I recently (since Denton) attended another Special Assembly Day and heard the same talk by a different Bethel speaker. He did not say one word about Matthew 24:14 or Revelation 17, he did not mention the three countries without Witnesses. In fact, he emphasized how much preaching work there was still to do and he did make one out of context remark that he was not there to prophecy about current events. So I would have to say that the guy in Denton went off on his own tangent and has probably been assigned to a dungeon somewhere.
Society's claim of Matt. 24:14 being fulfilled - What it could really mean
by Jourles 93 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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steve2
JW org's home page quotes Matthew 24:14 - but omits the most salient part which is "...and then the end will come":
Here's the text as quoted in JW org:
"This good news of the kingdom will be preached in all the inhabited earth."
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neverendingjourney
This is quite the blast from the past. It was this specific thread that brought me to JWD and that consequently led to my wholesale rejection of JWism.
I had been inactive for a year or two, but I still received the occasional mass-distribution JW email by well-meaning but misguided witnesses. I had gone about 99% of the way in my rejection of the religion, but I didn't want to do anything that would foreclose the possibility of a return (like reading evil apostate material) in case I later decided my doubts were wrong and the witnesses had been right all along.
One day I received an email from a JW claiming that a Bethel speaker at an assembly had announced that Matt 24:14 had officially been fulfilled and now the end was really super close, just around the corner. Reading it made a small part of me panic and I wanted to confirm whether there was any legitimacy to the email without asking a JW since doing so would prompt all sorts of uncomfortable questions I didn't want to answer.
So I got on google and typed "Matthew 24:14 fulfilled," which brought me to this forum. I couldn't stop reading. I spent many sleepless nights reading thread after thread, confirming many of my suspicions, and obtaining relief from knowing that there were a lot of people like me who saw the same flaws I did. I wasn't alone. I wasn't going crazy.
That was 10 years ago. I went from spending hours a day on here to casually browsing topic headings a few times a month. Losing my faith was a traumatic experience, one that affects me to this day. I'll never be completely "normal." I gave the religion my best years and I've constantly been playing catch-up in my life trying to make up for some of the time I lost. All in all, I think the last 10 years have been good to me. The pain of leaving was well worth it in the end.
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