There is a saying among Jehovah’s Witnesses that Bible prophecy cannot be understood until after it is fulfilled. On the face of it that sounds about right. However, the purpose of prophecy is to reveal the things to come. And the things to come have to do with the coming of Christ. The book of Revelation on which the daily text is based explicitly states that the purpose of the book is to to ‘show Christ's slaves the things that must shortly take place.’
The Watchtower, on the other hand, has interpreted virtually all of Revelation to have been fulfilled during the first half of the 20th century. Their commentary on Revelation refers to a grand climax being at hand. That is because they have explained Revelation to have all taken place already except for the climactic destruction of Babylon the Great and Armageddon
There is no denying that the explanations offered are artfully contrived and even convincing, to a point. But they are simply not true. There is no possibility of overturning the Watchtower’s 1914 doctrine. It is too deeply entrenched. Anyone among Jehovah’s Witnesses who expresses the slightest doubt that the angels blew their trumpets and the bowls of God’s wrath were poured out in the 1920s is viewed as spiritually weak or even an enemy of the truth. There can be no discussion. No analysis. No search for truth. Revelation has been fulfilled. Book closed.
Nevertheless, no matter how ardently a falsehood is embraced, reality will eventually impinge on unreality. Now, please let me direct your attention to the statement above: “This wild beast does not represent just one government or world empire. It is spoken of as ruling “over every tribe and people and tongue and nation.” So it must be greater than any single national government.”
The Watchtower has assured the few million of Jehovah’s Witnesses under its authority that there will be no such thing as world government—no global empire under Satan’s control. The Watchtower claims that God’s Kingdom is ruling the world now and it is the only world government that will ever exist. There will be no political new world order. No Novus Ordo Seclorum. No United Nations global governance. No great reset. That is all the stuff of crackpot conspiracy theorists. Or is it?
The 17th chapter of Revelation depicts a scarlet-colored beast ascending out of the abyss and John was informed that the beast was itself an eighth king that springs from the seven. Furthermore, all of Earth’s kings represented by 10, will give their power and authority to the beast for “one hour.”
The symbolic 10 kings giving their authority to the eighth king for the allotted “one hour,” means that the only authority will be the eighth king. What this means in reality is that all national governments will abdicate their sovereignty to a single ruling body. Sounds like a world government to me. In that way, the Scripture will be fulfilled that the beast will rule “over every tribe and people and tongue and nation.” Placing the fulfillment of this prophecy to the establishment of the United Nations in 1945 does not work. The primary complaint against the UN is that it does not have any authority. Since that is the reality, how could it possibly be true that all of the nations have already given their authority to the United Nations?
The Watchtower claims there are two nearly identical seven-headed wild beasts. Is that logical? Not really. So why does the vision presented in the 13th chapter of Revelation depict a wild beast with seven heads coming up out of the sea and the 17th chapter presents us with a scarlet-colored seven-headed beast arising from an abyss? How do they relate to each other?
To understand the distinction we must first discard the Watchtower’s artificial interpretation regarding the meaning of the head of the beast that received what seemed like a mortal wound but then recovered. The Watchtower insists that the mortal wound was inflicted upon the head of the beast during the First World War. The explanation in the Grand Climax book claims that the victorious Allies fulfilled the prophecy even though neither the British Empire nor the United States experienced anything that could remotely be considered a catastrophic collapse. Bluntly, the Watchtower’s interpretation does not match history. It is a work of fiction.
But since Revelation is a message to Christ’s slaves to reveal the things that must shortly take place, given the advanced state of rot within the Anglo-American political and economic machinery, it does not require a great deal of imagination to envision the outright collapse of the entire system. It would seem that the ballooning debt of one trillion dollars per 100 days is the last phase in an accelerating advance toward what will be a supernova blowout of the City of London and its Wall Street satellite and the utter bankruptcy of the treasury of the one-time greatest nation in the world. There is no possibility that the precariously unbalanced, debt-bloated system could remain intact when once the missiles begin to fly.
The death of the Anglo-American head of the beast will give rise to the eighth king. That is why the scarlet-colored beast is pictured ascending out of an abyss. The abyss represents a death-like condition. The beastly system that has existed for centuries will suddenly die. Then it will come back to life. The scarlet color of the beast rising from the Grave or abyss may denote its rage, reflecting the great anger of the dragon after it is hurled down from heaven and causes a mortal wound to the head of the beast.
The resurrected beast will likely come in the form of global communism. It looks like digital currency will be imposed. Already the central bank of the central banks, the Bank of International Settlements, is putting into place a Central Bank Digital Currency system to replace national currencies. Will the United Nations be the embodiment of the eighth king in the post-nation-state system? I cannot say with certainty that it will. However, any form of government requires a lot of infrastructure. The UN already has the framework in place. It also has some legitimacy in the minds of most people. The Watchtower has certainly lent its support to hold the UN up as a noble but powerless institution. I suspect that the masonic-designed city of Astana in Kazakstan might become the new home for the UN, making it a world capital for the last empire. But that is speculation on my part.
The wild beast from the abyss
Tuesday, September 5 Scrolls were opened.—Rev. 20:12. The Bible informs us that scrolls will be opened to give us directions in new world living. By studying these, all people, including resurrected ones, will be able to know God’s will for them. These scrolls
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What is the wild beast in Revelation that was, but is not?
QUESTION: The Scriptures depicting the eighth king, seem more like a riddle, such as Samson's riddle to the Philistines, than a statement. For instance, how can a kingdom "that was", still not be around or already present? Since this takes a mind with wisdom, isn't Revelation telling us that the 8th
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Has the wild beast received the fatal head wound?
Tuesday, September 8 God . . . will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed.—Dan. 2:44. The Bible Students spent decades pointing out that the year 1914 would be significant. Many people at that time were optimistic. As one
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