Commentary on the daily text of Jehovah’s Witnesses
Wednesday, October 18
[Noah] proved himself faultless among his contemporaries.—Gen. 6:9.
Noah lived in an evil world but had no desire to make its inhabitants his close friends. He did not seek the companionship of ungodly people. He and the seven members of his family occupied themselves with the doing of God-given work, which included building an ark. Meanwhile, Noah was also “a preacher of righteousness.” (2 Pet. 2:5) Noah’s preaching, his work on the ark, and his association with his family kept him busy doing good things that pleased God. As a result, Noah and his immediate family survived the Flood. We should be grateful to them because all of us today are the descendants of those who served Jehovah—faithful Noah, Noah’s wife, his sons, and their wives. Similarly, loyal and obedient first-century Christians kept themselves separate from ungodly people and survived the destruction of Jerusalem and the Jewish system of things in 70 C.E.
There is plenty of physical evidence to support the Bible account of Noah’s flood. There is the fossil record and the mass graves of fish and other massive creatures. There are the perfectly frozen carcasses of wooly mammoths in Siberia. There is the fact that the earth once had a uniform, semi-tropical climate —evidenced by fossils of palm trees in the Arctic region. And the Ice Age, so-called, which no doubt began instantaneously with the collapse of the insulating heavenly ocean that God suspended above the Earth on the second epic of creation. It would seem that the gradual process of global warming began after the flood and the ice that covered much of the northern latitudes —laid down by wave after wave of great blizzards that raked the earth in the wake of the cataclysm created by crash of the suspended waters —has been receding ever since.
For Christians, though, the most reliable confirmation of the Deluge is that Jesus spoke of Noah and the flood. More importantly, Jesus connected the coming and revealing of the Son of man, indeed the parousia, with the flood. In the context of explaining to his inquiring apostles the things to come, Jesus said: “Concerning that day and hour nobody knows, neither the angels of the heavens nor the Son, but only the Father. 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. Then two men will be in the field; one will be taken along and the other abandoned. Two women will be grinding at the hand mill; one will be taken along and the other abandoned. Keep on the watch, therefore, because you do not know on what day your Lord is coming.”
Christ’s explanation of his sudden arrival presents a problem for Jehovah’s Witnesses. Besides the fact that nobody knows the day or hour of his coming, which would rule out October the 2nd, 1914, as being the day and year when Jesus’ parousia begins, Jesus indicated that the presence commences a final separation work —one will be taken and the other abandoned. Notice, please, that Jesus did not specifically mention that the one abandoned was immediately destroyed. Nor did he indicate that the one taken was physically transported someplace, like the raptureist’s left behind fiction.
Jesus’ comments regarding the days of Noah were in answer to his apostles’ question about the conclusion of the system of things. Previously Jesus had spoken to them in illustrations regarding the harvest being a conclusion of a system —or end of an age, as some translations word it. In his harvest illustration Jesus also described a decisive division brought about when the angels uproot the weeds from among the wheat. The weeds are ultimately bundled up and burned in the fire. And the wheat is brought into the barn —the storehouse.
But even in that illustration Jesus did not indicate that the uprooted weeds are immediately destroyed. Instead their being pitched into the fiery furnace causes them to weep and gnash their teeth. And at that same time the righteous will shine as brightly as the sun in the kingdom of Jehovah. So, according to Jesus the separation of the sons of Satan and the sons of Jehovah creates a kingdom that is finally free of all persons doing lawlessness and things that cause stumbling. Obviously, the Watchtower organization cannot possibly claim to be free from persons doing lawlessness and stumbling blocks.
Take the eye of Horus assembly hall for example. The creation of what amounts to a satanic temple in which Jehovah’s Witnesses unwittingly convened for the past quarter century is obviously a product of the sons of the Devil rooted in the midst of the wheat-like anointed sons of God.
Like the superfine apostles who presided over the Corinthian congregation, though, their presence is humanly undetectable since Satan has empowered them to perfectly disguise themselves as ministers of righteousness —as mimic anointed sons of God. Only the powerful presence of Christ can bring about their exposure and removal, which is the first order of business when Christ comes to begin the judgment of the house of God; then, two men will be in the field (service) and one will be taken along into the Kingdom and one will be abandoned to weep and gnash his teeth and ultimately destroyed forever.
As stated, the Watchtower will have nothing to do with this final separating. In fact, those who are abandoned will remain with the earthly organization while the sons of the True One will shine as brightly as the sun in the actual Kingdom of Christ, which will be a wholly separate institution from the earthly, visible organization. The Watchtower has merely served as the dragnet to gather individuals for the final separation.
Be assured, though, the coming presence of Christ will not drag out over a century. Contrary to what Jehovah’s Witnesses presently imagine, the 120 years that Noah preached and built the ark are not analogous to the presence of Christ. Jesus made it clear that the day Noah entered into the ark, which was a week before the floodgates of the heavens were actually opened, corresponds to the coming of the Son of man and the parousia.
By all means then, do your best to serve Christ. Follow the Watchtower’s admonition to be no part of this doomed world. Keep in expectation of the coming of the Son of man. It shouldn’t be too much longer.
