Jehovah’s Witnesses are proud to point out that they are fulfilling the prophecy at Matthew 24:14. JWs are quick to point out that part of the purpose of the preaching work is so that Jehovah can take note of how people respond to the witnessing, and thus can decide if they are worthy of survival or not. Each year the spend over a BILLION hours in their witnessing work. An impressive figure? Read on….
*** w05 12/1 p. 21 Highlights From the Book of Second Chronicles ***
36:15-17. Jehovah is compassionate and patient. However, his compassion and patience are not limitless. People must respond favorably to the Kingdom-preaching work if they are to survive when Jehovah brings an end to this wicked system of things.*** km 2/97 p. 1 par. 3 Share In the Work That Will Never Be Repeated ***
A Modern-Day Warning Work: Jehovah long ago declared that his anger would be unleashed against today’s wicked system and that only the meek ones would survive. (Zeph. 2:2, 3; 3:8)
Since I have been out of the organization for 4 months now I am wondering when someone is going to attempt to witness to me so that Jehovah can have the opportunity to read my heart. In 4 months, I have not been witnessed to once, although I wouldn’t mind someone witnessing to me so I can “witness” back to them. The other day, I saw an older sister with some tracts in hand. She was about to round a corner. So I stopped walking and waited for her to pass by, hoping that I could get witnessed to, so that Jehovah could judge me as approved for survival… But alas, the sister passed me by and didn’t even offer me a tract to save my life! My life was at stake…
*** km 9/00 p. 1 Lives Are at Stake! ***
Lives Are at Stake!
1 The Bible makes clear Jehovah’s will “that all sorts of men should be saved.” However, it is also true that the life prospects of earth’s billions depend upon their attitude toward Jehovah God and his Kingdom by Jesus Christ. A proper attitude can be based only on “accurate knowledge of truth.” (1 Tim. 2:3, 4) While giving notice that soon the earth will be cleansed of all wickedness in order to make way for God’s new world of righteousness, we have also been commissioned to carry on a vital lifesaving work.—Matt. 24:14; 28:19, 20; Rom. 10:13-15.
2 Why So Urgent? Jesus gave warning about a “great tribulation such as has not occurred since the world’s beginning.” (Matt. 24:21) That tribulation will reach its climax at Armageddon. (Rev. 16:16) The masses of people facing annihilation if they fail to respond to the good news include our unbelieving relatives, neighbors, workmates, schoolmates, and acquaintances. But our concern is to reach out to “all sorts of men” in imitation of God, who manifested his love for the entire world of mankind by giving his Son, Jesus Christ, as a ransom for all. (John 3:16) We must zealously endeavor to invite all to flee to God’s place of safety. By fully carrying out the preaching work, we can avoid bloodguilt.—Ezek. 33:1-7; 1 Cor. 9:16.
But if I am a sample member of the population that Jehovah is screening via the JWs, does this mean that most people really don’t have a chance to respond to the witnessing work? I have been thinking about this, and I think a look at the statistics is actually quite revealing. I decided to calculate how much time JWs actually spend in the witnessing work to see if the above statements in the WT literature are warranted.
In 2007 the world’s population was estimated to be 6.6 billion. (http://www.prb.org/Publications/Datasheets/2007/2007WorldPopulationDataSheet.aspx)
Last year, JWs spent 1.4 billion hours in their preaching work. This means that per capita, JWs spend an average of 12.7 minutes per person on the face of the earth. If that was actually the case, then, the WTS is teaching that your eternal salvation depends on how you spend 12.7 minutes out of your YEAR! But that is not all.
Much of that service time is spent on Bible studies. The average number of Bible studies is 6.5 million worldwide. If these studies are conducted about 3 times per month, that means that about 236 million hours are spent on Bible studies. This leaves slightly less than 1.2 billion hours for the rest of humanity.
Let’s make a few adjustments to this figure based on the realities of the ministry. Not all of this time is spent talking to people face to face. In reality, the actual face to face component of this time is much less. We know that a good deal of time is spent traveling between territories, walking from house to house, and driving to return visits. We can safely assume that about 50% of service time is related to such travel and walking. This reduces the amount of potential time spent talking to people to about 600 million hours a year. We can look at this number several ways:
If the preaching work were actually worldwide, then this figure divided by the world’s population gives us the ridiculously low figure of 5 minutes per person per year. This means that Jehovah God will judge the 6 Billion people on this planet based on their response during 5 minutes of the year. If a person is contacted for 50 years at this rate, then their entire eternal salvation depends on whether they paid attention to the JWs during about 4 and a half hours OF THEIR ENTIRE LIFE!
A more realistic way of looking the numbers is the realize that most JWs spend their time knocking on doors that are not at home. In fact, most of us can remember entire days where we were in field service and yet never spoke to a soul. To be generous, though, let’s say that a JW was able to contact a different person for each hour of field service that is left.
So if we take: 6.6 Billion people. Subtract 600 million hours = people, the result is that 6 billion people did NOT get a witness (such as myself). Yet these are the same people that God will supposedly destroy since they “took no note”.
Any comments?