‘awful responsibility toward the Creator alone, wherefrom no man, no minister, no parliament, no people can relieve the sovereign.’ . . . ”b He built up a powerful, well-trained army in which he had great confidence: he also developed a mighty navy, including many untersee boats or submarines; he launched out on great commercial and colonial expansion of the German Reich. He extended the Reich’s influence to Turkey and Asia Minor, seeking a direct railroad route to the Persian Gulf. He built up German interests in the Far East, Africa and South America. Mischief afoot!

5. At what “one table” were the two kings seated, and what did they speak there?

⁵ Both kings became members of the Hague Court of International Arbitration. So presumably they were for peace between themselves and other nations, but hardly for “peace with God” or peace with his coming kingdom. What else could be expected but that they should “speak lies” diplomatically “at one table”? Not at the “table of Jehovah,” which is a table of truth, but at the “table of demons,” which is the table of “teachings of demons.” (1 Cor. 10:20, 21; 1 Tim. 4:1, 2, NW; RS; Mal. 1:7, 12, AS) However, this lying course of speech and conduct toward each other and toward Jehovah God and his Christ did not prosper into a peaceful world or toward any willing submission to the oncoming kingdom of God and of his Christ. It did not prosper for their perpetually holding on to political, commercial and military power, because the end of both “kings” is “yet for the time appointed” by Jehovah God.

6, 7. (a) How did the king of the north now “return into his land with great riches”? (b) The favor of what religious potentate did he win?

⁶ Having the king of the north in mind, Jehovah’s angel said to Daniel: “Then will he return into his land with great riches, and his heart will be against the holy covenant: and he will do it, and return to his own land.” (Dan. 11:28, Le) Kaiser Wilhelm returned to the land or earthly condition of the ancient king of the north by building up an absolutist imperial form of rule, for increasing the German Reich and extending its influence to all quarters. By this course “great riches” in many ways resulted to imperial Germany. He made Germany the chief part in a Triple Alliance or Dreibund made up of Austria-Hungary, Italy and Germany, with the favor of the pope of the Vatican. To quote an authority:

⁷ “Notably in maintaining the Triple Alliance, the emperor followed the policy of [Chancellor] Bismarck. . . . Bismarck’s [anti-Catholic] kulturkampf legacy William sagaciously disposed of through concessions which he turned to profit by making an implicit alliance of the Vatican and the German schools in his anti-revolutionary policies and by remodeling the schools themselves.”c

8. Which did the pope favor, the Triple Alliance or the Triple Entente, and why?

⁸ Since not only Italy but also Austria-Hungary was Roman Catholic and intimate with the Vatican pope, it was only to be expected that the pope would favor the Triple Alliance (Dreibund) against the king of the south and his Triple Entente of Protestant Britain, republican France and Russian Orthodox Czarist Russia.

9. How was this king of the north at heart “against the holy covenant”?

⁹ In the early days of the revived German Empire, in fact, from 1877 onward, Jehovah’s dedicated people of his “sanctuary” class were openly declaring in their publications that the Gentile times or “appointed times of the nations” would end in 1914. In that year the kingdom of God was to be fully established in the heavens to see that His will should be done on earth. This was in harmony with Jehovah’s covenant with King David for an everlasting Kingdom in the hands of his permanent Heir, Jesus Christ. (2 Sam. 7:12-16; Ps. 89:28-37; Luke 22:28, 29) Kaiser Wilhelm as well as the other worldly rulers treated the message of Jehovah’s sanctuary class concerning the end of the Gentile times in 1914 with contempt. Yet the Watch Tower Bible & Tract Society had had a vigorous branch office in Barmen-Elberfeld, Germany, since 1903. Undeniably the heart of the Germanic king of the north was against the holy Kingdom covenant of Jehovah God. The Kaiser’s plans were not for handing over the imperial sovereignty to Jesus Christ at his heavenly enthronement in 1914, the Kaiser thus to acknowledge him as the rightful Heir of the kingdom over all the earth. So he “did it” or acted with effect and returned to his own schemes of an earth dominated by the German Kaiser. By commercial rivalry and military buildup he sowed the seeds for hot war, World War I.

10. From 1870 onward, how did the question of world domination become a sizzling one?

¹⁰ The question of world domination was becoming a sizzling one. During the four decades from 1870, when the Franco-Prussian war began and the German Reich again sprouted, down to 1910 there was more headway made in the “European domination of the world” than during the four preceding centuries.d It was due to materialism! Already in 1895 Kaiser Wilhelm declarede that “the German Empire has become a world empire.” He mixed himself in with the Middle East, for, four years later, a group of German bankers got from the Turkish sultan a concession for building a railroad across Asiatic Turkey from the Straits of Bosporus, opposite Constantinople, southeastward to Baghdad in Mesopotamia (now Iraq). Looking to further imperial communications, he said: “Germany’s future lies upon the water.” The total tonnage of his navy became second only to that of Britain. The king of the south looked on nervously.

11. How was a world conflagration finally sparked, and how was it “at the time appointed”?

¹¹ With so much inflammable material piled up, it needed only a spark to touch off a world conflagration. It was struck—on June 28, 1914, by the assassination of Austrian Archduke Ferdinand and his wife in Bosnia, which Austria-Hungary, Germany’s ally, had annexed in 1908. The king of the north seized upon this to realize his scheme of world domination at the expense of the king of the south. Jehovah’s angel had said: “At the time appointed will he return, and enter into the south; but not as in the former will it be in the latter time.” (Dan. 11:29, Le) The “time appointed” was the year 1914, which God’s time schedule had marked for the 2,520 years of the “appointed times of the nations” to end in the fall of the year. At that time their allowance from Jehovah God to enjoy terrestrial rule without interference from God’s kingdom ended. That was “seven times” from 607 B.C., from the Gentile overturning of Jehovah’s typical kingdom in Jerusalem, the destruction of his typical sanctuary in that city, and the desolating of the kingdom realm of Judah.—2 Chron. 36:17-21; Luke 21:24.

12. For what to be restored was it the time in the fall of 1914?

¹² In the fall of 1914, therefore, was Jehovah’s appointed time for his kingdom to be restored, not on earth at Jerusalem, but up in heaven at his right hand where his Son, Jesus Christ, had sat waiting for his enemies to be made his footstool.—Ps. 110:1; Heb. 10:12, 13.

13. At the Kingdom’s establishment in 1914, did the nations of Christendom share the gladness of the “twenty-four elders”?

¹³ In 1914, were the nations of “Christendom” glad that the time was at hand for the kingdom of God to be fully set up, as proclaimed by Jehovah’s people of the “sanctuary” class? The symbolic twenty-four elders seated before God upon their thrones were glad and said: “We thank you, Jehovah God, the Almighty, the one who is and who was, because you have taken your great power and begun ruling as king.” But prophecy said that the worldly nations would not be glad: “But the nations became wrathful, and your own wrath came, and the appointed time . . . to bring to ruin those ruining the earth.” (Rev. 11:16-18) Even before the “seven times” expired in the fall of 1914 the nations put themselves in no condition to hail and accept the then-to-be-restored kingdom of God.

14. How did the king of the north “return, and enter into the south” in 1914?

¹⁴ Austria-Hungary, having had her heir to the royal throne murdered, declared war on Serbia on July 28. Her partner in the Dreibund, Germany, backed her up and declared war upon Russia on August 1, then upon France on August 3. The next day the king of the south, through Britain, declared war upon Germany. Italy, a member of the Dreibund, declared neutrality, but joined the king of the south in war the following year. Turkey and Bulgaria joined Germany. After that Britain took over Egypt as her protectorate, to block the troops of the Kaiser and of Turkey in Palestine from cutting off the Suez Canal and invading Egypt, the ancient land of the king of the south. Britain being now in control of Egypt, the king of the south now represented the system of liberal democracy or constitutional rule, together with free, capitalistic enterprise.

15. For the king of the north, how was it “in the latter time” not as “in the former”?

¹⁵ Thus for the autocratic king of the north in this “latter time,” in 1914, it was not “as in the former” time when he was the Roman imperial world power, the sixth world power of Bible history. In this “latter time” the second-rate king of the north had to face the king of the south, who was holding the role of the seventh world power, the greatest of the seven world powers. Not only that, but from about October 1, 1914, the king of the north had to face also the restored kingdom of Jehovah God ruling in the heavens for universal domination.

(To be continued)

Questions From Readers

● What is the meaning of the illustration appearing on page 220 of the book “Your Will Be Done on Earth”?—B. T., U.S.A.

This picture illustrates the theme of chapter ten, The North Against the South. The South is pictured by the pyramids, which are associated with and stand for Egypt, the king of the South. The North is pictured by a Syrian shepherd, as Syrians were great sheep herders and Syria played the part of the king of the North.

● In the New World Translation of the Hebrew Scriptures “Jehovah” is listed as YHWH. Should it not be YHVH?—B. Y., U.S.A.

It is rendered this way in the New World Translation, instead of “Y H V H,” because the Jewish letter, the third one in the name, is pronounced like a “W” instead of like a “V.” This fact is shown up in that some translators render the divine name into English as “Yahweh” instead of “Jahveh.”