ANSWER: As regards who will survive the end of the world, here are a few verses to consider:
“Before there comes upon you people the burning anger of Jehovah, before there comes upon you the day of Jehovah’s anger, seek Jehovah, all you meek ones of the earth, who have practiced His own judicial decision. Seek righteousness, seek meekness. Probably you may be concealed in the day of Jehovah’s anger.” – Zephaniah 2:2-3
“And I will give portents in the heavens and on the earth, blood and fire and columns of smoke. The sun itself will be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the coming of the great and fear-inspiring day of Jehovah. And it must occur that everyone who calls on the name of Jehovah will get away safe; for in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there will prove to be the escaped ones, just as Jehovah has said, and in among the survivors, whom Jehovah is calling.” – Joel 2:30-32
“Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of persons ought you to be in holy acts of conduct and deeds of godly devotion, awaiting and keeping close in mind the presence of the day of Jehovah, through which the heavens being on fire will be dissolved and the elements being intensely hot will melt! But there are new heavens and a new earth that we are awaiting according to his promise, and in these righteousness is to dwell.” – II Peter 3:11-13
Armageddon is the final battle between Jesus Christ and Satan the Devil. But the war between Satan and Jehovah really began in the Garden of Eden. That is when God said that he would put enmity between the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman.
However, that long-standing animosity will come to a full boil when Christ receives his kingdom in heaven. According to Revelation the 12th chapter that event will cause war to erupt in heaven and Michael the Archangel and his army of angels, who is Jesus Christ, will battle with Satan and his angels. We are assured that Christ will be victorious and the Devil and his demons will be ousted from heaven forever. But that’s not the end of it. The same 12th chapter of Revelation reveals that Satan will come down to the earth having great anger knowing that he has a short period of time.
That short period of time is revealed in Scripture to be the conclusion of the system of things, also variously known as the final part of the days, and the time of the end. And the truth is: God’s prophetic word reveals that Satan’s short period of time is equivalent to 1260 days, 42 months and a time, times, and half a time.
Jehovah’s Witnesses, of course, believe that the conclusion of the system began in 1914 with the beginning of World War I. And the Watchtower has explained away the prophetic period of 1260 days into irrelevancy and meaninglessness.
But as it stands now, the world is poised to be plunged into yet another world war. Obviously, nuclear weapons did not exist during the First World War and they did not exist during the second world war either. The Allies were concerned that Hitler might develop them, and so a crash program called the Manhattan Project was undertaken by Roosevelt during the war. Although Germany had already surrendered then-president Truman dropped the first two atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, bringing an end to the Second World War.
Since then tens of thousands of nuclear weapons with explosive power much greater than those exploded over Japan have been developed. All the victors of the Second World War possess varying amounts of these weapons; the victors being America, Great Britain, France, Russia and China. Now the nuclear club has been expanded and includes Israel, India and Pakistan, along with the rogue North Korea.
So, this is the challenge the Jehovah’s Witnesses face; not just the peril of a global war with weapons of unimaginable constructive power. The real danger the world situation poses is that it could potentially destroy the faith of Jehovah’s Witnesses. How so?
It is been my experience this past decade that it is virtually impossible to convince Jehovah’s Witnesses that the Watchtower Society is wrong about 1914 being the beginning of the invisible presence of Jesus and the beginning of the conclusion of a system of things. They have such blind allegiance and unquestioning devotion to the Governing Body, it is considered part of their faith and an act apostasy to even question the many and various contradictory interpretations imposed upon them by the Watchtower.
But reality has a way of exploding and dissolving myths. And the Watchtower’s 1914 delusion is certain to be shattered when Satan and his demons come storming down from heaven with great anger and the world is engulfed in a time of trouble unprecedented in the annals of history.
It is my hope that your faith does not give out when it is subjected to the coming fire.