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Alternative Daily Text for Saturday, February 22, 2014
“In faith all of these died, although they did not receive the fulfillment of the promises.” (Hebrews 11:13)
In his letter to the Hebrews, the apostle Paul referred to Abraham. (Hebrews 11:8) “Because of Abraham’s great faith, Jehovah promised to give the land of Palestine to his offspring.” (The Government That Will Bring Paradise, page 5) No doubt, “Abraham demonstrated faith in Jehovah’s promises” – but “it is noteworthy that Abraham did not during his lifetime receive the inheritance of the land promised to him. He also did not see his seed become ‘like the grains of sand that are on the seashore’ … These promises went unfulfilled.” – The Watchtower, September 15, 2011, page 26.
Later, God promised Moses to bring him and his people “to a land good and spacious, a land flowing with milk and honey.” (Exodus 3:8) But “like Abraham, Moses did not experience the fulfillment of God’s promise … Moses was told: ‘From a distance you will see the land, but you will not go there.’” (The Watchtower, September 15, 2011, page 19) Centuries later, “Jesus’ disciples were still expecting an earthly reign of the Messiah.” (The Watchtower, April 15, 1981, page 15) “Even after Jesus’ death and resurrection his disciples still expected the establishment of an earthly kingdom.” – The Watchtower, May 15, 1978, page 21.
Thousands of years after these events, Charles Taze Russell promised “that the ‘battle of the great day of God Almighty’ … will end in A. D. 1914 with the complete overthrow of earth’s present rulership.” (Millennial Dawn, volume II, The Time is at Hand, 1889 printing, page 101) In 1920, after Russell’s death, Joseph F. Rutherford promised “that the old order of things, the old world, is ending and is therefore passing away, and that the new order is coming in, and that 1925 shall mark the resurrection of the faithful worthies of old and the beginning of reconstruction,” and he called this promise “positive and indisputable.” – Millions Now Living Will Never Die, page 97.
Since the resurrection of Abraham failed to materialize in 1925, Rutherford promised again in 1938 that his followers would only have to “wait a few years, until the fiery storm of Armageddon is gone.” (Face the Facts, page 50) In the following decades, “the generation that saw the start of this age of lawlessness in 1914” was the object of promises. (The Watchtower, July 1, 1980, page 4) But “in faith all of these” – Abraham, Moses, Russell and his followers, Rutherford and his followers, virtually all of the ‘generation of 1914’ – “died, although they did not receive the fulfillment of the promises.” – Hebrews 11:13.
Today Jehovah’s Witnesses look forward to another one “of these divine judgments,” and they “expect the fulfillment of it very soon.” (The Watchtower, February 1, 2000, page 8) “Accordingly … [they] expect the great tribulation to begin soon.” (The Watchtower, May 1, 1999, page 16) “With eager anticipation … [they] await that new world.” (The Watchtower, April 15, 2010, page 11) But like Abraham and Moses, like all of God’s worshippers of old, like all Jehovah’s Witnesses before them and like all “true Christians” after them, they will ‘die in faith and not receive the fulfillment of the promises.’
