An Awesome Mystery Solved

From Sepember  19-20, 1942, at the height of World War II,  Jehovah's Witnesses in the United States held their New World Theocratic  Assembly.  The key city, Cleveland, Ohio, was  tied in by telephone with more than 50 other convention cities,  for a peak attendance of 129,699.  Where wartime conditioons permitted, other   conventions repeated the program around the world. At the time, many of Jeghovah's people expected that the war would escalate into God's war of Armageddon; hence  the title of the public talk,  "Peace-Can it Last?" arouse much curiosity. How could the new president of the Watchtower Society, N.H. Knorr, presume to talk about peace when the very opposite seemed to be in store for the nations?  The reason was that the John class was paying  "more than the usual attention" to God's prophetic Word. - HEBREWS 2:1; 2 PETER 1:19.

what light did the talk "Peace-Can It Last?" throw on the prophecy? Clearly identifying the scarlet-colored wild beast of Revelations 17:3 as the League of Nations, N.H. Knorr went on to discuss it stormy career on the basis of the angel's following words to John:  "The wild beast that you saw was, but is not, and yet is about to ascend out of the abyss, and it is to go off into destruction." - REVELATION 17:8a.  

The wild beast . . . was." Yes it had existed as the League of Nations from January 10, 1920, onward, with 63 nations participating at one time or another.  But, in turn, Japan, Germany, and Italy withdrew, and the former Soviet Union was dropped from the League.  In September 1939, the Nazi dictator  of Germany launched World War II. Having failed to keep Peace in the world, the League of Nations virtually plunged into an abyss of inactivity. By 1942 It become a has-been. Neither   before this nor at some later date-but right a that critical time-did Jehovah interpret to his people the full depthof meaning in the vision!  At the New World Theocratic Assembly, N.H. Knorr could declare,  in line with the prophecy, that "the wild beast  . . . is not."  He then asked the question, will the League remain in the pit?" Quoting Revelation17:8, He answered:  "The association  of worldly nations will rise again."  That is just how it proved to be-in vindication of Jehovah's prophetic Word!

Next time: An Awesome Mystery Solved - Ascending  Out of the Abyss

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