“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!”
It had been nearly 2,000 years since Jehovah had originally made the
covenant with Abraham for the purpose of eventually producing a
messianic seed for the blessing of all the nations. In spite of the
apostles’ many unfounded expectations regarding the kingdom, on the
occasion of Jesus’ baptism and anointing the kingdom of God really had drawn near.
“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.” And
what far-reaching effects that bold proclamation has had upon the
modern movement of Jehovah’s Witnesses! Since that announcement almost
100 years ago, the faith of Jehovah’s Witnesses has been made to revolve
around the core belief that Jesus Christ began ruling in his heavenly
kingdom back in 1914. The Watchtower has since then sponsored the
proclamation—“Jehovah himself has become king”!
“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?
“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!”
“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.
“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?’
“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.
“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!
“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.
“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.
“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.
"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.
“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:
“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”?
“I am a god. In the seat of god I have seated myself, in the heart of the open sea”
-Ezekiel 28:2-
Just
as all the nations of the earth are likened to symbolic trees planted
in the Garden of Eden, Jehovah’s forest of treelike nations has an
appointed overseer, as did Eden originally. The overseer of nations in
Ezekiel’s prophecy is the king of Tyre, of whom Ezekiel 28:13-14 says: “In Eden, the garden of God, you proved to be…You are the anointed cherub that is covering.”
“And
the wild beast that was but is not, it is also itself an eighth king,
but springs from the seven, and it goes off into destruction.”
-Revelation 17:11-
It
is no exaggeration that the present global financial crisis poses the
gravest threat to the peace and security of the world since the Great
Depression and the Anglo-American duo sit at ground zero of what could
become the complete collapse of the entire economic and political
system. Confronted with that stark reality it is more than timely to
give consideration to the 13th and 17th chapters of Revelation, which
preview the sudden and unexpected death of the present political powers.
Specifically, Revelation 13:3, reads: “And
I saw one of its heads as though slaughtered to death, but its
death-stroke got healed, and all the earth followed the wild beast with
admiration."
“O Jehovah, for a judgment you have set it; and, O Rock, for a reproving you have founded it.”
-Habakkuk 1:12-
The vision of Habakkuk opens with a series of questions the prophet directs to God, asking: “How
long, O Jehovah, must I cry for help, and you do not hear? How long
shall I call to you for aid from violence, and you do not save? Why is
it that you make me see what is hurtful, and you keep looking upon mere
trouble? And why are despoiling and violence in front of me, and why
does quarreling occur, and why is strife carried?”
“What
was left by the caterpillar, the locust has eaten; and what was left by
the locust, the creeping, unwinged locust has eaten; and what the
creeping, unwinged locust has left, the cockroach has eaten.” -Joel
1:4-
Swarming
insects can be one of the most devastating natural forces on earth. A
flying army of locusts can be as thick as a thundercloud—darkening the
sky as they descend upon a ripened field—reducing it to mere stubble in a
matter of minutes. In ancient times, and even today, the locust plague
is the farmer’s most dreaded natural phenomenon.
“My
heart is boisterous within me. I cannot keep silent, for the sound of
the horn is what my soul has heard, the alarm signal of war. Crash upon
crash is what has been called out, for the whole land has been
despoiled.”
-Jeremiah 4:19-20-
A
great crash is bearing down from the land of the north and Jehovah
himself has set it into motion. The ruthless army of Babylon is like an
onward sweeping tempest; a terrible juggernaut, crushing everything in
its path. Blow the horn! Sound the alarm! Take cover! —“Look!
A people is coming from the land of the north, and there is a great
nation that will be awakened from the remotest parts of the earth. The
bow and the javelin they will grab hold of. It is a cruel one, and they
will have no pity. Their very voice will resound just like the sea, and
upon horses they will ride. It is drawn up in battle order like a man of
war against you, O daughter of Zion.” (Jeremiah 6:22-23)
