Continue with Contending With Two Ferocious Beasts

It is clear, therefore, that the Author of the inspired Bible regards the political powers of the earth as beasts. What kind of beasts? One commentator calls the wild beast of Revelation 13:1, 2 a "brute," and adds: " We accept all the connotations that Onpiov [the-ri'on, the Greek word for "beast"] conveys, such as that of a cruel, destructive, frightful, ravenous, etc.., monster" How well that describes the bloodstained political system by which Satan has dominated mankind! The seven heads of this wild beast stand for six major world powers featured in Bible history up to John's day-Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece and Rome- and a seventh world power prophesied to appear later. -Compare Revelation 17:9, 10.

True, there have been other world powers in history besides the seven-just as the wild beast John saw was made up of a body as well as of seven heads and ten horns. But the seven heads represent the seven major powers that have, each in its turn, taken the lead in oppressing God's people. In 33 C.E., while Rome was ascendant, Satan used that head of the wild beast to kill the Son of God. At that time, God abandoned the faithless Jewish system of things and later, in 70 C.E., allowed Rome to execute his judgment on that nation. Happily, the true Israel of God, the congregation of anointed Christians, had been forewarned, and those in Jerusalem and Judea had fled to safety beyond the Jordan River. -Matthew 24:15, 16; Galatians 6:16.

By the end of the first century C.E., however, many in this early congregation had fallen away from the truth, and the true Christian wheat, "the sons of the kingdom," had been largely choked out by weeds, "the sons of the wicked one." But when the conclusion of the system of things arrived, anointed Christians again appeared as an organized group. During the Lord's day, the righteous ones were due to "shine as brightly as the sun." Hence, the Christian congregation was organized for work. (Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43) By then, the Roman Empire, was no more. The huge British Empire, along with the powerful United States of America held the center of the world stage. This dual world power proved to be the seventh head of the wild beast.

Is it not shocking to identify the ruling political powers with a wild beast? That is what some opposers claimed during the World War II, when the status of Jehovah's Witnesses, as an organization and as individuals, was being challenged in law courts around the earth. But stop and think! Do not the nations themselves adopt beasts or wild creatures as their nation symbols? for example, there are the British lion, the American eagle, the Chinese dragon and the Russian bear. So why should anyone object of the divine Author of the Holy Bible also uses beasts to symbolize world powers?

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