All of Jehovah’s Witnesses hope for the Kingdom to come knowing that it will bring peace, health, happiness and prosperity, not to mention everlasting life. Those who long for the promises of God are eager to see Satan’s wicked world swept away— even though its passing will mean great hardships and a staggering loss of life.
Since its very beginning, the Watchtower has proclaimed that we are living in the last days. Even back in the 1880s, the Bible Students believed they were living in the last days. Of course, since then the beginning of the last days was shifted from the late 18th century to 1914. Even with that “adjustment” obviously, that would still mean the world has been in the last days for more than a century, which really calls into question the meaning of the terms used. Now, though, with the coronavirus pandemic sweeping the world, the Governing Body has announced on JW Broadcast that we are living in the final part of the final part of the days, leading up to the last day of the last days.
This means that the leadership of Jehovah’s Witnesses evidently anticipate the beginning of the great tribulation to be imminent. Since the Watchtower has steadfastly proclaimed that the destruction of Babylon the Great will mark the beginning of the world’s greatest time of trouble, what evidence is there that the United Nations is moving to eradicate religion throughout the world?
Perhaps we might think it significant that in early March of 2020 Ahmed Shaheed, who is the UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion, issued a report that some have interpreted as a call for religions to submit to the authority of the UN’s human rights agenda. While that may be an important development insofar as establishing an underlying legal basis for the United Nations to suppress certain religions that are deemed to violate human rights, it is simply not in the realm of reality to expect the UN to do anything other than talk. What stands in the way of the nations carrying out Heaven’s mandate? The nation-state system, that’s what.
To emphasize the point, let us use our imaginations for a moment. Let us imagine that tomorrow the UN declared all religions to be violators of human rights and ordered every church, mosque, ashram, synagogue– even every kingdom hall to be shuttered. What would happen? The answer is: nothing! – nothing would happen, at least not that would accomplish the words of God. If the UN Security Council issued such an edict not only would the nations not obey they would more probably swiftly defund the United Nations and perhaps close it down— or worse. Or do we suppose the so-called leaders of the free world would dutifully obey the authority of the United Nations? That is unimaginable.
Since we live in the real world and not in the world of make-believe, rational people surely realize that it is not politically possible at this present time for the UN or any other authority to successfully attack and destroy Babylon the Great.
Jehovah’s Witnesses might retort: ‘Yes, but Revelation says that God will put it into their hearts to carry out the scheme.’ And while that is surely true, there is a key piece that is lacking in the Watchtower’s prophetic puzzle. It is a significant oversight and changes everything.
What the Governing Body has refused to accept is that the eighth king does not exist at the present moment. The United Nations may, in fact, become such in the future— I believe that it will— but it is not currently functioning as the last king. Surely, no one will dispute the fact that in order to terrorize nations into destroying their beloved religions the eighth king must be empowered with authority far beyond anything the United Nations possesses.
As it stands the UN issues resolutions and edicts that are ignored by nations large and small without consequences. It is telling that the UN’s most ardent promotors bemoan its impotence and liken it to a “paper tiger.”
The coronavirus pandemic has highlighted a very powerful dynamic at work, one that directly relates to the powerlessness of the United Nations— nationalism. In a crisis national interests inevitably come to the fore. We see this phenomena in Europe. Since the creation of the European Union individual nations have willingly forfeited a great measure of their sovereignty to Brussels. EU members cannot establish their own economic policies or close their borders, for example. Hence, in recent years we have seen Europe inundated with refugees from the Middle East and Africa. Obviously, the intent of the empire is to dissolve national identity. But the pandemic has brought to the surface an underlying reality. It has forced states to defy the dictates of the bureaucrats in Brussels who have not been particularly helpful in this crisis. The mainstream media are even speculating that the fractures that have resulted might mean the dissolution of the European Union in the very near future.
Nationalism has always been considered the most vexing problem by the promoters of globalism and empire. When the Lords of London first proposed the League of Nations it was intended to be a world government to replace the British Empire. Their hopes were dashed when the US senate refused to ratify the treaty. Nationalism prevailed. As a result, the British set out on a long-range scheme to change the political views of Americans. Over the last half century globalism has prevailed— at least as an economic system. However, nationalism has suddenly resurged as people have awakened to the folly of outsourcing things like medicine and basic manufacturing. The pandemic has revealed that globalism and nationalism are two very powerful, antagonistic systems. Call it the iron and the clay— the kings of the north and south.
Before the last king rules for his prophetic one-hour, first must come the death-stroke upon the head of the beast. Yes, the entire system must go into the abyss of death. Again, the coronavirus crisis has revealed how vulnerable civilization is, as some analysts are saying this is the beginning of a great depression. And this from a tiny microbe. Just imagine if war were to erupt between the nuclear powers.
The reason the Watchtower has relegated the death of the beast and the ascendancy of the eighth king to the past is because clever Bible men knew/know that the mortal wound upon the head of the wild beast occurs as a result of the ouster of Satan, which is a result of the coming to power of the Kingdom of Christ. And because the Watchtower is committed to embracing the myth that Christ became king in 1914 the Governing Body is compelled to promote the nonsensical notion that the United Nations has been ruling as the eighth king since its creation in 1945.
The bottom line is, these are not “the final part of the final part of the days.” The time of the end will be marked by the overthrow of the nation-state system— the end of America, democracy, freedom and all of that. Only in the aftermath of the crash will the United Nations emerge as the eighth king and be empowered to bring about the anticipated destruction of Babylon the Great.
With the suddenness with which the world has recently been thrown into crisis, we should not suppose that the beginning of the end is in the distant future.
