-
When All Nations Collide, Head On, with GodThe Watchtower—1971 | October 15
-
-
36. When and how did the fulfillment of the cutting out of the stone without hands occur, and by what means was the bearing of the close of the Gentile Times on world affairs called to world attention?
36 When was this kingdom, symbolized by the stone that was cut out of the universal mountain, really “cut out” by God’s hands and set up in power? That was at the end of the Gentile Times in the very year that war broke out on earth over world domination. We all know that year—1914! The kingdom in the hands of the Son of God, Jesus Christ, was set up, not at the site of old Jerusalem in the Middle East, but in the heavens, where the Son of God sits at the right hand of his heavenly Father. The immediate bearing that the close of the Gentile Times had upon the world conditions then was called to the world’s attention in the latter part of 1917, even by clergymen of Christendom. Near the time of the capture of old Jerusalem by the British armies on December 9, 1917, Dr. G. Campbell Morgan, Dr. F. B. Meyer, and six other well-known clergymen of England, issued a Manifesto, which was republished throughout the earth and which declared:
37. Pertinent to this, what did that Manifesto say?
37 “(1) That the present crisis points toward the close of the times of the Gentiles. . . . (5) That all human schemes of reconstruction must be subsidiary to the second coming of our Lord, because all nations will then be subject to His rule. . . .”—Current Opinion, for February 1918.
38. To what year had Jehovah’s witnesses pointed forward as marking the close of “the times of the Gentiles,” what did God’s kingdom begin to do then, and to whom does God’s challenge now ring out?
38 For decades in advance, by means of the Watch Tower Society publications, the Christian witnesses of Jehovah were pointing ahead, not to the year 1917, but to 1914 as being the year for the close of “the times of the Gentiles.” (Luke 21:24, Authorized Version) The close of the Gentile Times marked the critical time for Jehovah God to issue orders to his enthroned Son in fulfillment of King David’s prophecy in Psalm 110:1, 2: “Jehovah saith unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool. Jehovah will send forth the rod of thy strength out of Zion: Rule thou in the midst of thine enemies.” (American Standard Version) Hence the symbolic “stone,” God’s kingdom by Christ, did not strike the symbolic “image” of political power in the year 1914. It merely began to rule in the midst of its enemies. So it has been hurled forth by divine power. It is now on its way, headed toward that political “image.” To the nations of Christendom, who are among “those kings” represented in the feet of the “image,” Jehovah’s challenge to a military confrontation rings out: “Get ready to meet your God”!—Amos 4:12.
39. Why is the “image” struck on its motionless feet, which are seemingly inoffensive?
39 Why should the political “image” be struck on the feet, when these are motionless, apparently doing nothing wrong? It is because that “image” is an idolatrous image, and the people of the whole world idolize this system of politics. Also, the “feet” of that idolatrous “image” are standing where they ought not to stand since the close of the Gentile Times in 1914. They are standing in opposition to God’s kingdom as governed by His Christ. This kingdom was born in the heavens in 1914 as the only government with right to rule all the earth.—Rev. 12:1-10.
40. In Revelation, chapter seventeen, the wild beast ridden by Babylon the Great is said to be what, and why so, and what does it symbolize in our day?
40 Let there be no mistake about the matter in anyone’s mind. The Holy Bible outrightly says that “those kings,” those political rulers of the earth, are fighting against God’s established kingdom. Let us turn to the last book of the Bible, to Revelation chapter seventeen. There we see through picture language how the political rulers of this earth will destroy Babylon the Great, which is the world empire of false religion that had its start with ancient Babylon. The scarlet-colored wild beast on which Babylon the Great rides until her destruction is pictured as having seven heads and ten horns. Those seven heads point to the seven successive world powers of human history, from ancient Egypt, through Assyria, Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, Rome and the Anglo-American World Power. Re 17 Verse eleven says that the wild beast is itself “an eighth king,” that is, an Eighth World Power. That Eighth World Power is the present-day United Nations, the international organization for world peace and security and so for keeping the “feet” of the idolatrous “image” standing where they ought no longer to stand.—Rev. 17:11; Dan. 2:33, 34.
-
-
When All Nations Collide, Head On, with GodThe Watchtower—1971 | October 15
-
-
50. How does the crash now come, and what does the prophecy show as to whether the United Nations will save the situation for the “image” of political rule?
50 Crash! comes the head-on collision! See there the United Nations organization! Will it be able to stand its ground and repel the divine onslaught? Divine prophecy says No! The Kingdom stone, cut out of God’s universal mountain and hurled by God’s own hand, now strikes the symbolic “image” of man’s domination of the earth. As stone smashes into iron, there is a deafening Bang! Listen! Something is being crushed! Is it the stone that is being crushed? No! but it is the Stone that is crushing all the ironlike contenders for world domination by human rulers!
-