ALAN FRAUDBACKER says:
Your response completely misses the point. The point is that when even such a dogged defender as Stafford can see clearly what ought not be in "Jehovah's organization", then it follows that any organization that contains "what ought not be" cannot be that organization. To wit (I just love Rutherford's expressions), the Jehovah's Witnesses Organization contains enough trash that it cannot be -- Scripturally or logically -- "Jehovah's organization".
That doesn’t make any sense and you know it. According to the many Scriptural references I have made on the topic, Jehovah fully recognizes what is deficient, and he knows how to bring about the needed correction and refining. Several prophecies foretell that God’s organization will at some point discard what we had previously embraced as if it were an unclean menstrual cloth.
Wrong. They say that there are things that cause stumbling in the world and that when Christ's Kingdom is established, they will be cleaned out of the world which by then will be controlled by that Kingdom.You are hilarious. I know what the Watchtower teaches on that prophecy. They are wrong! Hey, they have been known to misinterpret a few things! LOL! Technically it is not possible for something in the world to stumble a Christian. Stumbling blocks are things that come from within the truth. For example, Paul urged Christian to 'make sure of the more important things so as not to be stumbling each other up until the day of Christ.' That proves that the things that cause stumbling are things in the organization. When Christ arrives his angels remove such things. That's what the parable foretells. As I pointed out, Jesus clears such things “OUT FROM HIS KINGDOM." Jesus is not going to clear the supposed stumbling blocks out of the world. He is going to destroy the world. What would be the point of clearing out all things that cause stumbling only to destroy the whole system?
You have not argued against the specific Scriptures I pointed out -- in your usual way you've simply ignored them. Why do you constantly ignore the very Scriptures you claim as the basis for your life?I don’t ignore the Scriptures. I ignore your explanations of the Scriptures. There’s a difference. LOL
If he was not speaking in absolute terms (whatever that's supposed to mean), then he was speaking in relatively terms. What the hell is that supposed to mean?It means that you will always be able to find fault with something that’s imperfect. But, just because an organization is imperfect at the moment doesn’t mean that it is not God’s organization.
Right. And so it's painfully obvious that Watchtower leaders, from Russell through today's nincompoops, have no insight. That alone disqualifies them from their claim of being a composite "faithful and discreet slave", and by their own and any reasonable logic, from comprising "Jehovah's organization".That’s the characterization of apostate slanderers. It is not necessarily Jehovah’s view.
Furthermore, because they claim to be "the ones having insight" of Daniel 12, but they have proved not to be, not only is their claim false, which proves them to be false teachers and therefore false prophets, but Daniel 12 itself proves that they cannot be a "faithful slave", because it calls them "wicked". Daniel 12:10 states: "none of the wicked will understand, but those who have insight will understand." And of course, all of these words of Daniel apply to the very "time of the end" in which you yourself claim we're now living.The problem that the Watchtower is suffering with, as regards Daniel, is that we are not in the so-called time of the end yet. And for that reason the prophecies have not been fully unveiled. The time of the end and the last days are not the same thing.
So, Bobby, any way you look at it, JW leaders are false teachers, false prophets, and wicked men.Obviously anyway YOU look at it that’s what you see. It’s not the way I see things.
Therefore anyone who puts faith in them as "God's spokesmen", as you do, is doomed to extreme disappointment, because they do not comprise "God's organization".We’ll see won’t we? The way things are shaping up it looks like we are in the initial stages of WWIII, so we will definitely see what happens. Like they say, it ain’t over ‘til it’s over.
And you yourself have proved yourself singular capable of discerning what Jehovah is going to do, have you not? Based on your Scriptural interpretations you correctly discerned that "the end" would come in 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001 and 2002.The Scripture don’t say precisely when Jehovah’s judgments are going to commence. But, they do say quite a bit about how and why and upon whom, and all that sort of thing.
You did this by means of a variety of insightful discernings, such as discerning that it was virtually certain that twice the magic number of 40 years from 1919 or so would get us to 1999 orWell, it did seem fairly compelling at the time, what, with Y2K and all.
2000 or at the most, 2001 and therefore "the end" couldn't come any time beyond that.
In your customary fashion, Bobby, you misrepresent even that which you hypocritically claim you believe is God's Word. In this illustration to which you refer, Jesus is talking about "weeds" being sown in 'the field of the world' -- not "within the true religion".According to Jesus the wheat and weeds grow together until the harvest. That means that there are false Christians among the true sons of the kingdom up until the moment that Christ arrives for judgment. That’s the point of the illustration.
When "the Son of man arrives in his glory" he establishes his Kingdom over the world, and proceeds to clean out of it all the nasty weeds and such.That’s correct. He clears out the weeds that are intermingled with the wheat class. If Jesus were merely referring to those in the world, as distinguished from those in the truth, as we say, then it wouldn’t be necessary for the angels to make a forceable separation of the two.
So here you've deliberately misrepresented what the Bible clearly says is Jesus' Kingdom, and equated it with "the true religion" which you claim is that of Jehovah's Witnesses. In this, you're as vilely deceitful as the worst of the Society's writers -- and as reprehensible before your God.Your blindness and inability to grasp spiritual concepts is no fault of mine. The Jews accused Jesus of the very same thing because they were blind and couldn’t grasp the things he taught.
No problem with this as far as it goes. Your problem is in thinking that "the sons of the kingdom" reside exclusively within the organization of Jehovah's Witnesses. But if these "sons" are collected by angels only after Christ arrives, then there is no way for any human today to know who these "sons" are.That’s no problem for me. The sons know who they are, and when Christ arrives the revealing of the sons of God takes place so that others will know too. Until that time they are concealed in Christ.
Yet you claim to know, and so you disagree with the Bible. Most Christians believe that these "sons" can be found in any Christian religion because it's evident to thinking persons that good and bad, righteousness and unrighteousness, faithfulness and faithlessness, sincerity and hypocrisy, are found in every religion.Nonsense. The Bible says that the sons of God are members belonging to each other. Don’t you think that they would recognize each other for who they are? Of course they would. Jesus’ parable of the wheat and the weeds doesn’t mean the wheat don’t know who they are because the weeds haven’t been separated. It does, though, mean that we may not fully recognize the weeds among us until such time as the angels do their harvest work.
Again no problem so far as it goes. But as I pointed out, the Bible itself equates this "Kingdom" with "the field of the world" -- not the organization of Jehovah's Witnesses. Why do you keep disagreeing with the Bible?Your reasoning is silly. All of Jesus’ disciples come from the world. Because they are his anointed ones they are in his kingdom. The first century Christians were taken from the world of mankind and yet they comprised a brotherhood and were not scattered among various denominations and sects.
As with Ezekiel 36, the application of the 34 chapter is clear from the few clear references it contains. Ezekiel 36:27 states (NASB) that after this "David" becomes a "prince among them", "they will know that I am the LORD, when I have broken the bars of their yoke and have delivered them from the hand of those who enslaved them." In the context of Ezekiel's speaking during the Jews' Babylonian captivity, it is obvious that the prophecies concern the restoration of physical Israel back to its homeland inOf course the prophecy had a minor fulfillment with the Jews being restored. That’s obvious. But the kingdom of David never was restored to the Jews. Furthermore, Jehovah never again made any covenant with literal Israel. Yet, according to the prophecy it says that God will make a covenant of peace with those who are under the rule of his servant David. Elsewhere in Scripture Jesus is called the son of David. And Jesus took the throne of David and has established a covenant with spiritual Israel. That’s what the prophecy is primarily talking about. Clearly, though, you don’t at all know what you are talking about.
Judah. It is obvious that the prophecies were fulfilled when the Jews returned to Judah. Anything beyond that is pure speculation.
The proof that these prophecies have nothing to do with your claim that the leaders of Jehovah's Witnesses who claim to be part of this "spiritual Israel" are part of yet-to-be-fulfilled parts of Ezekiel's prophecies is trivial: these leaders are not today in any sort of "Babylonian captivity" so that God must deliver "them from the hand of those who enslaved them", and this so-called "spiritual Israel" is not now and never has been, by any measure you or the Society can come up with.Not yet anyway.
How does Ezekiel 34:27 apply to JW leaders today? How does Ezekiel 36:11 apply to JW leaders today??Why don’t you re-read my little piece about why the Watchtower is doomed? you might start to get it?.
I shall actually cause YOU to be inhabited as in YOUR former condition..." This obviously applies to the Babylonian captivity, and if the prophecy were fulfilled at all, it was obviously fulfilled when the Jews returned to Judah some decades later. And because the Jehovah's Witnesses are not in any sort of "Babylonish captivity" today -- even by their own prophetic interpretations -- the entire prophecy of which verse 36:11 is a part cannot apply to them.Like I said, Jehovah has a few surprises in store for the organization, and consequently for you too. / You Know