Tuesday, December 22
[You] will hear a word behind you saying, “This is the way. Walk in it.” —Isa. 30:21.
True, we do not hear God speak to us from heaven. He has, however, provided his written Word, the Bible, in which he gives us instruction. Additionally, Jehovah’s spirit moves “the faithful steward” to keep giving His servants their food supply. (Luke 12:42) What an abundance of spiritual food we receive in the form of printed and online material, videos, and audio publications! May God’s own words, as recorded in the Bible, give us confidence that Jehovah has everything under control and that he will reverse any damage brought on us by Satan and his wicked world. And may we be determined to listen intently to Jehovah’s voice. If we do, we will successfully endure whatever problems we now face and any challenges that are yet to come. The Bible reminds us: “You need endurance, so that after you have done the will of God, you may receive the fulfillment of the promise.”
I wish the teachers and writers who work for the Watchtower were honest. Ignorance is one thing. It is remediable. Willful blindness is something more serious.
No doubt the teachers have read Isaiah many times. They have even published a two-volume commentary on Isaiah ostensibly explaining the prophecy. That being true, how is it that they continue to assert that hearing a word behind you comes about by a pedestrian reading of the Bible and Watchtower literature?
In the Bible, context is everything. And the context of the passage used in the Daily Text has to do with the great tribulation and the visible presence of Jesus Christ. Here is what the Bible actually says: “When the people dwell in Zion, in Jerusalem, you will by no means weep. He will surely show you favor at the sound of your cry for help; he will answer you as soon as he hears it. Though Jehovah will give you bread in the form of distress and water in the form of oppression, your Grand Instructor will no longer hide himself, and you will see your Grand Instructor with your own eyes. And your own ears will hear a word behind you saying, “This is the way. Walk in it,” in case you should go to the right or in case you should go to the left.”
Here is a question, on the odd chance there are a few thinking JW’s reading this blog: Given the fact that the Watchtower boasts about providing Jehovah’s Witnesses with an abundance of spiritual food and they even claim to have restored true worship, at last, in what way is Jehovah feeding His people with the bread of distress and making them drink the water of oppression, because that is the setting in which Jehovah will reveal Himself?
Here’s another question, the Watchtower makes great boasts that Babylon the Great has no power to suppress Jehovah’s mighty organization, yet through the influence of the Russian Orthodox Church Jehovah’s Witnesses have been totally liquidated throughout the Russian Federation. Has Jehovah responded in a dramatic way to the cries for help from Russian Christians? Does any amount of Bible reading provide the needed guidance to counter the oppression?
Also, can any amount of Bible reading or reading the material provided by the so-called “faithful steward” bring about the phenomenon where we see Jehovah with our own eyes?
Of course, the teachers are obligated to explain that seeing God with our own eyes is metaphoric, spiritual; God is using hyperbole —after all, no man may see God and live. But they merely betray their own blindness.
The Watchtower has built an extensive doctrine, and in fact, the entire organization is based upon a falsehood, built upon artfully contrived false stories regarding Jesus becoming invisibly present in 1914. The very expression “invisible presence” is absurd. Jesus has always been invisibly present. Did he not promise his disciples that he would be with them all the days until the conclusion and that where two or more are gathered in his name he will be in their midst? The teachers of Jehovah’s Witnesses have conjured a delusion and hold fast to it.
It is no wonder the Watchtower has virtually nothing to say concerning the epic revelation and manifestation of Jesus. Any serious examination reveals that the manifestation, revealing, and parousia are the same thing. And this truth was presented to every member of the Governing Body and every branch office of the Watchtower more than 15 years ago in the publication Jehovah Himself Has Become King.
Obviously, no man can see God. However, after his resurrection, Jesus manifested himself and not just in the flesh. The Jew named Saul saw a glimpse of Christ in his glory and the encounter left Saul blind for three days.
True, Jehovah is the Grand Instructor. But Isaiah introduced us to the Son of God, calling him the Wonderful Counselor. And, of course, when Jesus walked the earth he was known as the Teacher. In view of that, the Grand Instructor no longer hiding himself has to do with the manifestation of Jesus Christ as Jehovah’s Grand Instructor.
It has suited Jehovah’s purpose to allow the Watchtower to wield a deluding influence and to be an instrument in the operation of Satan that, as Paul foretold, an operation that has falsely declared that the presence has begun and the day of Jehovah is here. Jesus could have easily dispelled the invisible parousia delusion but it is the means by which he has kept himself hidden. The coming of Christ will cause the complete collapse of the Watchtower’s artfully contrived false stories —there being many.
In fact, as regards context, the very same chapter of Isaiah speaks of this very thing, saying: “They say to the seers, ‘Do not see,’ and to the visionaries, ‘Do not tell us truthful visions. Tell us flattering things; envision deceptive illusions. Turn aside from the way; deviate from the path. Quit putting before us the Holy One of Israel.’ Therefore this is what the Holy One of Israel says: “Since you reject this word And you trust in fraud and deceit and you rely on these, so this error will be for you like a broken wall, like a bulging high wall ready to fall. It will crash suddenly, in an instant. It will be broken like a large potter’s jar, so completely smashed that no fragment among its pieces will be left to rake the fire from the fireplace or to scoop water from a puddle.” — Isaiah 30:10-14
The Governing Body is not interested in “truthful visions.” They are “deceitful sons.” They have fabricated there own flattering, deceptive illusions, such as the aforementioned frauds concerning spiritual paradise and the blasphemous twaddle of true worship being restored.
Already, though, their white-wash-plastered wall is bulging, buckling under the weight of a century of fraud and deceit. No one knows the day or hour, but in the instant Christ returns the wall of lies the Watchtower has erected and in which they ardently trust will come crashing down.
Then the survivors will hear the voice of the Grand Instructor —no, not emanating from the pages of the Bible, and certainly not from anything the Watchtower has put to print. As Isaiah also foretold, in the final part of the days the mountain of Jehovah will be lifted up and law will go out of Zion. If the law and the word of Jehovah come out of Jerusalem at that time that is something extraordinary. We have always had the Bible and the laws contained therein. The word and law emanating from the mountain of Jehovah —that is to say, from Christ’s Kingdom —will be extra-biblical.
God is not limited to speaking through the words written in a book. He is fully capable of communicating directly with humans, as He has done in the past on many occasions and in various ways.
The Second Coming will reveal Jesus as the Grand Instructor who will dispel the delusion that presently grips Jehovah’s Witnesses. “And the light of the full moon will become like the light of the sun; and the light of the sun will become seven times stronger, like the light of seven days, in the day that Jehovah binds up the breakdown of his people and heals the severe wound from the blow he inflicted.” —Isaiah 30:26
