Jesus compared the last days with the days of Noah 1 . The WTBTS says that Noah preached for 40 years 2 before the flood came so that he could give his contemporaries a chance to repent and be saved. None of them did. When Jehovah’s time came, he closed the doors of the ark and brought a global deluge that killed everyone but Noah and his family. The message is clear. Noah’s preaching work was designed to give warning to his contemporaries and to allow them ample opportunity to repent and spare their lives.
Jesus spoke to four of his apostles on the Mount of Olives regarding the looming destruction of the temple. This discussion was preserved in Matthew 24, Luke 21 and Mark 13. Again, the message was clear. Jehovah would soon destroy the temple and its surrounding. His followers were given a sign to know when they were to flee the city. The apostles were later ordered to make disciples, giving them warning of the looming disaster. Thirty-seven years passed between Jesus’ utterance of that prophecy and the year in which Jerusalem was destroyed by the Roman Empire. Thirty seven years were enough to adequately warn people about God’s impending judgment. The WTBTS claims that this prophecy by Jesus Christ has a second application in our day and that Jehovah’s Witnesses have been carrying out a similar preaching work designed to warn of the upcoming judgment that God will execute upon mankind in Armageddon.
However, on both of these occasions, God gave his servants ample time to warn their contemporaries of his upcoming judgment. He gave that particular generation or group of people enough time to either repent or face His wrath. Again, both of these accounts are supposed to have direct parallels with what’s been happening since Jesus was supposedly enthroned in heaven in the year 1914. Ninety-three years have passed since then. The WTBTS claims that Jehovah exclusively chose them as the faithful and discreet slave in 1919 to warn mankind of this looming disaster. Eighty-eight years has gone by since their alleged appointment.
Why so much time? Most of the people they preached to in the 1910s and 1920s are dead. Judge Rutherford’s bold pronouncement that “millions now living will never die” has been proven false. The contemporaries of the FDS as of their supposed date of appointment in 1919 are now dead. If Jehovah’s purpose in selecting a servant or servants is to warn of His impending judgment, why allow the present generation to die off and then warn an entirely new group of people? That has not been God’s method of operation. As is clear in the Genesis account of Noah and the Gospels' rendition of Jesus’ prophecy regarding the destruction of Jerusalem, God gave the group of people then living enough time to learn about His impending judgment and decide whose side they would take. He didn’t choose to warn of His upcoming judgment, wait until that generation died off, and then continue warning an entirely new group of people. The moral of this post is something we already know: Armageddon should have come a long time ago. There is simply no good way of explaining how the last days have lasted this long.
If you were still an active Jehovah’s Witness, what would be your response? Keep in mind that Watchtower has recently tweaked their last days doctrine to allow for Armageddon to come decades in the future.
[1] “37 For just as the days of Noah were, so the presence of the Son of man will be. 38 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; 39 and they took no note until the flood came and swept them all away, so the presence of the Son of man will be.”
Matthew 24: 37-39
[2] *** w97 3/1 p. 12 par. 13 Are You Ready for Jehovah’s Day? ***
Noah put total confidence in this divine judicial decree. After reaching the age of 500, he “became father to Shem, Ham and Japheth,” and custom of those days suggests that 50 to 60 years passed before his sons got married. When Noah was told to build the ark for preservation through the Flood, those sons and their wives evidently assisted him in that endeavor. The building of the ark likely coincided with Noah’s service as “a preacher of righteousness,” keeping him busy for the last 40 to 50 years before the Flood.