Commentary on the Daily Text of Jehovah’s Witnesses

Friday, June 16

The king finds pleasure in a servant who acts with insight.Prov. 14:35.

It is an honor to be allowed by Jehovah to contribute to the beauty of our spiritual paradise. We do that by zealously preaching the Kingdom good news and making more disciples. Each time we help a person progress to Christian dedication, we have worked to extend the borders of the spiritual paradise. (Isa. 26:15; 54:2) We can also enhance the beauty of our spiritual paradise by steadily improving our own Christian personality. In that way, we make this paradise more appealing to onlookers. More than even Bible knowledge, it is often our chaste, peaceful conduct that initially draws people to the organization and in turn to God and to Christ. How pleased Jehovah and Jesus must be when they observe our beautiful spiritual paradise today! The enjoyment we have now in working to enhance its beauty is but a foretaste of the joy we will have later in working to make the earth a physical paradise.


Jehovah’s Witnesses are laboring under a deluding influence. That in itself does not necessarily disqualify them from doing God’s work, after all, the apostles were similarly deluded as regards Christ’s destiny and the very nature of the Kingdom. They were not disabused of their folly until after Jesus was resurrected and appeared to them, rebuking them on numerous occasions. (Who Is Blind?) Even at that, the closing words of the gospel of Matthew reveals that up to the moment of his ascension to heaven, even then, some doubted.

It is not particularly surprising then, that even the most knowledgable among Jehovah’s Witnesses are operating under an enormous burden of misconceptions. Unfortunately, there is nothing that can be done to counteract that deluding influence at this present time since it emanates from the very source that is deemed to be the faithful and discreet mouthpiece of God. 

Regardless, one aspect of error is the delusion that Jehovah’s Witnesses are in what is termed a “spiritual paradise” and that individual Christians can work to enhance it by more preaching and character development, or whatever.

While the Scriptures do indeed convey the concept of a spiritual paradise, it is not something that humans can enhance or mar. That is because it is a creation of God, just as Eden was originally. And like Eden before the Devil did his deed, the condition set forth in prophecy is described as the complete absence of wicked and harmful persons. (More on the meaning of spiritual paradise in these articles, here and here.)

As regards the paradise God will bring about after he repurchases his people from their devastated condition, the 35th chapter of Isaiah describes it as utterly devoid of all foolish and unclean persons. Not so much as one will be found there: “At that time the eyes of the blind will be opened, and the ears of the deaf will be unstopped. At that time the lame will leap like the deer, and the tongue of the speechless will shout for joy. For waters will burst forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert plain. The heat-parched ground will become a reedy pool, and the thirsty ground springs of water. In the lairs where jackals rested, there will be green grass and reeds and papyrus. And a highway will be there, yes, a way called the Way of Holiness. The unclean one will not travel on it. It is reserved for the one walking on the way; no one foolish will stray onto it. No lion will be there, and no vicious wild beasts will come on it. They will not be found there; only the repurchased ones will walk there.”

The question is, does the blessed condition portrayed in Isaiah describe the Watchtower organization today? Hardly! Besides the fact that tens of thousands of JW’s are disfellowshipped every year for various sins, some quite vile in nature, which is besides the point anyway, what about the harm done to others by their sins? What about the tens of thousands of children that have been sexually abused, in no small part because of the hush-hush policy imposed on “spiritual paradise” by Bethel’s lawyers? Can it honestly be said that no vicious, cunning beasts roam about among the lambs? Be careful! Only a liar would insist so.

The apostle John wrote in his first letter: “If we make the statement, ‘We have no sin,’ we are misleading ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous so as to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we make the statement, ‘We have not sinned,’ we are making him a liar, and his word is not in us.”

What applies to individuals can certainly apply to groups of individuals, otherwise known as organizations. And without question that which calls itself “Jehovah’s organization” has in no uncertain terms declared itself to be sin-free. Never in the history of the Watchtower has the leadership ever admitted to having misled or deceived Jehovah’s Witnesses in any way or been responsible in even the slightest measure for any of the many evils or multitudinous stumbling blocks that are strewn in the path. 

In proof of that you will never hear a member of the Bethel family in public prayer ask Jehovah’s forgiveness for the sins of the Governing Body or the shortcomings of the organization. But the very fact that the Governing Body repeatedly lays claim to presiding over a predator-free spiritual paradise makes them out to be liars before God.

Ironically, as a consequence of the self-exaltation, blindness and deception that prevails, Jehovah has decreed that he will bring devastation upon the Watchtower’s faux spiritual paradise. Through the prophet Joel Jehovah will speak to the leadership of Jehovah’s Witnesses in the immediate future, at a moment in time when the symbolic locusts are unleashed upon the world during the day of Jehovah.

Listen, Jehovah speaks: “Wake up, you drunkards, and weep! Wail, all you wine drinkers, because the sweet wine has been taken from your mouths. For a nation has come up into my land, mighty and without number. Its teeth are the teeth of a lion, and its jaws are those of a lion. It has devastated my vine and turned my fig tree into a stump, stripping them completely bare and tossing them aside, leaving their twigs white. Wail as a virgin wearing sackcloth does for the bridegroom of her youth. Grain offering and drink offering have ceased from the house of Jehovah; the priests, the ministers of Jehovah, are in mourning. The field has been devastated, the ground mourns; for the grain has been devastated, the new wine has dried up, the oil has failed. Farmers are dismayed, vinedressers wail, because of the wheat and the barley; for the harvest of the field has perished. The vine has dried up, the fig tree has withered. The pomegranate, the palm, and the apple, all the trees of the field have dried up; for joy has turned to shame among the people. Put on sackcloth and mourn, you priests; wail, you ministers of the altar.

Jehovah’s Witnesses are certainly familiar with the concept that the world is a field under cultivation. Why, each month active publishers are required to submit a “field service report” to note their activity as figurative farmers and vinedressers in the field. That being so, more to the point regarding the devastation wrought by the onrushing metaphoric insect army, Joel 2:3 paints a vivid before and after comparison: “Ahead of it a fire devours, and behind it a flame consumes. The land ahead of it is like the garden of Eden, but behind it is a desolate wilderness, and nothing can escape.”

In short, the prophet of Joel envisages the entire worldwide work of Jehovah’s Witnesses coming to a sudden and emphatic stop. Not only that, but the constant, uninterrupted supply of spiritual food that has been supplied by Bethel since its founding will suddenly be cut off. That which is touted as true worship and theocratic arrangement, will cease, in accord with what is written: “Come in and spend the night in sackcloth, you ministers of my God; for grain offering and drink offering have been withheld from the house of your God.”

How will this horrific tragedy come about? It will come about as a result of the sudden overthrow of the present civilization —the complete and utter collapse of the capitalistic, democratic system, under which we all live and depend upon. 

As it stands presently, the Anglo-American empire and what is called the Trans-Atlantic system, is facing an existential crises as a result of the utter bankruptcy of the entire edifice. Even persons who know nothing about Bible prophecy recognize that a crises unparalleled in human history looms large.

Since the 2008 financial crises the central banks of the world have flooded the financial system with trillions and trillions of dollars, some say $29 trillion in 2008 alone, the bulk of which since then has gone to the to-big-to-fail banks and been used to bid up stocks and bonds. The banks and associated hedge funds are now the largest holders of stocks and bonds. They own Wall Street. That gives the central banks primary ownership of the corporate world, and everything else. A sudden withdrawal of the liquidity that has flooded the system in the past decade would result in a sudden and unstoppable chain reaction collapse of the monetary and financial system.  We may expect the secret coven of ultra-wealthy bankers to do that very thing, then swoop in like locusts to devour the assets of entire nations, imposing their ownership over the world of debtors by setting up a new gold-based economic system. The armies of the debtor nations will then be co-opted as enforcers of the new world order.

Thus, Jehovah powerful army of plunderers is unleashed upon the world —devouring everything, including the hallowed assets of the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society. Who can withstand Jehovah’s judgment? “Jehovah will raise his voice before his army, for his camp is very numerous. For the one carrying out His word is mighty; for the day of Jehovah is great and very awe-inspiring. Who can endure it?”

Only Jehovah will be able to redeem the chastened then. And isn’t that how it should be? Indeed. It is in the aftermath of the now-oncoming global devastation that the real paradise will come into existence –something completely separate and distinct from the Watchtower organization of the present moment. 

“Do not be afraid, O land. Be joyful and rejoice, for Jehovah will do great things. Do not be afraid, you beasts of the field, For the pastures of the wilderness will become green, and the trees will bear fruit; the fig tree and the vine must give their full yield. You sons of Zion, be joyful and rejoice in Jehovah your God; for he will give you the autumn rain in the right amount, and he will send upon you a downpour, the autumn rain and the spring rain, as before. The threshing floors will be full of pure grain, and the presses will overflow with new wine and oil. And I will make compensation to you for the years that the swarming locust, the unwinged locust, the voracious locust, and the devouring locust have eaten, my great army that I sent among you. You will surely eat to satisfaction, and you will praise the name of Jehovah your God, who has done wonders in your behalf; my people will never again be put to shame. And you will have to know that I am in the midst of Israel and that I am Jehovah your God there is no other! My people will never again be put to shame.”

Related Posts