QUESTION: I believe its more than possible that the United States is in fact the king of the north and that its death stroke will be when it plants its tents between the grand sea and the holy mountain of decoration. There’s only been one mountain considered holy, and that is Mount Sinai. The prophet Daniel says that Egypt and would not be an escape and that Ethiopia and Libya would be in or at their steps and there would be no helpers for him, that is to say the King of the north. And that there would be reports out of the east and out of the north that would disturb him. My thoughts are China and Russia. Then he come to his finish, or his death stoke, where upon he is revived and emerges as the eighth king..so..may I ask what your thoughts are on this?
ANSWER: You appear to be taking Bible symbolism and trying to link it up with some literal nation or place. Prophecy doesn’t work that way. (Cited passages below are active hyperlinks to the revised NWT, for easy Bible referencing)
Mount Sinai and Mount Zion were, of course, literal mountains. But in prophecy they are used to symbolize something else entirely. For example, although not really a prophecy as such, in the 4th chapter of his letter to the Galatians Paul referred to Mount Sinai as factoring into a “symbolic drama” – representing Jerusalem and the unbelieving Jews who remained enslaved to the Law after Christ had set them free from it. And Paul indicated that there is also symbolic heavenly Mount Zion and a heavenly Jerusalem as well.
Without recognizing these spiritual realities it is impossible to comprehend prophecy.
Consider another example regarding global directions. You seem to be taking “north” and “east” literally too, and are trying to locate a specific nation on a literal map using compass location. But, again, that is not how Bible prophecy works. And that is why the masses of evangelical churchgoers who think they can decipher prophecy by a literal reading are hopelessly lost.
Consider the fact, that, in the context of the lead-up to Armageddon, which is unquestionably what is also presented in the closing span of verse in the 11th chapter of Daniel, the 16th chapter of Revelation refers to the preparations made in advance of the “kings from the rising of the sun.” As everyone knows, the sun always rises in the east. Who are the kings from the rising of the sun?
The Grand Climax book states that it is Jehovah and Jesus. But that simplistic explanation ignores the fact that Jehovah has willed that 144,000 persons bought from the earth are to rule with Christ as kings upon Mount Zion, which is to say in Jesus’ heavenly kingdom.
Not only are 144,000 to be resurrected from the earth, but as I have written about in numerous articles over the years, the holy ones on earth who are harvested as wheat during the conclusion are to “shine as brightly as the sun in the kingdom” of Jehovah.
Again, the Watchtower has no understanding of what this means. In the July, 2013, Watchtower they revised their previously nonsensical view that all anointed persons were already shining like the sun, to the equally meaningless view that their shining is when they are changed into heavenly beings. The leadership of Jehovah’s Witnesses have no comprehension as to what the revealing of the sons of God is all about. The reason that is so is because God has seen fit to let them lapse into a spiritually drunken stupor.
At any rate, while on earth after the harvest the sealed anointed no longer will serve as ambassadors for the kingdom, but will be kings in the fullest sense, since they will have been granted entry into the kingdom at that point. So, while on earth they represent the holy mountain of Decoration, which is to say – the kingdom of Christ. The disturbing reports out of the north and east that will drive the king of the north into a genocidal rage has to do with the witness then given by the ascending kings from the rising of the sun – from the east. (Ultimately Jehovah himself is the king of the north – See Psalms 48:1-2) His planting his palatial tent in the domain of the chosen ones of Jehovah will mean he has killed them – leaving the earth void of any son of God. At that point the king of the north “will have come all the way to his end.” The murder of the sons of God will be the trigger for Armageddon.
(Note: The expression “all the way to his end” suggests that the king of the north will then pay for the crimes committed against Christ himself, all the way back in the first century when the Roman governor had him put to death. Also, the Roman king of the north slaughtered untold numbers of Christians in the first and second centuries.)
