From the witness brochure "Look I am making all things new".....

AK - Jeff

This is a chapter from the Witness brochure "Look I am making all things new" Directly from the official JW website.

Note the highlighted statement. Can this be substantiated? Or did they just make it up?

The Perfect Government of Peace

Because our first parents rejected God's law, human government came under the control of Satan. Appropriately the Bible calls Satan "the god of this system of things." ( 2 Corinthians 4:4 ) The wars, the cruelties, the corruption, and the instability of man's governments prove that he is. The League of Nations and the United Nations have failed to bring peace out of the confusion. Mankind cries out for a government of peace. Is it not reasonable that the Creator, who purposes to restore Paradise to this earth, would also provide a perfect government for that Paradise? That is exactly what Jehovah has purposed to do. The King representing Him in this government is his "Prince of Peace," Christ Jesus, and "to the abundance of the princely rule and to peace there will be no end."— Isaiah 9:6, 7 .

The Bible shows that the perfect government will be in heaven. From this vantage point, the King Jesus Christ will effectively rule all the earth in righteousness. Moreover, he will have associate rulers in that invisible, heavenly government. These are chosen from among faithful humans, followers of Jesus who stuck with him through trials and to whom he says: "I make a covenant with you, just as my Father has made a covenant with me, for a kingdom." ( Luke 22:28, 29 ) It is only a few from humankind who are taken to heaven to rule with Christ Jesus. It is similar to the nations today, where only a few are chosen to rule in the diet or parliament. The Bible shows that Jesus Christ will have just 144,000 associate rulers. So God's Kingdom, or heavenly government, consists of Christ Jesus and 144,000 people taken from earth to heaven. ( Revelation 14:1-4 ; 5:9, 10 ) And what about the earth? Psalm 45:16 mentions that the King will appoint "princes in all the earth." Human "princes," or governmental overseers, will be appointed from heaven because of their deep devotion to principles of righteousness.—Compare Isaiah 32:1 .

When and how is the perfect government established? When Jesus was on earth this Kingdom was the main theme of his preaching. ( Matthew 4:17 ; Luke 8:1 ) However, he did not establish the Kingdom at that time, nor at his resurrection. ( Acts 1:6-8 ) Even when he ascended into the heavens, he still had to wait for Jehovah's appointed time. ( Psalm 110:1, 2 ; Hebrews 1:13 ) Bible prophecy shows that appointed time came in 1914 C.E. However, someone will ask, 'Rather than perfect government, did not 1914 mark the start of increased world woes?' That is exactly the point! There is a close connection between the coming of God's Kingdom and the catastrophic events of recent years, as we shall now see.

For some 35 years prior to 1914, The Watchtower (now the most widely distributed religious magazine on earth) had been calling attention to 1914 as a year marked in Bible prophecy. These prophecies began to have a remarkable fulfillment in 1914. One of these was Jesus' own prophecy, uttered 1,900 years ago, concerning "the sign" that would appear at the end of the system of things and that would prove that he was invisibly present with kingly power. In answer to his disciples' question about this "sign," he said: "Nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be food shortages and earthquakes in one place after another. All these things are a beginning of pangs of distress." ( Matthew 24:3 , 7, 8 ) In striking fulfillment, the first of the world wars started in 1914, bringing destruction seven times greater than all the 900 wars of the preceding 2,500 years! Pangs of distress have continued ever since. Have you experienced the war destruction, the food shortages, or any of the great earthquakes that have plagued the earth since 1914? If so, you have been an eyewitness of "the sign" of "the time of the end" of this system of things.— Daniel 12:4 .

The "pangs of distress" have heightened through World War II, which was four times as destructive as World War I, and on into the nuclear age, fulfilling Jesus' further prophecy: "On the earth anguish of nations, not knowing the way out . . . , while men become faint out of fear and expectation of the things coming upon the inhabited earth." ( Luke 21:25, 26 ) The increase in crime and wickedness, in disobedience and delinquency among children, as well as the growth of godlessness and immorality—these alarming developments were also foretold as marking "the last days" of this evil system.— 2 Timothy 3:1-5 ; Matthew 24:12 .

However, if the heavenly government was established in 1914, why is there all this distress on earth? It is Satan the Devil who is responsible. When Christ received Kingdom power, his first act was to wage war on Satan in the invisible heavens. As a result, Satan, "who is misleading the entire inhabited earth," was hurled with his angels down to the vicinity of the earth. Knowing that his destruction draws near, he stirs up great trouble on earth. It is "woe for the earth and for the sea, because the Devil has come down to you, having great anger, knowing he has a short period of time."— Revelation 12:7-9 , 12 .

Will there be an end to these woes? Yes!—when heaven's government itself, the Kingdom of Almighty God, goes into action to "bring to ruin those ruining the earth." ( Revelation 11:18 ; Daniel 2:44 ) Never will God permit political powers, false Christians, or anyone else to ruin his handiwork, the earth, with their nuclear devices. Rather, he declares: "My judicial decision is to gather nations, for me to collect together kingdoms, in order to pour out upon them my denunciation, all my burning anger." ( Zephaniah 3:8 ) Jehovah, through his Christ, will use great forces that he controls in the universe in bringing overwhelming destruction to all who follow Satan on earth. This will be on a global scale, similar in magnitude to the Flood of Noah's day.— Jeremiah 25:31-34 ; 2 Peter 3:5-7 , 10 .

In the Bible this destruction of wicked nations is called God's battle of Armageddon. ( Revelation 16:14-16 ) Only meek persons, those who seek Jehovah and righteousness, may survive Armageddon into God's peaceful new system. ( Zephaniah 2:3 ; Isaiah 26:20, 21 ) Concerning these the Bible says: "But the meek ones themselves will possess the earth, and they will indeed find their exquisite delight in the abundance of peace." ( Psalm 37:11 ) The grand work of restoring Paradise to the earth will then commence!

Published in 1986

JustTickledPink

That doesn't sound right at all.

Here is a great site

http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstat1.htm

Basically says there were 8,500,000 military deaths in WWI and 9,000,000 deaths in the Soviet War. How come they don't talk about that one?

ozziepost

In striking fulfillment, the first of the world wars started in 1914, bringing destruction seven times greater than all the 900 wars of the preceding 2,500 years!

I too will be interested in reading comments on that.

Of course, you could well ask, does it matter?

JustTickledPink

According to Wikipedia, WWI was the 2nd deadliest war. It was 2nd to the "Taiping Rebellion (1851–1864) was one of the bloodiest conflicts in history, a clash between the forces of Imperial China and those inspired by a Hakka self-proclaimed mystic named Hong Xiuquan (???), who was also a Christian convert who had claimed that he was the new Messiah and younger brother of Jesus Christ. Most accurate sources put the total deaths at about 20 million civilians and army personnel, although some claim the death toll was much higher (as many as 40 million according to in least one source."

JustTickledPink

Wikipedia has this great page on the statistics of the wars, here's the link to WWI

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I

Then if you read about WWII is says it had 50 million casualties. So it was far worse.... but between the China war, the Soviets, WWI wasn't as deadly as the wars surrounding it.

AK - Jeff

True Ozzie.

I just reel at the things I swallowed 'HLS' as they say. But this statement seems very over the wall.

Certainly 900 wars would result in massive more death and destruction than WWI it seems. Only 10,000 combat deaths per war would total more than the 8.5 million combattants that died in the Big one.

JTP - thanx for the link. After I have my morning brew I shall look that over.

Jeff

JustTickledPink

OMG I love what Wikipedia says about Jehovah's Witnesses when you type that into the search,

"Jehovah's Witnesses have a small active presence in most countries and are the second or third largest religious group in many countries with a dominant religion. In no country are they a large part of the population, however. Brazil and Mexico are the only countries other than the U.S. where the number of active Witness publishers exceeds 0.5 million. The highest proportion of Witnesses in a country of substantial size is in Zambia, where 1% of the population are active Witness publishers. Growth in most developed countries is slow or negative in recent years but is offset by rapid growth in less developed lands, particularly the former Communist bloc and Latin America."

ozziepost

AK-Jeff:

I wonder why they overlook WW2? Bigger again. Just think, they could point to Jesus' return coming in 1939?

funkyderek

It certainly looks like the Watchtower just made their statistics up - no surprise there. At best, they found the largest estimated number of deaths from WWI (probably including those who died from Spanish flu) and compared it to the minimum number of confirmed deaths due to war - and not due to genocide, invasion, revolution, conquest or other armed conflicts that can be re-defined. Probably though, they just made it up. Pre-Internet, it was very difficult to check this kind of claim, and we know the Watchtower never list their sources.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_and_disasters_by_death_toll

AK - Jeff

I wonder why they overlook WW2? Bigger again. Just think, they could point to Jesus' return coming in 1939?

True - but be careful you will give them ideas.

They could readjust the 607 date forward 20 years [since the date of 587 has been proved beyond a doubt to be closer than 607], swallow hard and announce that 2520 years ended in 1934, just past the innauguration of Hitler in Germany. This lead to WW2 the most destructive war in history. New start of the 'time of the end' could be fenaggled to the beginning of WW2, since it took Jesus three and a half years to 'cleanse the heavens'. That would buy them another 20 years. They already say the sealing of the annointed is in 1935, so it is a good fit.

Actually I wonder why they didn't do this when the GB was worried about the 1914 date, back when R Franz was on the GB? IT would have worked well - I would have bought it as a mind-blinded JW.

Jeff

From the witness brochure "Look I am making all things new".....

The Perfect Government of Peace

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