Questions From Readers
● Page 170 of You May Survive Armageddon into God’s New World speaks of tribulation as a windstorm and says we are now in the calm center or “eye of the hurricane.” Page 181 speaks of the time of tribulation, its being cut short, and its resumption, and this tribulation seems to be used to involve Armageddon. Does this mean Armageddon has started, that we are in a lull in the battle at this time? And on page 199 Armageddon is used to mean God’s visible organization rather than a battle. How is this so?—D. B., United States.
The word “Armageddon” is from the Hebrew expression Har Megiddo, which means “Mountain of Megiddo.” This was a strategic spot in the land God gave to his chosen people and in its vicinity armies gathered for battles. Har Megiddo means “mount of assembly of troops.” Being in the land of Jehovah’s people, it would be a place of assembly of his servants or troops, and so the symbolic Armageddon or mountain of Megiddo is the assembled, gathered witnesses of Jehovah now on earth that are soldiers for God and Christ in the present theocratic warfare of Kingdom truth against entrenched religious lies. With this meaning in mind page 199 says: “The kings or rulers of the entire inhabited earth march against God’s visible organization, the symbolic Armageddon or mountain of Megiddo for a decisive fight.”
Long ago Jehovah foretold through his prophet Ezekiel that Gog of Magog, meaning Satan since he and his demons were thrown out of heaven down to earth’s vicinity, would be lured into attacking Jehovah’s visible organization because of its spiritual prosperity. Revelation 16:14 (NW) tells of the demon-inspired propagandas that “go forth to the kings of the entire inhabited earth, to gather them together to the war of the great day of God the Almighty.” And verse 16 Re 16:16 adds: “And they gathered them together to the place that is called in Hebrew Har–Magedon.” The kings and rulers of earth are all gathered against the symbolic Armageddon, the place of Jehovah’s visible troops, God’s visible organization. There will be fought “the war of the great day of God the Almighty,” and, as is often the case with battles, it is known by the name of the place where it is fought, in this case, the battle of Armageddon.
The battle of Armageddon has not started yet. When the book speaks of our now being in the calm center or “eye of the hurricane” it is referring to hurricane tribulation that Jehovah had Christ start against Satan and his demons in heaven A.D. 1914 and which will end with their total defeat. The tribulation started A.D. 1914 and effected the pitching of Satan and his demons from heaven to the vicinity of earth, but it then abated, was cut short, to allow for the preaching of the good news of Christ’s established kingdom and the separation of the peoples of the nations into “sheep” and “goat” classes. We are now in this calm period. Armageddon, the hurricane’s climax, ends it.
Soon now the tribulation will take up again where it left off and finish the execution of judgment against Satan and his organization, visible and invisible. Then we shall be out of the “eye of the hurricane” and into the final part of the great tribulation likened to a windstorm or hurricane. It is only this final part of the tribulation, and not the first part, that is called Armageddon. It is the final part where Gog of Magog is lured forth to attack and to gather the visible nations against God’s visible organization, to have come upon him Jehovah’s destructive war of Armageddon. Satan was yet up in heaven when the first part of the tribulation came A.D. 1914, and that first part did not fulfill the Armageddon prophecy.
Before the decree bring forth, before the day pass as the chaff, before the fierce anger of Jehovah come upon you, before the day of Jehovah’s anger come upon you. Seek ye Jehovah, all ye meek of the earth, that have kept his ordinances; seek righteousness, seek meekness: it may be ye will be hid in the day of Jehovah’s anger.—Zeph. 2:2, 3, AS.