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New World Society Attacked from the Far NorthThe Watchtower—1953 | October 1
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New World Society Attacked from the Far North
“Say unto Gog, Thus saith the Lord Jehovah: In that day when my people Israel dwelleth securely, shalt thou not know it? And thou shalt come from thy place out of the uttermost parts of the north.”—Ezek. 38:14, 15, AS.
THE time gets nearer when all nations will witness a demonstration of power such as mankind has never witnessed in all its thousands of years of existence. It will be a sudden manifestation of overwhelming power from behind an outward appearance of weakness. Although meeting the combined strength of the nations when at its maximum, it will put them to everlasting shame and contempt. The more marvelous it will be because it will be in behalf of those who are apparently helpless and who have no physical might against those nations, when these attack them. It will expose a mighty foe who long has gone under a mystical name and whose identity was therefore a mystery. It will be a display of the devastating power of the only one able to cope with this foe and will win eternal glory for his name. It will exalt him to the highest in the estimation of all who are privileged to live through this awesome exhibition of divine power. It will have a lasting effect in behalf of the righteous, peaceful world for life in which a New World society is now being formed on earth. Shortly this society may expect to be the object of the attack by this terrible foe, but also to be witnesses to his defeat by their invincible God and to survive into the blessed new world.
2 If an attack upon a peaceable, inoffensive, benevolent society was so important as to be foretold over two thousand five hundred years ago, it is more important for us to consider the attack now when it is about to be made. The attacker was foretold under the name of Gog.a It was Jehovah God who tagged this violent attacker with this cryptic name. Ever since, Bible students have puzzled over the application of the name. Now that the time has approached for us either to stand up against the attack as a member of the New World society or else to become enmeshed in the organization of attack, it is advisable for us to examine the features of this foe and identify who it is, while we look to the Giver and Interpreter of prophecy for guidance to the identification. It is really the obligation of the New World society to do this, because they must take up a stirring prophecy from the pages of God’s Word and pronounce it against Gog in this critical time. As it is written: “The word of the LORD [Jehovah] came to me, saying, ‘O mortal man, set your face toward Gog, of the land of Magog, the great prince of Meshech and Tubal, and prophesy against him, and say, “Thus says the Lord GOD [Jehovah].”’”—Ezek. 38:1-3, AT.
3 The New World society has long been associated with the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society, which has been interested in the subject of Gog for years and has sought to understand it. Back in 1897 the Watch Tower Society published the fourth volume of the Studies in the Scriptures, first entitled “The Day of Vengeance” and later given a change of title to “The Battle of Armageddon.” In chapter eleven this book set forth that the nation of Israel restored to the land of Palestine would be the object of Gog’s attack, and, on page 554, it said: “Israel will finally be besieged by hosts of merciless plunderers, designated by the prophet as the hosts of Gog and Magog (Ezek. 38), and great will be the distress of defenceless Israel.” Over thirty years later the Bible prophecies were examined further in the light of events since A.D. 1914, to reveal that, not the Israelites according to the flesh, but the Christians who are Israelites inwardly, spiritual Israelites, are the people destined to be the target of Gog’s attack from the far north. In 1932 the Watch Tower Society published Book Two of a series entitled “Vindication.” This book took up part of Ezekiel’s prophecy and, without wanting to be dogmatic on Gog’s identity, page 311 set forth this conclusion about him: “Gog is one of the princes in Satan’s organization, invisible, of course, to human eyes, with a possibility of the power to materialize in human form. The land of Magog pictures the spiritual or invisible realm of Satan, and includes Gog and all the wicked angels within his division of Satan’s organization, and which ‘bear rule over all the earth’.” Since then twenty-one years have passed and much prophecy clarifying the Holy Scriptures has been fulfilled meantime; and is our conclusion today the same as the above? For a factual and Scriptural answer the following article should be read.
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The Attack by Gog of MagogThe Watchtower—1953 | October 1
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The Attack by Gog of Magog
1. What does the Bible disclose concerning Satan’s invisible organization, and how is Satan symbolized in Revelation to harmonize with that disclosure?
THE Holy Bible reveals many marvelous things to us about the invisible realm of spirit persons. It discloses that Satan the Devil has an invisible organization of demons and that there are spirit princes in it. Daniel’s prophecy reveals that there was one such spirit prince in unseen charge of the Persian empire, when it dominated the world, and also that there was a spirit prince in charge of the rising power of Greece, which was to overthrow Persia and succeed it as the dominant world power. (Daniel, chapter 10) The Bible’s last book, Revelation, indicates that up to a certain date there would be seven such world powers having to do with Jehovah’s witnesses, these, in the order of their rise to dominance, being (1) Egypt, (2) Assyria, (3) Babylon, (4) Medo-Persia, (5) Greece, (6) Rome, and (7) the Anglo-American world power of today. According to what Daniel’s prophecy suggests, each of these seven world powers has had a spirit prince in secret charge of it. In Revelation Satan the Devil, their ruler, is pictured as a great fiery-red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns and upon its heads seven diadems. Thus the fact that Satan the Devil has headship over the seven princes of the seven world powers is pictured in that the great dragon in heaven has seven diademed heads. According to the facts of history, headship over Gog is not pictured in any of the dragon’s seven heads.
2. When did a change in the position of the Dragon and his spirit princes come, and how?
2 Of course, that was while the symbolic Dragon was still up in heaven. Then came A.D. 1914, a year of war not only for the earth but also for the invisible heavens, because that year Jehovah God enthroned the newborn kingdom of his Son Jesus Christ and “war broke out in heaven.” The Dragon and its angels fought against the Kingdom but did not hold onto even a bridgehead in heaven. “So down the great dragon was hurled, the original serpent, the one called Devil and Satan, who is misleading the entire inhabited earth; he was hurled down to the earth, and his angels were hurled down with him.” (Rev. 12:7-9, NW) Thus the seven spirit princes were cast down, the Dragon’s headship over whom was indicated by its seven diademed heads.
3, 4. (a) How is Satan’s organization symbolized, and how its latest dominant member? (b) How is the League of Nations pictured, and do the Dragon and the wild beast develop each an eighth head because of it?
3 The Dragon has a visible organization, of which the seven world powers have been dominant members. This entire visible organization is pictured as a wild beast, it too having seven heads, to correspond with those dominant world powers. This wild beast came up out of the sea. But upon the scene another wild beast appears, rising out of the earth. Its one head has two horns like a lamb’s. After performing great signs it recommends making an image of the seven-headed wild beast for mankind’s worship.
4 Briefly, the two-horned beast out of the earth pictures the two-membered world power of one speech today, the Anglo-American world power. The image that this Anglo-American world power took the lead in recommending was the League of Nations, today the United Nations. In Revelation, chapter seventeen, this League of Nations or United Nations is itself pictured as a wild beast of scarlet color and with seven heads, upon which the prostitute woman Babylon the Great sits as rider. That seven-headed wild beast really results from the preceding seven world powers, but it acts like an eighth king or world power. It is so spoken of in these words: “And the wild beast that was [before World War II] but is not [during World War II], it is also itself an eighth king, but owes its existence to the seven, and it goes off into destruction.” (Rev. 17:8, 11, NW) In view of this eighth world power, the question now is, Did the seven-headed wild beast from the sea grow another head and become eight-headed? Did Satan the Devil then appoint an eighth spirit prince to supervise the League of Nations (now the United Nations) and thus did the great Dragon add another head to its seven? The Divine Record does not say so. When the Dragon is finally cast into the abyss at Armageddon and the wild beast from the sea is cast into destruction in the lake of fire, they are still understood as having each the same number of heads as before, just seven.—Rev. 19:19, 20.
5. In the relations between the seventh world power and the League beast, what fact does away with any need of an eighth demon prince? And so who still dominates?
5 One fact we must remember: The League beast or eighth world power is really under the seventh world power, for it was this Anglo-American combine that designed and then put breath of life into the League beast. Hence this eighth world-power beast is actually under the unseen control of the spirit prince of the seventh world power. This fact would do away with any need of an eighth demon prince. Despite the existence of the League or United Nations or along with its existence, the seventh world power and its spirit prince wield just as much power in Satan’s world as before the great Dragon was ejected from heaven and before the League of Nations was formed. Consequently there exists no eighth demon prince for the seventh prince to have a rivalry with or to be succeeded by. Such would be the case if Gog were a new and eighth spirit prince newly raised to power to act as Satan’s chief of staff on the battlefield of Armageddon. Since World War I Britain itself may have weakened, but her horn of power today is reinforced by the atomic bomb, and her partner America has become the world’s most powerful nation. In view of this fact the seventh world-power prince would still dominate in Satan’s unseen organization.
6. How do the mouths out of which the frogs hop show there is no eighth spirit prince, but where, nevertheless, do we locate Gog?
6 This seventh world power becomes the “false prophet” of Revelation (16:13; 19:20; 20:10), and when we see frogs hop out to croak and urge the world rulers on to Armageddon, what? It is not out of the mouth of the eighth world power or “image of the wild beast” that a frog hops, but it is out of the mouth of the “false prophet” and out of the mouth of the wild beast from the sea with still only seven heads. (Rev. 16:13-16) So there is visibly nothing on earth for any eighth spirit prince to be represented by in Bible symbolisms. Hence the suggestion of twenty years ago that Gog was an eighth demon prince is now seen to be without proof. However, that suggestion was leading us in the right direction for locating Gog, namely, in the spirit world and not in the visible earthly, human society. Therefore Gog still represents, not a visible human ruler or nation, such as Russia, but a spirit ruler. Whom, then, does Gog symbolize?
IDENTIFIED
7. Of whom, then, is Gog a prophetic figure, and when, and where?
7 It is evident now that Gog is a figure prophetic of the ruler of all seven demon princes, namely, Satan the Devil. So Gog pictures that original Serpent, the Dragon, not when up in heaven but when down here at the earth. That is to say, after he has been cast out of heaven and been restrained at the earth with his seven demon princes. Thus Gog pictures Satan during the short period of time that he has left between the end of the war in heaven and the battle of Armageddon. After his ejection from heaven Satan the Dragon is angry with God’s woman who gave birth to the Kingdom. So it is the Dragon that goes forth to make war upon the “remaining ones of her seed” who observe God’s commandments and have the work of bearing witness to Jesus. It is the Dragon out of whose mouth the frog hops to gather the world rulers to Armageddon. It is the seven-headed Dragon itself that takes charge of the final attack and the ensuing war at Armageddon.—Rev. 12:7-17; 16:13.
8. Whom does Jehovah use to crush the Serpent’s head, and what, if anything, does this argue for Satan’s using an eighth spirit prince at Armageddon? Why?
8 True, Jehovah God does use Jesus Christ to fight as his chief of staff at Armageddon. But why is that so? Because Jehovah had foretold that, because the Serpent misled our first parents into sin in Eden, the Seed of God’s woman would bruise the great Serpent at the head. At Armageddon Jehovah has Jesus Christ, the woman’s Seed, do the crushing. (Gen. 3:15; Rom. 16:20) This would not, however, call for Satan to mimic God in this respect and appoint a new, untried demon prince to fight as his chief of staff at Armageddon. The Dragon, having already tried out a full set of seven demon princes, now assumes charge personally to face Christ on the field. He now knows that Christ is the
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