Armageddon Is Right Around the Corner!

by Cold Steel 37 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  Mum

  Mark Twain said that ignorance with confidence was the key to success. Nailed it!

  So, they make a false prophecy confidently, then, instead of apologizing, criticize those who believed them for "impatience."
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  hamsterbait

  I wish somebody could find the quote from a 1986 Raggazine that pleaded with the "Dear Reader, for Armageddon is so very near."

  I laughed at the time, even though it took a few more years to get truly sick to death of the Borg.

  HB
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  skeeter1

  A JW told me that it wouldn't be tomorrow or next week, most likely. But that I would see it within my lifetime. That, he assured me of!
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  DATA-DOG

  " A JW told me that it wouldn't be tomorrow or next week, most likely. But that I would see it within my lifetime. That, he assured me of!"

  Skeeter, are you on good terms with this person? Could you ask them who's lifetime specifically? When a Bethel speaker tells thousands of JW's at a DC that the end will come in their lifetime, who is he speaking to? It can't be everyone, can it?!?! Does he mean Brother 95 yr old, or Sister Dialysis on the floor in the Elderly/infirm section? Or does he mean middle-aged Elder, or newborn baby? Who's lifetime??
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  AndDontCallMeShirley

  Could you ask them who's lifetime specifically?

  No doubt "overlapping" becomes a factor here at some point.
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  biometrics

  "Well it must be even closer now". That's what I was told when I questioned1914 generation and 607.
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  FadeToGrey

  I was told back in the 80's it's only months away

  Um fail my Ken Grovee. Elder!

  It's all religious bullshit never going to happen.

  Spent most of my life in fear of this Armageddon shit. No more of that for me. God can suck my balls!

  And my mother and her stupid JW religion
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  Cold Steel

  Vidiot: According to Fred Franz's eschatology, it's supposed to start when the United Nations suddenly and unexpectedly marshalls a planet-wide campaign to supress and outlaw organized religion, and that the overwhelming majority of the world goes along with it.

  I suspect the notion that the United Nations would outlaw religion and then, specifically, go after the Jehovah's Witnesses was indeed a part of a conspiracy theory. But from their standpoint at the time, it was understandable.

  Keep in mind that before 1947, the world was completely different. First, Israel had not become a nation, so the very early Bible Students had to devise a work-around. If there was no nation of Israel, then the scriptures must be pointed at them as a sort of spiritual Israel. Thus, the place of Armageddon—the famous valley—also must be figurative. And the beast, known as Gog or the Antichrist, could not then come down upon a real Jerusalem, but a spiritual one.

  There are two problems with this, however. First, Jerusalem was referred to by the apostle John as wicked, and he called it the city that was “spiritually called Sodom and Egypt.” (Rev. 11) That’s not very flattering if you’re that spiritual city. The second problem is that Armageddon culminates in the return of Jesus and the mass conversion of the Jews. In fact, one of the Jews is supposed to ask, “What are these wounds in they hands?” And Yahweh declares, “And they shall look upon me whom they have pierced.” (Zech. 12:10) Then the prophet describes the lamentation that will permeate the land. Why lamentation? Because it is at that point that they will realize that they have killed their Messiah.

  Both present problems for a spiritual interpretation. If the Jehovah's Witnesses are spiritual Jerusalem, then they are called wicked and morally bankrupt. And if they look upon Jesus whom they have pierced, that would indicate that they slew him. It looks as though once Judah began returning to the holy land, that the Bible Students would have pointed to it as a fulfillment of scripture. Many evangelical churches did, and so did the Mormons. In fact, as early as 1830, expectations for the return of the Jews was running fairly high because that’s what the prophets prophesied would happen. (See Isa. 11:11 for just one of many.)

  So when Jehovah's Witnesses speak of “Armageddon” coming, many other Christians don’t have the same understanding of the term. At the same time, Jehovah's Witnesses don’t understand why that’s so. But since they don’t read the religious writings of others, nor do they take comparative religion courses, there’s really no reason who they should.