Friday, May 5
God put Abraham to the test.
Picture an elderly man trudging up a mountainside. He is making what must be the hardest journey of his life. It is not his age that makes this trek so daunting. Abraham may be about 125 years old, but he is still vigorous. Following him is a younger man, perhaps 25 years of age. It is his son Isaac, who is carrying firewood. Abraham has a knife and the means to start a fire. Jehovah has asked him to sacrifice his own son! Abraham was facing what was likely the greatest test of his faith. Abraham did not obey God blindly. Instead, he obeyed because he could see. With eyes of genuine faith, he saw that his heavenly Father, Jehovah, never asks His faithful servants to do anything that will result in their lasting harm. Abraham knew that if he obeyed Jehovah, his God would bless him and his beloved son. On what was that faith based? On knowledge and experience.
COMMENTARY
Jehovah’s Witnesses are facing the greatest test of their spiritual lives. As it stands the Watchtower has indoctrinated Jehovah’s Witnesses with the notion that the way to life is simply following the directions of the Governing Body. Seems simple enough. Yet, virtually everything the Watchtower has taught on the modern fulfillment of prophecy is wrong —and I mean everything.
It all begins with the artfully contrived false story that Christ began ruling the world in 1914. Supposedly Satan was hurled down from heaven then too and the world has been experiencing his great anger ever since. Jehovah’s Witnesses have been led to believe that the wild beast suffered the prophesied mortal wound during the First World War, but has long since recovered.
And although most JW’s probably are not even aware of it, the Watchtower teaches that people of the world began receiving the 666 mark of the beast back in 1922. Yes, according to the Watchtower the hour of judgment began long ago, also known as the hour of test that Jesus said was coming upon the entire world.
What an incredible load of hokum Jehovah’s Witnesses have been fed!
The hour of test is related to the coming of Christ, which is obvious from the context of Revelation 3:10-11, where Jesus states: “Because you kept the word about my endurance, I will also keep you from the hour of test, which is to come upon the entire inhabited earth, to put to the test those dwelling on the earth. I am coming quickly. Keep holding fast to what you have, so that no one may take your crown.” If we hold fast to our decision to worship Jehovah and we support the Kingdom by preaching the good news, we will be kept from falling during the present period of testing, “the hour of test.” —WT May 15, 2003
Needless to say, the sudden collapse of the Anglo empire would be a catastrophe unparalleled in all human history. Surely, the utter crash of the present political and economic system is what is depicted in the book of Revelation with the opening of the sixth seal. Here is what it says: “And I saw when he opened the sixth seal, and a great earthquake occurred; and the sun became black as sackcloth made of hair, and the entire moon became as blood, and the stars of heaven fell to the earth as when a fig tree shaken by a high wind drops its unripe figs. And the heaven departed as a scroll that is being rolled up, and every mountain and every island was removed from its place. Then the kings of the earth, the high officials, the military commanders, the rich, the strong, every slave, and every free person hid in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains. And they keep saying to the mountains and to the rocks: ‘Fall over us and hide us from the face of the One seated on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb, because the great day of their wrath has come, and who is able to stand?”’
Since the kings of the earth and the high officials and military commanders are among those pleading with the mountains and rocks to provide protection from Christ, it is apparent that they the feel vulnerable and exposed due to the failure of the present institutions that have ruled over them —symbolized as the sun, moon and stars. Even the rich are reduced to hiding in caves, as it were —signifying the failure of their money and wealth.
What is symbolized by their pleading with the mountains to hide them from the One seated on the throne? Since the great earthquake is an indirect result of Christ coming to power, their pleading for shelter from some other source other than the Lamb signifies that during the hour of test terrified humanity will look to reconstitute human government after the present system crashes. Anything, no matter how tyrannical, is better than accepting the Kingdom of Christ.
Hence, mankind will be self-condemned for preferring to live under the beast that Satan will provide them then, instead of submitting themselves to Jehovah’s then-ruling Kingdom.
