renia -
The media have hyped up the differences between Russia and Britain to make the story newsworthy and grab the headlines.
The Russians depend too much on trade with the West to start a nuclear war just because Britain claims one of their agents committed murder in London.
When the jumbo jet was shot down over North Korea, America did not set off world war 3.
Britain is not likely to nuke the country that supplies Europe with most of its natural gas.
In no way does any of this this fit with any defunct interpretation the Bible as claimed by the Witchtower.
In the 1800s the Bible students said that the time of the end began in 1799, and that Daniels prophecy had been fulfilled by France conquering much of Europe very quickly. As the scripture says "the King of the North will FLOOD OVER." (Dan11:40) of course the Society now applies another verse to Napoleon Bonaparte no more convincingly.
Prior to WW1 the Bible Students interpreted the "pushing" between the Kings of the north and South as the arms race between Britain and Germany, each seeking to outdo the other in size of battleships and superior fire power.
This was quietly forgotten until the 1930s, when Hitler began building up his armies, and the rest of the world started scrambling to rearm. Now this was the fulfilment of Daniels prophecy. now the "flooding over" was Hitler rapidly conquering much of Europe.
Then came the 50s and now the "cold war" was the meaning of the same prophecy. With the "flooding over" meaning the rapid enslavement of so many countries behind the Iron curtain which descended across Europe in 1946.
I have seen too many chops and changes, flips and flops to give the Witlesses interpretation of Bible prophecies credibility. In any case, with reference to Daniel, any good textbook can show how the prophecies actually apply to the events surrounding Jerusalem at the time it was written - which is LONG after the mid-500s BC.
I think everybody feels the future is uncertain and nothing guaranteed. This is why prophecies, astrology, tarot, palmistry and other forms of fortune telling are so popular.
The WT whips up peoples fears, and then injects their brand of prophecy to help ally those. Certainly, prophetic delusions of never dying if you were alive in 1914/ 1874/1925/1942/1975 are very comforting, until the WT pulls the rug from under you as they did last Sunday.
HB
