THE POINT TO BE MADE
Current Watchtower teaching which invalidates previous Watchtower teaching IS A RED FLAG OF WARNING!
According to the Governing Body of Jehovah's Witnesses they themselves alone have been chosen/selected by King Christ Jesus.
For what?
To feed the other chosen (anointed) bride of Christ.
Feed them what?
Food at the proper time (formerly called "meat in due season".) This is a metaphor for spiritual truth.
Who else?
Those who, like dogs, gather around the dinner table of the Lord for scraps (formerly called the Great Crowd, Jonadabs, etc.) get the surplus benefit of reading the Truth from Jehovah's lips and have the option of acting upon it.
Why?
To enjoy the second-class reward (non-heavenly) of earthly paradise.
What is this FOOD AT THE PROPER TIME?
It would have to be pure spiritual truth. If not, it is mere opinion.
There is a huge difference between an opinion and a false teaching. What if it could be unambiguously demonstrated that a teaching is not merely opinion but a false religious view passed off as absolute truth in the name of a higher authority?
Would that not be fraud? Would that not make the teacher of such fraud a liar and brand them APOSTATE and even Anti-Christ?
We can conclusively list the false religious teachings of the Governing Body of the Watchtower Society ACCORDING TO themselves! Below a list is culled from various publications by C.T. Russell who was the mouthpiece of the Lord.
1.The Second Adventists and Millerite Movement was the fulfillment of bible prophecy.
2.A Meteor shower on November 13, 1833 was fulfillment of Jesus warning about end times.
3. 1846 marked the fulfillment of prophecy in having Jesus cleanse the Sanctuary (having arrived invisibly).
4. 1872 marked the end of six thousand years of human existence from the creation of Adam.
5.Since 1872 we have been living in the 7th Millennium.
6.Christ's reign began in A.D. 1873
7. 1874 marked the beginning of the Times of Restitution.
8.C.T. Russell is the messenger or "angel" identified in the Laodicean church in Revelation (1874).
9. The Lord did not come in 1844. The Bridegroom tarried and it was predicted this would happen.
10. "Beyond a doubt" the Lord appeared in 1874. The physical facts "are indisputable".
11.1874 marked the beginning of the Battle of Armageddon.
12.The Great Pyramid of Egypt was placed there to be used as a "witness in stone" and marks the important dates in prophetic history.
13. Measurements inside the the interior passageway (3416 "pyramid inches") demonstrate 1874 as the date of Christ's return.
14.(The same!) interior passageway measurements (now changed!) of 3457 pyramid inches demonstrate that the end of 1914 marks the beginning of the "time of trouble".
15.For forty years Pastor Russell set forth clear and unmistakable evidence of the Master (Jesus) presence on the title page of the Watchtower and "it will never come down!).
16.1939: the banner comes down. "Announcing Jehovah's Kingdom" goes up instead.
17. 1878 (spring) the Holy Apostles are resurrected to heavenly life.
18. The close of the heavenly calling ended in 1881. No further anointed will be selected. The number was sealed.
19.The close of the heavenly calling ended in 1918.
20.The close of the heavenly calling ended in 1935.
21. 1883: "Christian is the only name we need to be called."
22.God placed the Great Pyramid in Gizeh (1883).
23.Satan placed the Great Pyramid in Gizeh (1928).
24. BEWARE OF ORGANIZATION...IT IS WHOLLY UNNECESSARY. (Watchtower 9/15/1895)
25. "There is no command in scripture against military service". (Watchtower 8/1/1898)
26. God favors the Aryan race. (1898 Evol 30-31)
27. A black man can pray his skin white. (Zion's Watchtower 10/1/1900)
28. The BOOK OF RUTH is not prophetical.
29. Quibbling about celebrating Christmas is unneccesary it is a grand event and a tribute of respect to him. (1904)
30. You can read the CHARACTER of a person by feeling the bumps on their head. 1907
(Maria Russell requests in court for an increase in her alimony from $40 a month to $100 is denied because all of Pastor Russell's assets have been donated to the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society.)
31. Reading Pastor Russell's STUDIES IN THE SCRIPTURES will bring you into the light faster and better than reading the Bible. (1910)
32. The "time of trouble) will begin somewhere between 1910 and 1912. (1911)
33. Operating on people for appendicitis is unnecessary. It is brought on by worm infestation. A dose of medicine called SANTONINE will cure it and typhoid fever. (Zion's Watch Tower 1/15/1912)
THIS BRINGS US UP TO 1914
REVIEW:
Everything listed so far can be dismissed by latter day Jehovah's Witnesses. And it is! But, it is important not to forget any of it. Why?
This is the sort speculation and guesswork all sorts of religious people were indulging in all over America in many churches. What makes Pastor Russell any different from them?
Two things.
1.He threw his personal fortune into publicizing his claims backed by his followers willingness to donate and participate in spreading these fantasies.
2.He passed all these speculations and outright bogus representations of prophecy off WRONGLY as the very revelation of Jesus to himself as sole conduit of Truth in the time of the end.
By current JW standards we have to pronounce him wrong AND (most importantly) a FALSE PROPHET. There is no way around it.
Russell was willing to go easy on the Millerites and the 2nd Adventists. He was willing to cut them slack and say they fulfilled prophecy even though they taught and believed errors.
Why?
Because these very same people were turning to C.T.RUSSELL to rescue their false beliefs from ridicule. C.T.Russell offered them something that looked like concrete evidence.
1.The meteor showers, times of trouble, world events, prophecy fulfillments, chronology charts and Great Pyramid measurements really packed a wallop.
2.If he kept guessing and moving dates around; sooner or later he might hit the jackpot.
1914 brought World War I.
That was a large enough event to get everybody's attention and pump life back into the hundreds of little errors the Watchtower had been making over and over. It refreshed hope that Russell might have something divine to offer. HOW does trial and error guesswork which must be REVISED differ from DIVINE GUIDANCE, then? The flaw of guesswork is the necessity of adjustment after the guess. A guide who must constantly adjust their "guidance" must be as ignorant as whomever they pretend to be guiding! People who choose to allow blind guides to lead them will not be surprised to discover they never arrive at their destination. Next year is 2014. One hundred years of "guidance" by the Watchtower guides has left Jehovah's Witnesses in the same place they started. Mountains of books, magazines and promises are piled behind them like worthless maps to a make-believe location called: Paradise. WAKE UP, PEOPLE and smell the fraud.