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God’s Judgment Makes Manifest the Truly RichThe Watchtower—1967 | April 1
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come now into the loving favor and protection of Abraham’s God, Jehovah. From that vantage position you can start experiencing now the happy contrasts that make life so endlessly interesting and worth while, with the wonderful prospect of everlasting life in God’s new system of things with its further promise of delightful contrasts, for its Creator says: “Look! I am making all things new.”—Rev. 21:5.
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A Harlot Executed by Her LoversThe Watchtower—1967 | April 1
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A Harlot Executed by Her Lovers
IT IS not uncommon to read in the newspapers an account about a clandestine affair in which there is a falling out between lovers and the woman is murdered by her paramour. Usually it is a love triangle and jealousy is the motive. Sometimes we read of where a harlot is murdered by her lovers, even stripped naked, tortured and thrown alongside the road. Often this is because of their disgust at her complete filthiness and degradation or because she was disloyal in some scheme of theirs.
The harlot we are discussing here, however, is no ordinary harlot. She is one that has had kings and rulers as her paramours. Nevertheless, she is executed by them, and not for reasons of jealousy, but because she has deceived them. She has made the world situation much more difficult for the rulers to handle. Actually she leads them into a position where they are found to be fighting against God. They come to the point of disgust and hatred toward her that causes them to want to obliterate her and all thoughts and memories of her.
This harlot, whose activities have affected the lives of everyone on earth, is the one that was portrayed in vision to the apostle John. She is an international harlot and her activities and her final destiny and execution at the hand of her lovers are clearly described in the record John made of the vision. We read in the book of Revelation that John saw a woman, a harlot named Babylon the Great, riding a scarlet-colored beast. He writes: “And he says to me: ‘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. 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. And the woman whom you saw means the great city that has a kingdom over the kings of the earth.’”—Rev. 17:15-18.
A RELIGIOUS EMPIRE OVER THE NATIONS
As explained in previous issues of The Watchtower, the scarlet-colored beast is the international peace organization now known as the United Nations. The ten
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