Chapter 1 - THE TRUTH

“You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” 

-Jesus Christ-

  Imagine the excitement it generated when Jesus caused the startling announcement to herald throughout the land: “The kingdom of the heavens has drawn near!”

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Chapter 2 - THE GENTILE TIMES

“Brother Russell…recognized that the year 1914 would mark the end of the Gentile Times… He urged others to check his writings carefully against God’s inspired Word so that they would be satisfied that what they were learning was in full harmony with it.”

- Jehovah’s Witnesses’ Kingdom Proclaimers –

On October 2nd, 1914, the Founder of the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, Charles Taze Russell, confidently strode into the Bethel dining hall and made the starling announcement to the headquarters staff: “The Gentile times have ended; their kings have had their day.”

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Chapter 3 - THE HARVEST

“The harvest is a conclusion of a system of things, and the reapers are angels.” 

- Jesus Christ -

With or without the seven-times chronology, Jehovah’s Witnesses are absolutely convinced that the time of the end and the foretold concluding harvest commenced in 1914.

However, this chapter more closely examines some dearly held erroneous assumptions and the implications of a future harvest period. What is the harvest?

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Chapter 4 - THE JUDGMENT

“Mankind has entered a period of judgment…a judgment of professed Christian organizations that has been apparent since ‘the last days’ got under way with the slaughter of World War I.”

 -April 1, 1996, Watchtower- 

A few months after being immersed in the waters of the Jordan by John the Baptizer, Jesus undertook his first sojourn to Jerusalem as the Messiah. Upon arriving for the passover festival Jesus went into the temple courtyard and threw out the merchants and overturned the tables of the moneychangers who had set up shop there, saying to them: “Take these things away from here! Stop making the house of my Father a house of merchandise!” 

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Chapter 5 - THE PAROUSIA

“And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone as the sun, and his outer garments became brilliant as the light.”

- Matthew 17:2- 

 Since the appointed times of the nations clearly do not relate to the original destruction of Jerusalem by Babylon there is simply no validity in the Watchtower’s seven-times chronological formula anchored to 607 BCE. It is also demonstrably not true that the harvest of the kingdom wheat and the incineration of the weeds has already been accomplished or that the judgment of the spiritual house of God took place in 1918. 

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Chapter 6 - THE SIGN

“But the most important date for all human creation is 1914, for that marked the greatest turning point in all human history…”

-Watchtower, May 15, 1960 –

 When confronted with the facts already presented concerning the falsity of the 1914 parousia doctrine, many of Jehovah’s Witnesses may be inclined to reason along lines similar to this: ‘Perhaps there are some aspects of the Watchtower’s 1914 doctrine that are not yet in focus, but surely the sign of Christ’s presence has been in evidence since 1914?’

This chapter will more closely examine the evidence presented. The central feature of the sign is very simple, as Jesus said: “For nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be food shortages and earthquakes in one place after another. All these things are a beginning of pangs of distress.”

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Chapter 7 - THE TEMPEST

“Look! A calamity is going forth from nation to nation, and a great tempest itself will be roused up from the remotest parts of the earth.”

 –Jeremiah 25:32 –

 When Charles Taze Russell formed the original Allegheny Bible study group in 1874 it had been less than a decade since the American Civil War had ended. To put things into some perspective, at that time the last wave of the westward-heading pioneers were still plodding across the open prairie in ox and horse drawn covered wagons and wars were still being waged using muskets, bayonets and iron cannon balls. When the Watchtower originally began publishing its message to the world it was still more than a decade before the first crude “horseless carriages” would appear on city streets and country lanes. And the Wright brothers had not even launched the era of aviation when the first International Bible Students in America and Europe began to anticipate the great and fearful sights that Jesus foretold would appear in the heavens as a sign. 

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Chapter 8 - WHO IS BLIND?

“Who is blind as the one rewarded, or blind as the servant of Jehovah?”

- Isaiah 42:19 -

 Just imagine the wonderful privilege that the apostles had of personally associating with Jesus on a daily basis; traveling with him; being with him on social occasions and listening to him masterfully silence the Pharisees and other critics. What an honor to be able to ask Jesus any question that they might have on their mind and he would answer! 

When Jesus gave the most inspiring sermon ever given—the Sermon on the Mount—they were there. 

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Chapter 9 - SPIRITUAL PARADISE

“However, think of the spiritual paradise that we now enjoy. Compared with the sick condition that we once were in, we have been healed spiritually.”

 - October 15, 2004, Watchtower -

 Nowhere is the spiritual blindness foretold in Isaiah more painfully apparent than in the persistent belief that a spiritual paradise presently exists among Jehovah’s Witnesses. While the exact expression “spiritual paradise” is not found in the Bible, the concept of a trouble-free, Edenic, spiritual haven certainly is. However, what exactly is it? This chapter will examine that question along with the Watchtower’s claim that Jehovah’s Witnesses are currently living in the spiritual paradise the Bible describes. 

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Chapter 10 - MAN OF LAWLESSNESS

“Let no one seduce you in any manner, because it will not come unless the apostasy comes first and the man of lawlessness gets revealed, the son of destruction.”

 – Apostle Paul –

Faithful Christians in the apostolic era were in a high state of expectation of the return of their Lord. After all, Jesus and the apostles repeatedly exhorted believers to be watchful and ready for his return. That made them especially vulnerable, though, to the wiles of apostates who falsely claimed that the resurrection had already begun and that the day of Jehovah was imminent. 

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Chapter 11 - STRANGE BEDFELLOWS

“An old saying is: ‘Politics makes strange bedfellows’ ...But when something threatens their way of operation… they join forces with erstwhile rivals or even enemies and distastefully work together” 

– Watchtower March 15, 1967—

It is true—politics does make strange bedfellows. And religion and politics makes even stranger bedfellows. Nowhere is that more evident than in the absurd political partnership between the professedly “politically neutral” Watchtower and the purported “disgusting thing”—the United Nations. It is so incredible, even when informed of the matter many of Jehovah’s Witnesses simply refuse to believe that the Watchtower could ever have made such a compromising alliance. But it did.  What follows are the facts of the strange affair. 

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C12 - COLLAPSE OF THE WATCHTOWER

"Therefore for you this error will become like a broken section about to fall down, a swelling out in a highly raised wall…”

 – Isaiah 30 –

The Second Coming of Jesus Christ may perhaps be the most anticipated event in the history of the world and also, paradoxically, the most misunderstood. While Jehovah’s Witnesses do not use the term “the second coming,” in his letter to the Hebrews the apostle Paul used a similar expression, saying: “The second time that he appears.” In so doing, the apostle was comparing and contrasting certain features of Christ’s first and second appearance in the world. And as discussed in chapter five, a second appearance of Christ would seem to suggest a visible rather than an invisible parousia. 

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Chapter 13 - KING OF THE NORTH

 

“In the time of the end the king of the south will engage with him in a pushing, and against him the king of the north will storm”

 - Daniel 11:40 -

 Since the disintegration of the Soviet Union almost twenty years ago Jehovah’s Witnesses have been somewhat at a loss as to the identity of the prophetic king of the north. Here is what the Watchtower has stated on this issue:

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Chapter 14 - DOWNFALL OF AMERICA

“A day belonging to Jehovah is near. A day of clouds, an appointed time of nations it will prove to be.”

 - Ezekiel 30:3 –

 The world now stands at the brink of one of the most shocking events in history. What may be deemed by many today to be very unlikely, even unthinkable, will become tomorrow’s bold-cap headlines. It will take place because the Sovereign Lord Jehovah has decreed it; for the “event” will herald the very commencement of the fear-inspiring day of Jehovah. According to Ezekiel, that day will be a dark time for the peoples of the world, “a day of clouds, an appointed time of nations it will prove to be.” 

What exactly is the “appointed time of nations”? 

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