You Get OodLes Of Help Citing Your Scriptures Properly a tale of Reverse Psychology
When a member leaves a close-knit religious order, like The Truth, his former friends have no choice than to shun him. If he was in the right he wouldn't have left. He knew what he was getting into and there was a code of conduct which he didn't keep. It was his fault.
And now that he's left, and has no friends, a crappy job and no future. He is disgruntled and hangs out with whiners like himself. Often there's internet sites and chat rooms. Or even meetings in pubs to complain together on Oh, how rotten brother so-and-so was, and even blaming the Society! Like it's their fault his daughter smoked cigarettes and cried at the judicial committee meeting! Those brothers at Bethel work very hard for our spiritual nourishment. How can you blame them?
The fact that none of the 10 girls caught smoking cigarettes, marijuana and/or with her knickers down are still in The Truth shows how right the elders were to meet with them several times to go through the details, again and again, as each teenager squealed on her friend. It's not like his daughter was disfellowshipped, she was just Publicly Reproved. That happens to a lot of people. Big deal.
It happened to me, I just expected everyone to either be okay or give me a cold shoulder for a while. Big deal again when old friends stopped inviting me over. I am approved association once more, no longer marked. Yes, it was lonely for the first year, but I still went to meetings and sat in the back, until I was reinstated. And then it was great for a week and then I was lonely again for another year, and then it got better. Enough about me.
See, I just got up and dusted off the gravel I was tripped over in, and kept on in Jehovah's service. I go to the 5 meetings 3 times a week and out in service on Saturday's. Sometimes I can visit just 2 people on the far reaches of the territory, have a break at the nice little bistro, and get my time in. Enough about me.
He, on the other hand, let's call him Mo, Mo gave up. It upset him that his daughter had to cry while confessing this grave sin of smoking. He had modeled his 15 years as a convert after a brother in the congregation who had bounced back from a congregational calamity or two. Well, that worked for a while, and then he fell on his sword when he got drunk with worldly people one night at a ball game. He was very drunk, and this was a big problem, so he was Deleted as a ministerial servant. Served him right. Enough of him. So consider this the defense of my religion, and let the facts speak for themselves!
There is nothing wrong with the Watchtower Society, it is doing the Lord's work and that's that. Where would we be without the Organization? We'd still be thinking people would be going to hell, that's where we would be! We even know where Adam got his wife, for goodness sake. The fact that dates were talked about in this Watchtower or that one like 1874, 1881, 1914, 1918, 1925, 1975 and so on has nothing to do with The Truth. The Society continues with the New Light at the right time, where else should we even think of going?
We're not like the Catholic Church with all those sexually disturbed priests, we take care of our own sinful people and move them to another congregation if they show signs of true repentance, or disfellowship them if not. Why get the police involved, it casts dispersions on Jehovah and his people. Best to keep that sort of thing quiet.
Okay, the individuals in the Society may have had some off periods. Who wouldn't, this is Satan's system of things, as the facts show! But Rutherford's drunkenness, for instance, had nothing to do with him living at Beth Sarim, the House of Princes, in San Diego County. He was there expecting the arrival of the ancient ones like Daniel, David and Abraham to set-up a New Jerusalem, starting in California I suppose. That was an important job. What if it had happened?
But you know what; the Ancient Worthies represent The Elders today, like the ones who have judicial committees on the smoking habits of 9 teenage girls, when another got caught in the hot-tub naked with a teenage boy and ratted on them to share the wrath of the elders. So Rutherford was wrong. Big Deal. Rutherford was going to let the Ancient Worthies have his 12-cylinder Cadillac as well. He wasn't at all stingy with other people's money.
This is God's channel of truth and that's that. It was chosen by Jesus in 1918 and he picked the Society. Well the brethren I suppose or was it Russell, the second president of the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society? … It was the Organization! - so that's everyone in the Truth who agree with the Organization, at the time the Organization said it and not question the change, if there is one … and placing literature door to door. Jesus really likes that trait it seems.
Connolly or someone who fell out with Russell early on was the first President of the Watchtower. But none of that matters as it is God's Organization that does matter. Especially those of the Anointed and the Nethinim who serve at Bethel, and these are humble people who don't want titles but have them anyway.
Russell died in 1916, right after he should have gone to heaven in 1914. So the strain on him was heavy, he was wrong about 1881 too, of course. He was kept out of Brooklyn on speaking engagements while he was sick, he died traveling. The power play came from Rutherford, who was once a temporary judge in Missouri before he joined up with Russell after reading the latter's books, most of which Russell would be disfellowshipped for writing had he done so today. Russell believed in a general resurrection of the dead, no hell (of course), Jews are still Jehovah's special people, the Great Crowd were to go to heaven along with the Little Flock, the Great Pyramid of Gizeh - good mid/late 19th century stuff.
Rutherford was in charge in 1918, when Jesus came to inspect his followers after setting up his heavenly kingdom in 1874. But Current Truth has that at 1914 now, and the Great War came then so it must be right. I know it's confusing, but it doesn't matter. The Society can take a date from one shoulder and put it on the other, it's had a lot of practice.
Anyway, evidence shows that Jesus did indeed choose the Society in 1918. The Watchtower quotes this sort of thing as: something-something "…", and that's how you know what they are quoting is history written in the future way back in 1918. How about that!
I have to take a minute to mention this. I was reading an old Rutherford book, he authored them then, from 1932 or so, Salvation or Deliverance being the title, I think. It said that the Holy Spirit was done away with when the Organization was chosen by Jesus in 1918! I asked a brother what it meant and he said someone would get back to me. So I won't go to garage sales to buy old Watchtower books anymore, they might be demonized. Lots of things are, you know, he told me that.
I didn't tell him about the pamphlet Millions Now Living Will Never Die, written in 1918. Trouble is, I read it. It was all to do with the Ancient Worthies coming back in 1925. There's always a lot of "…"'s when the Society refers that pamphlet to prove they were right all along. I didn't want to upset this brother, you see. So I kept that one to myself. The Society doesn't say much about that pamphlet now as Millions are actuall dying. Enough about me.
So, why leave The Truth and bad-mouth it and maybe even smoke cigarettes when something goes wrong? There's no need, because King David killed someone and Jehovah still accepted him after he was sufficiently repentant!
Same with the Elders, just show repentance, and get on with it. No big deal. Why would you ever have to get disfellowshipped and break ties with your immediate family, as well as everyone else you know on a social level? You will wind up with no friends and family!
And they do this because they love you and want you back. So repent and get on with it. To shun you is to love you; the Society says so and cites oodles of scriptures to help you with this properly.
Why is the NWT a better translation than the KJV? It's in English, I need say no more.
Mind you I was looking at the KJV one day, don't know why. Well, I kept seeing this word Grace and it sounded wrong, but kinda special. So I looked it up in the NWT and it was Undeserved Kindness. Now I know what grace is, undeserved kindness. Whatever we get we don't deserve, so shake it off, repent and get on with it. But that's not a dictionary definition for Grace. So I asked another brother about it and he said someone would get back to me.
Another thing that got to Mo, other than his own deletion and his daughter's public reproof was a change in the meaning of the word Generation, for years the end would come not long after 1914. Someone had to be alive in 1914 and still live to see Armageddon for the timing to work. That ended 80 years later (the high-end of a lifetime) in 1994, when the Generation definition came to mean the general conditions of the horrors or the era post-1914, and nothing specific like a date.
No more dates. So the end could come anytime now it is post-1914, I suppose. But possibly no later than 2035. That's how old (120) Noah was when he built the ark; I saw it in a Watchtower. Maybe I dreamt it up. Maybe they did.
Back to Mo. He kept mentioning it, the Generation thing, like it was a Here-We-Go-Again subject. Like the New Light was blinking on and off, like the Higher Authorities thing: Is it Jesus & Jehovah or the worldly governments who are the Higher Authorities? By the way, the answer is the latter, in terms of current New Light.
Back to Mo again. He didn't get any answers and unlike me no one was coming to see him. So he drifted away and then he got some crazy ideas off the Internet and from talking to a shrink, and promptly left. Now he has nothing, no friends and no future. But he did finally get a decent job. He says he's happy and has stopped drinking heavily. But no friends and family! How can anyone want to lose that just because of something someone else has written about the Watchtower Society?
I did hear recently of a legal essay that implies that the Society misrepresented worldly information that it quoted in its Blood brochures. 1000's of people, including many children have died for want of a blood transfusion. And on legal grounds the argument is that their rights as a religious order are revocable for their misrepresentation of such quotes. Too complicated for the likes of me. But think, they are Worldly People, what do they know anyway? They don't even know God's name.
I say, go to a hospital that has a No-Blood surgery wing. You'll be alright. Anyway, Armageddon is coming soon so you won't have to pay the bill.
You Get OodLes Of Help Citing Your Scriptures Properly!
Trust in Jehovah and His Organization on Earth and in Heaven, which includes Jesus and Russell and Rutherford and Knorr (#4), Franz (#5) and Henschell (#6). You have Jesus and at least 5 past presidents of the Watchtower Society to trust with your lives now and in the future! What a wonderful brotherhood we have. Jehovah knows best. Get on with it. Publish the Good News of the Kingdom and then your end will come!
contributed anonymously