will be felt for those opposers of Jehovah’s worship described?

¹³ Thus Jehovah God, as Commander-in-Chief, by means of his acting Field Marshal, Jesus Christ, will gain undying glory for himself, whereas the symbolic Gog and his earthly hordes will earn everlasting shame for themselves. As it were, the scrambled mass of bones of Gog’s human hordes will be given a mass burial, without identifiable individual graves. The “Valley of Hamon-Gog” will be a reproachful name to serve as an inglorious memorial of them. This will also be true of the name Hamonah, which might be the name of any citylike marker that is established to memorialize the historical associations of the place. With regard to the lasting contempt that is in store for these transgressors who oppose Jehovah’s worship, Isaiah’s prophecy speaks of the survivors who worship Jehovah and says:

¹⁴ “‘And it will certainly occur that from new moon to new moon [or, from month to month] and from sabbath to sabbath [or, from week to week] all flesh will come in to bow down before me,’ Jehovah has said. ‘And they will actually go forth and look upon the carcasses of the men that were transgressing against me; for the very worms upon them will not die and their fire itself will not be extinguished, and they must become something repulsive to all flesh.’”​—Isaiah 66:23, 24.

15, 16. (a) What does destruction as an expression of divine judgment at Har–Magedon mean for all those who experience it? (b) In Malachi’s prophecy, how is this further emphasized?

¹⁵ All things considered, it is evident that, in waging the “war of the great day of God the Almighty” at Har–Magedon, Jehovah is not going through just a military exercise, merely fighting a sham battle for training purposes, for mere display and not for permanent effects upon those who fight against Him. No, but Jehovah’s military action signifies an “everlasting cutting-off” for all those on earth upon whom He thus executes divine judgment for the vindication of his universal sovereignty. How he views those whom he exterminates at Har–Magedon, he further emphasizes in Malachi’s prophecy:

¹⁶ “‘For, look! the day is coming that is burning like the furnace, and all the presumptuous ones and all those doing wickedness must become as stubble. And the day that is coming will certainly devour them,’ Jehovah of armies has said, ‘so that it will not leave to them either root or bough [as a complete extermination]. And to you who are in fear of my name the sun of righteousness will certainly shine forth, with healing in its wings; and you [survivors] will actually go forth and paw the ground like fattened calves. And you people will certainly tread down the wicked ones, for they will become as powder under the soles of your feet in the day on which I am acting,’ Jehovah of armies has said.”​—Malachi 4:1-3.

17. Following the violent end of Satan’s entire visible organization, what will happen to him and his demon angels?

¹⁷ The surviving worshipers of the Most High God will rejoice that the way has then been cleared for the full establishment of God’s righteous new order. Man’s old order will not give way peacefully and submissively to God’s new order. By the coming “great tribulation” it will be forced to make way for God’s promised new order. This is because the “ruler of this world,” “the god of this system of things,” namely, Satan the Devil, who is the modern-day Prince Gog of the land of Magog, is opposed to God’s new order. But his unrelenting opposition will fail. Just as the prophetic Gog of Magog met defeat and could not prevent Jehovah God from carrying out his declared purpose to “send fire upon Magog,” so Satan the Devil will see his entire visible organization destroyed in the “great tribulation,” and immediately afterward his invisible location at the vicinity of the earth will be desolated. He and his legions of demon angels will be bound as with chains and hurled into an abyss remote from earth’s neighborhood.​—John 16:11; 2 Corinthians 4:4; Ezekiel 39:1-6; Revelation 20:1-3.

18. Why will there certainly be occasion for spiritual feasting and rejoicing after the destruction of man’s old order controlled by Satan?

¹⁸ The destruction of man’s Satan-controlled old order will provide an occasion for spiritual feasting on the part of the surviving remnant of spiritual Israelites and the “great crowd” lined up with them on the side of Jehovah’s universal sovereignty. Why should they not rejoice then? At the coming fiery destruction of Babylon the Great the holy angels of heaven will shout “Hallelujah!” and a voice out of the heavenly throne will issue the command: “Be praising our God, all you his slaves, who fear him, the small ones and the great.” (Revelation 19:1-5) Much more reason will there be for the surviving worshipers of Jehovah God on earth to rejoice and cry out “Hallelujah!” when he gloriously completes the destruction of man’s old order in the “war of the great day of God the Almighty” at Har–Magedon. The greatest event of universal history will then have been accomplished, the vindication of Jehovah’s universal sovereignty and the sanctification of his sacred name.​—Ezekiel 38:23; 39:6, 7.

19, 20. Even as the birds are invited to feast upon the carcasses of those slain at Har–Magedon, what does Psalm 46 describe on which the human survivors will surely feast?

¹⁹ In the Revelation picture of that war at Har–Magedon, “all the birds that fly in midheaven” obeyed the command of God’s radiant angel and gathered expectantly at the battlefield of Har–Magedon. They were promised a feast there, and they certainly got it. They feasted upon the carcasses of those slain by Jehovah’s appointed King of kings and his heavenly armies: “And all the birds were filled from the fleshy part so them.” (Revelation 19:17-21) No less so will the war-surviving remnant of spiritual Israel and the “great crowd” feast spiritually to complete satisfaction upon the God-honoring outcome of the “war of the great day of God the Almighty.” Just as it is said to the survivors:

²⁰ “Come, you people, behold the activities of Jehovah, how he has set astonishing events on the earth. He is making wars to cease to the extremity of the earth. The bow he breaks apart and does cut the spear in pieces; the wagons he burns in the fire. ‘Give in, you people, and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.’”​—Psalm 46:8-10.

21-23. (a) What victory will have been gained by the human survivors of Har–Magedon? (b) As described in Revelation 15:2-4, in the singing of what words will those survivors unite their voices?

²¹ In profound awe at the marvelous activities of the Almighty Sovereign of the universe at Har–Magedon, the surviving remnant of spiritual Israelites will sing to Him. By the time of his glorious victory in the war of all wars this faithful remnant will have come off completely victorious over the symbolic “wild beast” numbered 666 and over its idolatrous “image.” At that triumphant time those two political organizations that were prominent parts of man’s old order will be sunk in eternal death, plunged into the death-dealing “fiery lake that burns with sulphur.” (Revelation 19:20; 17:8, 14) The post-Har–Magedon singing of this victorious remnant, reinforced by the singing of the “great crowd” of fellow worshipers at God’s spiritual temple, was so spectacular a prospect for our near future, that the apostle John was given a preview of that grand musical event. Happily for us today he penned an inspired description of it, saying:

²² “And I saw what seemed to be a glassy sea [a large glassy laver at God’s spiritual temple] mingled with fire, and those who come off victorious from the wild beast and from its image and from the number of its name [666] standing by the glassy sea, having harps of God. And they are singing the song of Moses the slave of God and the song of the Lamb [Jesus Christ], saying:

²³ “‘Great and wonderful are your works, Jehovah God, the Almighty. Righteous and true are your ways, King of eternity. Who will not really fear you, Jehovah, and glorify your name, because you alone are loyal? For all the nations will come and worship before you, because your righteous decrees have been made manifest.’”​—Revelation 15:2-4.