By their fruits you will know them!!!
*** w97 5/1 17-18 No Peace for the False Messengers! ***
15 What will be the outcome of all of this? Jehovah’s prophetic Word leaves no doubt. In the first place, what lies ahead for the world’s false religions that have so often been extremely friendly with the UN? They are the offspring of one idolatrous fountainhead, ancient Babylon. Appropriately, they are described at Revelation 17:5 as “Babylon the Great, the mother of the harlots and of the disgusting things of the earth.” Jeremiah described the doom of this hypocritical conglomerate. Harlotlike, they have seduced earth’s politicians, flattering the UN and forming illicit relations with its member political powers. They have been major participants in the wars of history. One commentator stated with reference to religious warfare in India: “Karl Marx referred to religion as the opium of the masses. But that statement cannot be quite right because opium is a downer, it lulls people into a stupor. No, religion is more like crack cocaine. It unleashes tremendous violence and is a very destructive force.” That writer is not quite right either. False religion is both stupefying and destructive.
16 What, then, should honesthearted people do? God’s messenger Jeremiah gives us the answer: “Flee out of the midst of Babylon, and provide escape each one for his own soul. . . . For it is the time of vengeance belonging to Jehovah.” Happy we are that millions have fled from the confines of Babylon the Great, the world empire of false religion. Are you one of these? Then you can well understand how Babylon the Great has affected the nations of earth: “From her wine the nations have drunk. That is why the nations keep acting crazed.”—Jeremiah 51:6, 7.
17 Shortly, “crazed” members of the UN will be maneuvered by Jehovah to turn on false religion, as described at Revelation 17:16: “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.” This will mark the start of the great tribulation that is referred to at Matthew 24:21 and that will climax at Armageddon, the war of the great day of God the Almighty. Like ancient Babylon, Babylon the Great will meet up with the judgment pronounced at Jeremiah 51:13, 25: “‘O woman residing on abounding waters, abundant in treasures, your end has come, the measure of your profit making. Here I am against you, O ruinous mountain,’ is the utterance of Jehovah, ‘you ruiner of the whole earth; and I will stretch out my hand against you and roll you away from the crags and make you a burnt-out mountain.’” Corrupt, warmongering nations will follow false religion into destruction as Jehovah’s day of vengeance catches up with them also.
18 At 1 Thessalonians 5:3, it is said of the wicked: “Whenever it is that they are saying: ‘Peace and security!’ then sudden destruction is to be instantly upon them just as the pang of distress upon a pregnant woman; and they will by no means escape.” These are the ones of whom Isaiah said: “Look! . . . Messengers of peace will weep bitterly.” (Isaiah 33:7) Indeed, as we read at Isaiah 48:22, “‘there is no peace,’ Jehovah has said, ‘for the wicked ones.’” But what future awaits the true messengers of godly peace? Our next article will tell.
*** w97 9/15 19 Who Will Survive "the Day of Jehovah"? ***
14 Jehu took action to end Baal worship in Israel. In our day, through the Greater Jehu, Jesus Christ, God will bring about the destruction of Babylon the Great, the world empire of false religion. We will soon see the fulfillment of the angel’s words to the apostle John: “The ten horns that you saw, and the wild beast, these will hate the harlot [Babylon the Great] and will make her devastated and naked, and will eat up her fleshy parts and will completely burn her with fire. For God put it into their hearts to carry out his thought, even to carry out their one thought by giving their kingdom to the wild beast, until the words of God will have been accomplished.” (Revelation 17:16, 17; 18:2-5) “The ten horns” depict the militarized political powers holding sway on earth. Though they now have a spiritually adulterous relationship with Babylon the Great, her time is short. This world’s political element will destroy false religion, and “the wild beast”—the United Nations—will have a principal role with “the ten horns” in devastating her. What an occasion for praising
*** km 8/94 5-6 Theocratic Ministry School Review ***
20. What was “the disgusting thing that causes desolation” in the first century, and what is it today? (Matt. 24:15) [gt chap. 111] In 66 C.E., it was the Roman armies that surrounded Jerusalem; today it is the United Nations.
*** sh 370 16 The True God and Your Future ***
10 What does the Bible foretell will be the final destiny of this globe-encircling harlot? In symbolic language, the book of Revelation describes her destruction at the hands of political elements. These are symbolized by “ten horns” that support the United Nations, “a scarlet-colored wild beast” that is the image of Satan’s bloodstained political system.—Revelation 16:2; 17:3-16.