Posted by Question --ros [ros] on April 08, 1999 at 21:38:41 {vxsc0.TBNkdmhhsMJ.h27/SY5I9NtE}:
In Reply to: ***Will U B Part of 'New Earth'? posted by Friend on April 08, 1999 at 13:52:28:
Friend:
I understand your indignation about You Know. Nevertheless, what he describes about Armageddon is pretty close to what I remember we expected it to be like. Does your expectation of Armageddon differ from You Know's description? If so, how? Is it what he describes that you disagree with, or just the heartless, gloating manner in which he expresses it? Consider:
31 This everlasting destruction is pictured in the fact that they are given no burial, but are left on the battlefield like dung, like putrefying organic matter for birds of offal to feast upon, at the invitation of God's angel "standing in the sun." (Rev. 19:17, 18) That this gory feast of such birds acting as scavengers may be pictured, the kings of the earth and their armies and attendants are not pictured as being "hurled into the fiery lake that burns with sulphur" along with the wild beast and the false prophet. But neither is it said that Ha'des or Sheol claims them. Instead, they become like those criminals whose dead bodies were cast into Gehenna for the maggots to feed on their fleshy parts. (Mark 9:43-48) They are executed by Jehovah God through his executional officer, Jesus Christ, at Armageddon, and for this reason they will have no resurrection from the dead.
--The Watchtower, March 1, 1965, page 150The Great Evening Meal of God
20 In Ezekiel's vision, after the destruction of Gog's crowd, the birds and the wild animals are invited to a feast! They rid the landscape of carcasses by eating the dead bodies of Jehovah's enemies. . . .
21 The angel is "standing in the sin," a commanding position for attracting the attention of the birds. He invites them to be ready to gorge themselves on the flesh of those about to be slain by the Warrior-King and his heavenly armies. The fact that the dead are to be left on the surface of the ground indicates that they will die in public shame. . . . This is "the great evening meal of God," since it is Jehovah who invites the birds to share therein.
Ros