FaithfulWitness.....thanks for the run down.
Don't know whether to laugh or cry .... it is so true.
My poor babies are still in that building!
Wheat/weeds parable defeats "organization' teaching
by Zoos 20 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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ablebodiedman
In his illustration at Mathew 13: 24-30, Jesus made it clear that the wheat and weeds were to grow together until the harvest. This parable runs contrary to the concept put forward by the WT about getting out of the world and running to their organization for salvation.
Zoos,
So are there any other clues in the bible about how the "righteous" wheat will be seperated from the weeds during the time of the end?
Yes!
Here are some descripions of how righteous people will be seperated:
Isaiah 66:5
Hear the word of Jehovah, YOU men who are trembling at his word: "YOUR brothers that are hating YOU, that are excluding YOU by reason of my name, said, ‘May Jehovah be glorified!’ He must also appear with rejoicing on YOUR part, and they are the ones that will be put to shame."
John 16:1-4
"I have spoken these things to YOU that YOU may not be stumbled. 2 Men will expel YOU from the synagogue. In fact, the hour is coming when everyone that kills YOU will imagine he has rendered a sacred service to God. 3 But they will do these things because they have not come to know either the Father or me. 4 Nevertheless, I have spoken these things to YOU that, when the hour for them arrives, YOU may remember I told them to YOU.
Romans 9:26
and in the place where it was said to them, ‘YOU are not my people,’ there they will be called ‘sons of the living God.’"
[Name of person] is no longer a Jehovah's Witness
YOU are not my people.
So do you see any clues on how this seperation and division might occur in the above scriptures?
Will this division have an adverse effect that reaches right to the heart of what was once a wholesome family unit?
Yes!
Luke 12:49-53
"I came to start a fire on the earth, and what more is there for me to wish if it has already been lighted? 50 Indeed, I have a baptism with which to be baptized, and how I am being distressed until it is finished! 51 Do YOU imagine I came to give peace on the earth? No, indeed, I tell YOU, but rather division. 52 For from now on there will be five in one house divided, three against two and two against three. 53 They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against [her] mother, mother-in-law against [her] daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against [her] mother-in-law."
Can you identify any worldwide religion where these things are actually now happening?
Families being destroyed?
Righteous men and women being excommunicated through the use of God's actual name?
A seperation or division that cuts right to the very heart of a persons family?
The wheat IS BEING SEPERATED right under the noses of all those weeds!
Can you think of any unrighteous reprehensible thing that might have been done to Jesus Christs baptism which might justify the seperation?
Matthew 3:11-12
. That one will baptize YOU people with holy spirit and with fire. 12 His winnowing shovel is in his hand, and he will completely clean up his threshing floor, and will gather his wheat into the storehouse, but the chaff he will burn up with fire that cannot be put out."
abe
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Faithful Witness
Ablebodiedman:
The wheat IS BEING SEPERATED right under the noses of all those weeds!
Can you clarify what you mean by this statement?
Who is doing the harvesting or separating work? From an outsider's viewpoint, it looks like this separation is being orchestrated by the rules of the men in charge of the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, not by Christ. Who is in charge of doing the work of separating or harvesting? Is it the WTBTS or is it Christ?
Who are you identifying as the "weeds" here? JWs? Or are the JWs the wheat? Or are they neither one, since this parable does not actually have any prophetic meaning for them? I'm confused.
Has harvest time begun? The weeds should already be burning (in a fire that can not be put out).
What evidence do we have that the weeds have been destroyed? The JWs are still here and active, and so are the members of "Christendom." Non-believers are also still walking around, alive and well.
Is Luke 12 referring to the wheat and weeds parable?
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Faithful Witness
I really thought that timeline was going to show up in my post above. I wish I could figure out how to insert an image!
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ablebodiedman
Who is doing the harvesting or separating work?
Matthew 3:11-12
. That one will baptize YOU people with holy spirit and with fire. 12 His winnowing shovel is in his hand, and he will completely clean up his threshing floor, and will gather his wheat into the storehouse, but the chaff he will burn up with fire that cannot be put out."
You think men are behind all this seperation and division that reaches right to the heart of what was once a wholesome family unit?
Luke 12:49-53
"I came to start a fire on the earth, and what more is there for me to wish if it has already been lighted? 50 Indeed, I have a baptism with which to be baptized, and how I am being distressed until it is finished! 51 Do YOU imagine I came to give peace on the earth? No, indeed, I tell YOU, but rather division. 52 For from now on there will be five in one house divided, three against two and two against three. 53 They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against [her] mother, mother-in-law against [her] daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against [her] mother-in-law."
Everything Jesus Christ said he would do, he is doing!
abe
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Faithful Witness
Thanks for the explanation. I'm not necessarily agreeing or disagreeing with you, because I don't yet grasp what you're saying.
Ok, so Jesus is doing the work. I'm not sure I see that happening, but I admit I am still learning...
What about my other questions? Can you define the separation that you claim is occurring?
Who is the wheat? Who are the weeds?
What is being done to separate them? The "fire" is not a literal fire, evidently... what is the "fire?'
I appreciate your help on this, because I am really trying to understand. Can you explain this a little bit more? Thanks!
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ablebodiedman
Ok, so Jesus is doing the work. I'm not sure I see that happening,
You must the have some preconceived notion of what you were expecting to see.
Can you define the separation that you claim is occurring?
Wheat being seperated from the weeds, (or chaff)
Who is the wheat? Who are the weeds?
The wheat are the people who are wiling to give up their family in order to leave the lies behind and find the truth. They want to follow Jesus Christ.
Family is more important to the weeds. They would rather live the lie and keep their family than follow Jesus Christ. It is a decision that every Christian would eventually need to make.
Mark 10:28-30
Peter started to say to him: "Look! We left all things and have been following you." 29 Jesus said: "Truly I say to YOU men, No one has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for my sake and for the sake of the good news 30 who will not get a hundredfold now in this period of time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and fields, with persecutions, and in the coming system of things everlasting life.
I can see this decision being deliberated in hundreds of posts on this forum. It is one of the reasons I come here.
What is being done to separate them?
They are seeing the lies and learning the truth. They have come to realise that they have been misled. They are learning TTATT.
It is my conviction that the fire is eternal shame and dread. Try and imagine what the weeds will think at a future time when they finally realise that what I am saying was true and the "door" is now shut.
Matthew 25:10-12
While they were going off to buy, the bridegroom arrived, and the virgins that were ready went in with him to the marriage feast; and the door was shut. 11 Afterwards the rest of the virgins also came, saying, ‘Sir, sir, open to us!’ 12 In answer he said, ‘I tell YOU the truth, I do not know YOU.’
The "fire" is not a literal fire, evidently... what is the "fire?'
Consider in this scripture if the word "fire" is being used literally:
Jeremiah 5:14
Therefore this is what Jehovah, the God of armies, has said: "For the reason that YOU men are saying this thing, here I am making my words in your mouth a fire, and this people will be pieces of wood, and it will certainly devour them."
Matthew 13:42
and they will pitch them into the fiery furnace. There is where [their] weeping and the gnashing of [their] teeth will be.
If it was a literal "fiery furnace" would the people in there just be "weeping and gnashing their teeth"?
It is my conviction that the "fire" will be eternal shame. It cannot be put out.
Matthew 3:11-12
That one will baptize YOU people with holy spirit and with fire. 12 His winnowing shovel is in his hand, and he will completely clean up his threshing floor, and will gather his wheat into the storehouse, but the chaff he will burn up with fire that cannot be put out."
Matthew 25:45-46
To the extent that YOU did not do it to one of these least ones, YOU did not do it to me.’ 46 And these will depart into everlasting cutting-off, but the righteous ones into everlasting life."
and the door was shut. -------------- everlasting cutting-off
They will not have everlasting life
Which is very ironic considering this:
Millions Now Living Will Never Die. ----------- (the original sin?)
YOU positively will not die
2 Corinthians 11:3
But I am afraid that somehow, as the serpent seduced Eve by its cunning, YOUR minds might be corrupted away from the sincerityand the chastity that are due the Christ.
Are the weeds sincere about Jesus Christ being more important than their family?
abe
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objectivetruth
Designs - It is not a literal "Burning" of the weeds.
Jesus does not view humans as throw aways,It is humans that view each other as throw aways.
You are correct, this is the issue with Religion and Christianity, men placing their beliefs and doctrines on the interpretation of the Bible.
Matthew 13:30 - Let both grow together until the harvest, and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, Gather the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned (katakausai), but gather the wheat into my barn.
1 Corinthians 3:15 - If anyone’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire ( κατακαήσεται (katakaēsetai)
They are burned with fire that tests and refines. At the end of the Millenium all men will be judged based on their individual deeds during the Millenium.
1 Peter 1:7,Zecheriah 13:9,Isaiah 48:10
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Zoos
Interesting thoughts I hadn’t considered.
I appreciate all the feedback.
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ablebodiedman
(Just my 2 cents, but I've observed a lot of modern day JW's glorifying themselves and making claims about eternity for themselves)
That statement is worth far more than 2 cents!
Consider this:
w83 7/1 p. 23 The Live Men of Faith Who Will Never Die
Unquestionably, so late in this "time of the end" since the end of the Gentile Times in 1914, there are many live men and women of faith and integrity who will never die off the face of the earth, God’s footstool.
Are all those people living since 1914 now dead?
If so, then this expression is false, it is a lie, it is unclean. (now read Revelation Ch16)
The same lie that Satan told to Eve is still working thousands of years later!
Now consider what the bible says about making a covenant with death (Millions Now Living Will Never Die):
Isaiah 28:15
Because YOU men have said: "We have concluded a covenant with Death; and with She´ol we have effected a vision; the overflowing flash flood, in case it should pass through, will not come to us, for we have made a lie our refuge and in falsehood we have concealed ourselves";
and about escaping the calamity:
Micah 3:11-12
Her own head ones judge merely for a bribe, and her own priests instruct just for a price, and her own prophets practice divination simply for money; yet upon Jehovah they keep supporting themselves, saying: "Is not Jehovah in the midst of us? There will come upon us no calamity." 12 Therefore on account of YOU men Zion will be plowed up as a mere field, and Jerusalem herself will become mere heaps of ruins, and the mountain of the house will be as the high places of a forest.
Can you think of any world wide religion who blatantly declare those things the scriptures above warn us about?
Everything the bible said would happen, is happening!
abe