This post is in keeping with the long-standing year’s end tradition of looking ahead to the coming year. 

“A revelation by Jesus Christ, which God gave him, to show his slaves the things that must shortly take place…Happy is the one who reads aloud and those who hear the words of this prophecy and who observe the things written in it, for the appointed time is near.” — Revelation

While most prognosticators consider present trends and try to extrapolate how things will play out in the future, a Christian ought to foremost examine things spiritually, from the standpoint of Bible prophecy. That orientation is in keeping with the Bible’s exhortation to keep on the watch. However, keeping on the watch presents a problem for Jehovah’s Witnesses for the simple reason that the Watchtower claims that nearly all prophecy has already been fulfilled. What are we to watch for if the things that must shortly take place have already taken place? The only thing left on the prophetic agenda is the demise of Babylon the Great during the great tribulation and of course Armageddon. There is no reliable point of reference. 

Probably one of the most disorienting factors is the erroneous belief that the good news will be preached in all the earth during the last days. A careful reading of Jesus’ prophecy reveals that the good news is preached first, as Jesus indicated: “Also, in all the nations, the good news has to be preached first.” — Mark 13:10

Meanwhile, we are hearing of wars and reports of wars. There is the Forever war in the Middle East involving a revolving cast, including Islamic terrorist groups, Israel, Syria, Kurds, Yemen, Lebanon, Turkey, and Iran. The region is always a simmering caldron of conflict threatening to boil over and blow up the Persian Gulf, one of the world’s most important oil and gas sources.  It appears as if the fire is being turned up. 

And we are hearing reports of an impending war between Serbia and Kosovo—the historic flashpoint of World War One. There are ongoing rumors of war over China’s Taiwan. And for the past 10 months, there has been Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine, which really is a proxy war between the Anglo-American Empire and the Russian Federation. It is this conflict that is fraught with peril. Recent strikes upon nuclear airbases deep within Russia have escalated the conflict to the point of open warfare between Russia and NATO. 

As the calendar rolls over to 2023, Russia is poised to launch a massive offensive and finish off Ukraine and the Nazi regime. Various mouthpieces for the Anglo empire have stated that Russia cannot be allowed to be victorious. That presents a grave threat to the world since there is no possibility that Ukraine can prevail without the full-scale, direct involvement of NATO. But even NATO would be destroyed in an all-out war. Even more worrisome, the US has revised its no-first-strike nuclear policy. In other words, the US reserves the right to launch an unprovoked nuclear attack. 

According to Jesus the lesser wars and reports of wars are preliminary to nation rising against nation and kingdom against kingdom. It is becoming increasingly likely that all of the various flashpoints will go off simultaneously. It certainly appears that the world is being deliberately brought to the brink of an unprecedented explosion of violence. 

Meantime, the United Nations Security Council is holding regular meetings to discuss issues of peace and security. 

As an example of an important prophecy that the Watchtower has rendered into irrelevancy is the seventh chapter of Daniel. The watcher, Daniel, saw a huge beast with iron teeth and copper claws. It had 10 horns. He then saw a small horn emerge and three of the 10 horns were plucked out by the small horn, which then grew greater and greater. I have written previously on the absurdity of the Watchtower’s claim that the horns began to be uprooted in 1588 when a fleet of 150 small wooden sailing ships known as the Spanish Armada were wrecked by the English navy and North Atlantic gales. (See article: The Spanish Armada or WWIII—Which?) 

I stand convinced that the prophecy speaks to the future. The emerging 11th horn coexists for a short while among the 10 established horns before causing the three to fall. It appears that the little horn is emerging in the form of the globalists’ push to eliminate the nation-state system. The three horns destined to be uprooted are most likely the United States, France, and Great Britain—the three-fifths of the UN’s permanent Security Council. 

The prophecies of Daniel and Revelation are complimentary. The various beasts of Daniel’s vision show up as the singular composite seven-headed beast in Revelation. Both beasts war against and conquer the holy ones after warring against them for a specified time expressed as 42 months and time, times and half a time. That being true, the sword stroke upon the seventh head of the beast must correspond to the uprooting of the three horns. The correspondency is also apparent from the fact that the ascendent little horn is given a mouth that begins speaking arrogantly, the same as the wild beast of Revelation that miraculously recovers from its death blow. Concerning that beast, John wrote: “It was given a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies, and it was given authority to act for 42 months. And it opened its mouth in blasphemies against God to blaspheme his name and his dwelling place, even those residing in heaven.”

A few people seem to be awakening to the fact that the sanctions imposed on Russia have had no measurable impact on the economy of Russia but are devastating Europe. Surely, deindustrialization and depopulation are the intended outcome. And now after more than a decade of zero interest rates and quantitative easing, under the guise of fighting inflation the central banks are aggressively hiking interest rates even as the economies are grinding down. The debt trap is being sprung. 

Globalists and their allied bankers have spoken openly of their intention to bring about a “great reset.” Apparently, that is a euphemism for crashing the system. Needless to say, a direct shooting war with Russia and China will cause the debt-bloated nations—the USA being the foremost—to violently collapse in chaos and ruin. It is not hyperbole. The world is on the edge of the abyss. 

According to the prophecy of Revelation, the coming of Christ will initiate a series of unstoppable disasters, symbolized as four horsemen charging into war. Peace will be taken from the earth and they will slaughter one another. The pale horse called Death is given authority “over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with a long sword and with food shortage and with deadly plague and by the wild beasts of the earth.”

If death is literally brought to a fourth part of the earth that would equate to about two billion souls—25% of the present population. Given the current state of the world—lurching towards nuclear conflict, financial collapse, social upheaval, and the stated intentions of the Anglo empire to bring about a massive population reduction—it appears that the Apocalypse is about to begin.  

Happy new year.