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

 Ancient Babylon's fall in 539 B.C.E. was the start of a long decline that ended in her desolation. Similarly, since the first world war, the influence of Babylonish religion has declined remarkably on a global scale. In Russia, the Bolshevik Revolution has continued to stifle the influence of the Russian Orthodox Church. In Japan, Shino emperor worship was proscribed following the second world war. In China, the communist government controls all religious appointments and activity. In Protestant northern Europe, most people have become indifferent to religion. And the Roman Catholic church has recently been weakened by schisms and internal dissent in its global domain. -Compare Mark 3:24, 26. 

All these trends are doubtless part of the 'drying up of the river Euphrates' in preparation for the coming militaristic attack on Babylon the Great. Thos 'drying up' is reflected, too, in the Pope's announcement of October 1986 that the church must "again become mendicant'-because of huge deficits. (Revelation 16:12) Particularly since 1919 has Babylon the Great been exposed to public gaze as a spiritual wasteland, just as the mighty angel here announces: "And she has become a dwelling place of demons and lurking place of every unclean exhalation and lurking place of every unclean and hated bird!" (Revelation 18:2b) Soon she will be literally such a wasteland, as desolate as Babylon's ruins in 20th century Iraq. - See also JEREMIAH 50:25-28.

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Chapter Thirty-Six/The Great City Devastated - Babylon Takes a Tumble - Conclusion

 True, Babylon the Great was not destroyed in 1919-any more than the ancient city Babylon was destroyed in 539 B.C.E. when it fell to the armies of Cyrus the Persian. But from Jehovah's viewpoint, that organization had fallen. She was judicially condemned, awaiting execution; therefore, false religion could no longer hold Jehovah's people in captivity. (Compare Luke9:59, 60) These were released to serve as the Master's faithful and discreet slave in providing spiritual food at the proper time. They had received a judgment of "Well done" and were commissioned to get busy again in Jehovah's work. - MATTHEW 24:45-47; 25:21, 23; ACTS 1:8. 

Millenniums ago Jehovah used other prophets to foretell this epoch-marking event. Isaiah spoke of a watchman who proceeded to call out like a lion: "'Upon the watchtower, O Jehovah, I am stationed all the nights.' "  And what event does that watchman discern and proclaim with lionlike boldness? This: "She has fallen! Babylon has fallen, and all the graven images of her gods he [Jehovah] has broken to the earth!" (Isaiah 21:8, 9) This watchman well foreshadows the wide-awake John class today, as it uses the Watchtower magazine and other theocratic publications to sound abroad the news that Babylon has fallen. 

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 So by 1919 Babylon the Great has fallen, opening the way for God's people to be released and restored, in one day as it were, to their land of spiritual prosperity. (Isaiah 66:8) By that year, Jehovah God and Jesus Christ, the Greater Darius and the Greater Cyrus, had maneuver matters so that the false religion could no longer keep a hold on Jehovah's people. No more could it prevent them from serving Jehovah and making known to all who might hear that harlot-like Babylon the great is doomed and the vindication of Jehovah's sovereignty is at hand! - ISAIAH 45:1-4; DANIEL 5:30, 31. 

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