Generation Teaching - Everyone is speechless?

by Red Piller 443 Replies latest jw friends

  • Leolaia
    Leolaia
    No, we are not liars. You are the one that keeps saying that we said we were "certain," but you have produced no proof to that effect.

    To quote this again, is there any uncertainty expressed here?

    What does the Bible show as to the meaning of all these world events? It shows that for this unrighteous world time is running out fast! It shows that within a few years at most there will take place a climax in human affairs so gigantic that it will affect every person earth, every man, woman and child....Time is running out fast for it! It is much later for this world than you may think! Indeed, it has only a few more years of existence left!...The events that Jesus, the apostle Paul and other Bible writers bring to our attention were all to take place within the same generation (Matt. 24:34). These events would identify which generation's lifetime would embrace the "last days", much as your fingerprint identifies you...The fact that fifty-four years of the period called the "last days" have already gone by is highly significant. It means that only a few years, at most, remain before the corrupt system of things dominating the earth is destroyed by God. How can we be so certain of this?....

    Jesus was obviously speaking about those who were old enough to witness with understanding what took place when the "last days" began. Jesus was saying that some of those persons who were alive at the appearance of the 'sign of the last days' would still be alive when God brought this sytem to its end. Even if we presume that youngsters 15 years of age would be perceptive enough to realize the import of what happened in 1914, it would still make the youngest of "this generation" nearly 70 years old today. So the great majority of the generation to which Jesus was referring has already passed away in death. The remaining ones are approaching old age. And remember, Jesus said that the end of this wicked world would come before that generation passed away in death. This, of itself, tells us that the years left before the foretold end comes cannot be many....

    Still some persons may say: "How can you be sure? Maybe it is later than many people think. But maybe it is not as late as some persons claim. People have been mistaken about these prophecies before." True, there have been those in times past who predicted an "end to the world," even announcing a specific date. Some have gathered groups of people with them and fled to the hills or withdrawn into their houses waiting for the end. Yet, nothing happened. The "end" did not come. They were guilty of false prophesying. Why? What was missing? Missing was the full measure of evidence required in fulfillment of Bible prophecy. Missing from such people were God's truths and the evidence that he was guiding and using them.

    But what about today? Today we have the evidence required, all of it. And it is overwhelming! All the many, many parts of the great sign of the "last days" are here, together with verifying Bible chronology....Would you still doubt if someone told you that winter was coming very soon? Would you say that he was just guessing or merely expressing his own idea? Or would you acknowledge, on the basis of solid evidence, that he knew the facts and was telling you the truth? ...We today have all the many parts of that sign, nearly forty of them, being fulfilled within the same generation, and we have God's timetable, his "calendar," showing that the time has nearly run out for the present unrighteous system of things. This is very different indeed from the situation with those who proclaimed an "end to the world" in earlier generations. (Awake!, 10/8/1968, pp. 4, 7, 13-14, 23-24)

  • thetrueone
    thetrueone

    Good catch Leolaia

    Today we have the evidence required, all of it. And it is overwhelming! All the many, many parts of the great sign of the "last days" are here, together with verifying Bible chronology.

    Unfortunately the WTS theological speculations were based on ignorance. Since the foundational beginnings were based on ignorance mixed with a bit of commerce to get the wheels

    rolling as they say, it never could evolve into something truthful and viable. The WTS publishing company is sinking under its own quagmire of corruption and deceitful coercion.

  • reslight2
    reslight2

    Ding

    Re: Generation Teaching - Everyone is speechless? posted a day ago (12/1/2010)



    Post 1233 of 1250
    Since 8/27/2010

    "The Time Is At Hand," 1911 edition, p. 101:

    "Be not surprised, then, when in subsequent chapters we present proofs that the setting up of the Kingdom of God is already begun, that it is pointed out in prophecy as due to begin the exercise of power in A.D. 1878, and that the `battle of the great day of God Almighty' (Rev. 16:14), which will end in A.D. 1914 with the complete overthrow of earth's present rulership, is already commenced."

    The above words were originally published in "The Time Is At Hand" back in 1889. Russell did not speak those words as being the head of an organization such as the Jehovah's Witnesses organization, nor as prophecy. At the time he wrote those words he had no idea that after he died there would be new organization (Jehovah's Witnesses) formed that would claim him to have been a member of an organization that he did not believe in. As Russell stated elsewhere, however, the conclusions presented in his studies should not be considered prophecy, nor should they be considered infallible. The earlier view which still appeared in editions of "The Time is At Hand" on up until 1915, was a view that Russell had adopted from Barbour. For many years there appears to have been some discussion concerning whether this view was correct, and whether or not the time of trouble had already begun, or whether the time of trouble was to be expected to begin, not end, in 1914. Russell, himself, held to the view that the time of trouble would end in 1914 up until the year 1904 -- ten years before, when he came to partially accept the view that some other Bible Students had been putting forth, that the end of the Gentile Times does not mean the end of the time of trouble, but rather, the *beginning* of the time of trouble. It is based on the idea that the lease of Gentile dominion would have to first be ended, before the time of trouble could begin. Russell accepted this view as being more scripturally correct in 1904, but did not make any change in the above sentence of "The Time Is At Hand" until around 1915. Nevetheless, in the pages of the Watch Tower, between 1904 on up to 1914, Russell several times expressed that he believed that the "time of trouble" would not begin until 1914. Thus, this change in 1904 actually negates Russell's view as originally given in the sentence quoted.

    See: Russell's Expectations Concerning 1914

  • doinmypart
    doinmypart

    The WTS did write with certainty concerning the 1914 generation and the last days.


    *** gc pp. 21-22 Is There a God Who Cares? ***

    Wickedness Soon to End

    27 The human family desperately needs a change for the better. In fact, we need an entirely new system. As sociologist Erich Fromm admitted, the evils in society can be corrected “only if the whole system as it has existed during the last 6,000 years of history can be replaced by a fundamentally different one.” That is exactly what God has in mind! When his allotted time period is up, God has guaranteed to crush out of existence the entire present wicked system of things, along with those who prefer it. “All the wicked ones he will annihilate.”—Psalm 145:20.

    28 When will this take place? Very soon, because God’s Word shows that the unprecedented troubles that have struck the human family since the first world war began in 1914 make up a sign identifying what is called in the Bible “the last days.” The Bible foretold that in these “last days” there would be world wars, mounting crime, hunger, disease epidemics, wanton pleasure-seeking by the majority, the turning away from belief in God, religious hypocrisy and decay, and many other events. These would be like the lines of a fingerprint, identifying with certainty our generation as the final one in which God would tolerate such terrible conditions. Jesus prophesied that our time would indeed see the end of the system of things now dominating the earth.

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