Chapter Thirty-Six/The Great City Devastated - "Get Out of Her, My People"

 John's next words point to a further fulfillment of the prophetic pattern: "And I heard another voice out of heaven say: 'Get out of her, my people, if you do not want to share with her in her sins, and if you do not want to receiver part of her plagues.'" (Revelation 18:4) Prophecies of ancient Babylon's fall in the Hebrew Scriptures also include Jehovah's command to his people: "Take your flight out of the midst of Babylon." (Jeremiah 50:8, 13) Similarly, in view of the coming desolation of Babylon the Great, God's people are now urged to escape. In 637 B.C.E. the opportunity to escape from Babylon caused much rejoicing on their part. (Revelation 11:11, 12) And since that time millions of others have obeyed the order to flee. - Compare MATTHEW 24:15, 16. 

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Chapter Thirty-Six/The Great City Devastated - The Traveling Merchants - Conclusion

 As foretold by the glorious angel, religion has been deeply involved in such corrupt business practices. For example, there is the Vatican's involvement in the collapse of Italy's Banco Ambrosiano in 1982. The case has dragged on through the 1980's, until the unanswered question being: Where did the money go? In February 198 Milan magistrates issued arrest warrants for three Vatican clerics, including an American archbishop, on charges that they were accessories to fraudulent, but the Vatican rejected an extradition request in July 1987, amid an uproar of protest, the warrants were nullified by Italy's highest Court of Appeals on the basis of an old treaty between the Vatican and the Italian government. 

Did Jesus have a tie-in with questionable business practices of his day? No. He was not even a property owner, for he had "nowhere to lay his head." A rich young ruler was advised by Jesus: "Sell all the things you have and distribute to poor people, and you will have treasures in the heavens; and come to be my follower." That was fine admonition, for it could have resulted in his getting rid of all anxieties over business matters.  (Luke 9:58; 18:22) In contrast, Babylonish religion often has unsavory links with big business. For example, in 1987 the Albany Times Union reported that the financial administrator of the Catholic Archdiocese of Miami, Florida, U.S.A., admitted to the church's owning stocks in companies that make nuclear weapons, R-rated movies, and cigarettes. 

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Chapter Thirty-Six/The Great City Devastated - The Traveling Merchants - Continue

 International trading in arms is soaring beyond $1,000,000,ooo,000 each year, while hundreds of millions of humans are deprived of life's necessities. That is bad enough. But armaments appear to be a basic support of the world's economy. On April 11, 1987, an article in London's Spectator reported: "Counting only directly related industries, some 400,000 jobs are involved in the U.S. and 750,000 in Europe. But curiously enough, as the social and economic role of building weapons has grown the actual question of whether the producers are well defended of has slipped into the background." Huge profits are made as bombs and other weaponry are traded all over the earth, even to potential enemies. Some day those bombs may come back in a fiery holocaust to destroy those selling them. What paradox! Add to this the graft that surrounds the arms industry in the United States alone, according to the Spectator, "every year the Pentagon inexplicably loses $900-million worth of arms and equipment. It is no wonder that the merchants of the earth come up unfavorable mention in Revelation!

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Chapter Thirty -Six/The Great City Devastated -The Traveling Merchants

 Who are "the traveling merchants of the earth"? No doubt we would today call them traders, commercial giants, wheeler-dealers of big business. This not to say that it is wrong to engage in legitimate business. The Bible provides wise counsel for business people, warning against dishonesty, greed, and the like. (Proverbs 11:2; Zechariah 7:9, 10; James 5:1-5) The great gain is "godly devotion along with self-sufficiency." (1 Timothy 6:6,17-19) However, Satan's world does not follow righteous principles. Corruption abounds. It is to be found in religion, in politics-and big business. From time to time the new media expose scandals, such as embezzlement by high government officials and illegal trafficking in arms.

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Chapter Thirty-Six/The Great City Devastated - Passion-Arousing Wine -Conclusion

 Add to Germany, Italy, and Abyssinia another nation that has fallen victim to the fornication of Babylon the Great-Spain. The Civil War of 1936-1939 in that land was sparked, in part, by the democratic government's taking steps to reduce the huge power of the Roman Catholic Church. As the war got under way, the Catholic Fascist leader of the revolutionary forces, Franco, described himself as "the Christian Generalissimo of the Holy Crusade," a title that he later dropped. Several hundred thousand Spaniards died in the fighting. Apart from this, according to a conservative estimate, Franco's Nationalists had murdered 40,000 Popular front members, while the latter had murdered 8.000 clerics-monks, priest, and nuns, and novices. Such is the horror and tragedy of civil war, illustrating the wisdom of heeding Jesus' words: "Return your sword to its place, for all those who take the sword will perish by the sword." (Matthew 26:52) How disgusting that Christendom gets involved in such massive bloodshed! Her clergy have indeed failed utterly to "beat their swords into plowshares"! - ISAIAH 2:4. 

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Chapter Thirty-SIx/The Great City Devastated - Passion-Arousing Wine - Continue

 "In this Pastoral letter of the 10th October [1935], the Bishop of Udine [Italy] wrote, 'It is neither timely nor fitting for us to pronounce on the rights and wrongs of the case.  Our duty as Italians, and still more, as Christians is to contribute to the success of our arms.' The Bishop of Padua wrote on the 24th October, the Bishop of Cremona consecrated a number of regimental flags and said" 'The blessing of God be upon these soldiers who, on African soil, will conquer new and fertile lands for the Italian genius, thereby bringing to them Roman and Christian culture. May Italy stand once again as the Christian mentor to the whole world.'

Abyssinia was raped, with the blessing of the Roman Catholic clergy. Could any of these claim, in any sense, that they were like the apostle Paul in being "clean from the blood of all men"? - ACTS 20:26. 

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ChapterThirty-Six/The Great City Devastated -Passion-Arousing Wine Continue

 We have already reviewed the illicit religio-political relationship that catapulted Hitler into power in Nazi Germany. Other nations have also suffered because of religion's meddling in secular affairs. For example: In fascist Italy, on September 11, 1929, the Lateran Treaty was signed by Mussolini and Cardinal Gasparri, making Vatican City a sovereign state. Pope Pius XI claimed that he had "given Italy back to God, and God back to Italy." Was that the truth? Consider what happened six years later. On October 3, 1935, Italy invaded Abyssinia, claiming that it was "a barbarous land which still practices slavery. " Who, really, was being barbarous? Did the Catholic Church condemn Mussolini's barbarity? While the Pope issued ambiguous statements, her bishops were quite vocal in blessing the armed forces of their Italian "fatherland." In the book The Vatican in the Age of the Dictator, Anthony Rhodes reports:

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Chapter Thirty-Six/The Great City Devastated - Passion-Arousing Wine

 The mighty angel calls attention to the broad extent of the harlotry of Babylon the Great, proclaiming: "For because of the passion-arousing wine of her fornication "all the nations have fallen victim, and the kings of the earth committed fornication with her, and the traveling merchants of the earth became rich due to the power of her shameless luxury." (Revelation 18:3) she has indoctrinated all nations of mankind in her unclean religious ways. In ancient Babylon, according to Greek historian Herodotus, each maiden was required to prostitute her virginity in temple worship. Revolting sexual corruption is portrayed to this day in the war-damaged Buddhists sculptures at Ankor Wat in Kampuchea and in the temples at Khajuraho, India, which show the Hindu god Vishnu surrounded by disgusting erotic scenes. In the United States, the disclosures of immorality that shook the world of TV evangelists in 1987, and again in 1988m as well as the revelation of a widespread practice of homosexuality, by ministers of religion, Illustrate that even Christendom tolerates shocking excesses of literal fornication. Yet, all the nations have fallen victim to an even more serious kind of fornication in this 20th century.

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Chapter Thirty-Six/The Great City Devastated - Decline of Babylon the Great - Conclusion

 Her situation also matches Jeremiah's prophecy: "There is a sword against the Chaldeans,' is the utterance of Jehovah, "and against the inhabitants of Babylon and against her princes and against her wise ones. . . . There is a devastation upon her waters, and they must be dried up. For it is a land of graven images, and because of their frightful visions they keep acting crazy. Therefore the haunters of waterless regions will dwell with the howling animals, and in her the ostriches must dwell; and she will nevermore be dwelt, in, nor will she reside for generation after generation.'" Idolatry and chanting of repetitious prayers cannot save Babylon the Great from a retribution resembling God's overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah.  - JEREMIAH 50:35-40. 

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Chapter Thirty-Six/The Great City Devastated - Decline of Babylon the Great - Continue

 The word "demons" here is likely a reflection of the word "goat-shaped demons" (se'i-rim) found in Isaiah's description of fallen Babylon: "And there the haunters of waterless regions will certainly lie down, and their houses must be filled with eagle owls. And there the ostriches must reside, and goat-shaped demons themselves will go skipping around there." (Isaiah 13:21) It may not refer to literal demons but rather to shaggy-haired, desert-dwelling animals whose appearance made onlookers think of demons. In the ruins of Babylon the Great, the figurative existence of such animals, along with stagnant, poisonous air ("unclean exhalation") and unclean birds, signifies here spiritually dead condition. She holds forth no life prospect whatever for mankind. - Compare Ephesians 2:1, 2.

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