The big news at the annual corporate meeting was probably the sudden realization that Gog of
Magog was some group of nations. The news was given by Geoffrey Jackson. As is usually the
case with NEW LIGHT they start out discussing the OLD LIGHT. In this case the Watchtower
has left a consistent trail interpreting Gog of Magog as representing the Devil. The question with
all these adjusted explanations is why Jehovah would allow his people to be misled in the first
place. Since the Bible never says Gog of Magog is the Devil what’s the advantage of making or
allowing these “servers of spiritual food”to believe that?
We can be pretty sure that no angels are delivering these new insights to the Watchtower’s
writers. Something significant had to happen that made them change their view. We saw the
same thing with the discovery of the Great Crowd when it became obvious that the number of
JW’s got too large. The same thing happened with the 1914 generation explanation. In 1994 it
was obvious that those old enough to understand world events were part of an almost extinct
group. So what happened to bring up this new understanding of Gog of Magog?
What is obvious on the world’s stage? It is the return of the hostilities between Russia and the
United States. The old King of the North vs. King of the South scenario. Jackson kept referring
to the similarities between Gog of Magog and the King of the North. Finally he dramatically
raised the question “So who is the King of the North?” The audience reacted to this question
with an anticipatory audible buzz. Just the reaction Jackson was hoping for. He followed this up
by saying “We can’t be sure - yet.” And then he raised expectations that when they get it figured
out they will make it known. Or maybe they are waiting for brother Freddy Franz to speak to
them across the curtain in the most holy and reveal who the King of the North and Gog of Magog
really is.
They will probably defend their confusion over the King of the North because it cleared the way
for hundreds of thousands of new JW’s in Russia and its former republics. If they maintained the
stance that the King of the North was Russia they would have risked the work coming under a
ban. How could they be allowed to freely carry on their work and talk about Russia being the
evil King of the North? To be sure they don’t want to be too quick to send out the message that
Putin’s Russia is the King of the North that goes forth in a great rage to “annihilate and devote
many to destruction.”