From Eliyahu
Consider this:
With the world getting
so crazy and dangerous, people of faith are wondering about the Great
Tribulation. They wonder: Is this it? Could it have started already? If not,
how will I know when it has started? This uncertainty is a source of anxiety
for a lot of people these days. This need not be so. The Scriptures pinpoint
an unmistakable event that will trigger the Great Tribulation. That event
has not happened yet, but it is getting closer, and likely will happen this
decade. If you know what to look for, when you see it you will know with
certainty that the Great Tribulation has started.
The event that triggers
the Great Tribulation is included in the prophecy of Daniel chapters 10 -
12. This event should be easy to identify. Chapter 11 details events having to do with a rivalry between
the "King of the North" and the "King of the South." The
Tribulation Trigger has to do with these two powers. The problem is
that these two kings
have been a particularly frequent source of confusion and arguments among
Bible scholars, teachers and writers.
For example,
Albert Barnes, commenting on "the king of the North" of Daniel 11:36 says;
"This refers, it seems to me, beyond question, to Antiochus Epiphanes."
Of the same king of the
North in the same verse, John Gill comments: "Not Antiochus..."
Meanwhile, Believer's
Bible Commentary calls this same king "The Antichrist."
JFB Commentary
combines those views, saying, "the willful king here, though
primarily Antiochus, is antitypically and mainly Antichrist."
Back in the 60s
Christian teachers and writers, due to cold-war hostilities, began making a
new case, for Russia and the United States fulfilling the "King of the North"
and "King of the South" roles. Hal Lindsey's The Late Great Planet Earth
popularized this view, and it became pretty standard in Evangelical circles.
Prophecy interpretation makes for strange bed-fellows, as even the Jehovah's Witnesses
adopted this view, which they still hold. For example, on their website, JW.Org, they state: "Russia and its allies emerged as the king of the
north .. competing with the king of the south, the Anglo-American World
Power." One wonders how groups so different as Evangelical Christians
and Jehovah's Witnesses could arrive at and agree on essentially the same
interpretation, an interpretation so obviously wrong.
