The Deluding Influence

What a contrast there is between young servants of Jehovah and youths of this world! Many who do not serve Jehovah lead a self-centered way of life, focusing only on what they want. Some researchers call them “Generation Me.” By the way they talk and dress, they give evidence of disdain for the older generation, whom they view as not “with it.” That spirit is all around us. Thus, young servants of Jehovah find that it takes real effort to avoid it and to accept God’s view. Even in the first century, Paul found it necessary to urge fellow believers to avoid “the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience” and in which they “at one time walked.” Young ones who see the need to avoid that spirit and to work unitedly with all their brothers are to be commended.  As we approach the end of this old world, working together unitedly will become ever more important.

COMMENTARY

“As we approach the end of this old world.” That expression typifies the utter blindness that Jehovah’s Witnesses are afflicted with presently. It is a blindness imposed upon everyone from the top down. Paul referred to this phenomenon as a “deluding influence.”

The passage in context states: “But the lawless one’s presence is by the operation of Satan with every powerful work and lying signs and wonders and every unrighteous deception for those who are perishing, as a retribution because they did not accept the love of the truth in order that they might be saved. That is why God lets a deluding influence mislead them so that they may come to believe the lie…”

In that same chapter of 2 Thessalonians Paul had warned the brothers not to be quickly shaken from their reason or alarmed by authoritative announcements that the presence of Christ and the day of Jehovah is here. As an indication of the thoroughness of the deluding influence, the Watchtower has been heralding the presence of Christ since its inception.

The powerful works and lying signs and wonders are evident in the outworking of the patched together chronology, which was originally supported by pryamidology, divining the year 1914 when something was going to happen. And wonder of wonders, something did happen. The First World War began. Then Satan orchestrated the persecution of the Watchtower and afterwards put his agents to work deciphering prophecy to explain virtually everything as revolving around 1914 and the grand release from captivity in Babylon the Great in 1919.

As a result, there is no expectation of any sort of future parousia or the coming of Christ to commence the judgment. That is all theocratic history. Truly, only his powerful presence can disabuse Jehovah’s Witnesses from the grip of the deluding influence cast over them by the Watchtower.