• From Kurukshetra to Armageddon—and Your Survival
    From Kurukshetra to Armageddon—And Your Survival

    • HISTORICAL PREVIEW OF ARMAGEDDON

      23. What historical event provides a preview of Armageddon?

      23 History provides us with a preview of what to expect at Armageddon. This foreglimpse of God’s approaching war was the great Deluge of Noah’s Age. Throughout the world there are more than 90 different stories of a historical global flood. Among Hindus, this is known as the Jalapralaya. Jal means “water,” and pralaya denotes “dissolution”—hence, a “dissolution by water.” It is believed that all living creatures perished in the Jalapralaya. However, Manu found favour with his god and was given divine warning to build a ship to save himself and seven other rishis (sages), a total of eight persons. After his ship settled on a northern mountain, the flood subsided and Manu emerged to perform the first sacrifice to his god in this present yuga. Manu is also believed to be mankind’s first lawgiver. In fact, various Hindu myths assert that the progenitor of each successive race of humans was named Manu.

      24, 25. What similarities exist between the Biblical Deluge and the Hindu flood tradition?

      24 One Hindu version says it was the god Vishnu who warned and preserved Manu. Interestingly, the name Vishnu without the digamma is Ish-nuh, which in Chaldee means “the man Noah,” or “the man of rest.” Hindu tradition has Vishnu ‘resting’ or sleeping on a coiled snake called Shesha, floating on an ocean. Shesha means “remainder,” and according to careful researchers, Shesha represents the ‘residue’ of the universe after its destruction at the end of an age. Clearly, this myth alludes to the Bible’s historical record of the Deluge and the ark of preservation with its occupants.

      25 The legendary individuals embodied in Manu—as surviving the Jalapralaya, being the progenitor of the present race, the first lawgiver, and performing the first religious sacrifice after the flood—are a logical confirmation of some events in the life of the Biblical Noah. (Compare Genesis 6:8, 13-22; 8:4, Ge 8:18–9:7; 10:32.) Moreover, the Hindu account of the Jalapralaya agrees with some major features of the inspired Scriptural record, namely (1) a place of refuge for a few survivors, (2) an otherwise global destruction of life by water and (3) a seed of mankind preserved.

      26. (a) How does the Bible describe earth’s conditions prior to the Flood? (b) What circumstances are similar, with regard both to history’s great Deluge and to God’s war of Armageddon?

      26 Of this historical preview of Armageddon, the Bible says: “For just as the days of Noah were, so the presence of the Son of man will be. For as they were in those days before the flood, eating and drinking, men marrying and women being given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark; and they took no note until the flood came and swept them all away, so the presence of the Son of man will be.” (Matthew 24:37-39) So the circumstances relating to the end of our world order at Armageddon will be similar to those associated with the ancient Deluge. They will be: (1) The planet Earth and its animal life will survive; (2) the significance of our times is missed by most people through preoccupation with the normal processes of life; (3) the majority of mankind take no note of the divine warning of Armageddon; (4) hence the majority of mankind will be destroyed at Armageddon; and (5) only a small minority of mankind will find favour with God and survive the “war of the great day of God the Almighty.” (Revelation 16:14)