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A Book You Can Trust—Part 7Awake!—2011 | May
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The prophecy at Revelation 17:10 complements another prophecy found in the book of Daniel. Daniel wrote about an “immense image” that Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar saw in a vision given him by God. (Daniel 2:28, 31-43) Daniel revealed to the monarch that the sections of the body of the image represented the succession of political empires that began with Babylon, the world power at the time. (Egypt and Assyria had already come and gone.) History now confirms the following:
The head of gold represented the Babylonian Empire.
The breasts and arms of silver depicted Medo-Persia.
The belly and thighs of copper pointed to ancient Greece.
The legs of iron pictured the Roman Empire.
The feet, an amalgam of iron and clay, symbolize the politically and socially incohesive state of affairs during the time of the Anglo-American world power.
According to Revelation 17:10, the seventh world power “must remain a short while.” How long will that prove to be? How will it disappear from the world scene? And what will happen thereafter? Daniel sheds much light on these questions.
A Hope You Can Trust
After describing the aforementioned image, Daniel wrote: “A stone was cut out [of a mountain] not by hands, and it struck the image on its feet of iron and of molded clay and crushed them.” (Daniel 2:34) What did this awesome spectacle portend?
Daniel continued: “In the days of those [final] kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be brought to ruin. And the kingdom itself will not be passed on to any other people. It will crush and put an end to all these [earthly] kingdoms, and it itself will stand to times indefinite.”b (Daniel 2:44, 45) Note these important points:
The victorious Kingdom, represented by a large stone, is “set up” by God himself, not by human “hands.” Hence, it is rightly called God’s Kingdom.
God’s Kingdom “will crush” all human rulerships, including the seventh world power. Why? All these will refuse to relinquish power and will face off against God in a final great war at a figurative place called Har–Magedon, or Armageddon. The Bible makes clear that this war involves “the kings of the entire inhabited earth.”—Revelation 16:13, 14, 16.
Unlike transitory human governments, including the seven world powers, God’s Kingdom “will never be brought to ruin.” Also, it will rule over the entire earth.—Daniel 2:35, 44.
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