Are You Paul or are you Saul?

by reniaa 347 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  mindmelda

  I agree that some Witnesses are happier left alone in their faith. I fear for them at some point, though when their promised paradise never appears.

  I'm 49 and have been waiting since I was 11 years old for paradise earth so I might never have to experience old age and death. I thought I'd never be old enough to marry, then never be old enough to have children, then never see my children grow up in this "old system", and now my oldest daughter is 19.

  When I think of generations of Witnesses who longed for and worked their hearts out for that paradise that will never came in their lifetimes, although they were assured it would, I feel so sad for them. I know so many who have died never seeing their promised paradise. A month ago a lovely lady I knew died of a sudden brain hemorrhage. She was never a really active Witness because of depression, but she always had a kind word for me. She died without the paradise coming to save her from this horrible death. Or to save her family the pain of it. Her two Witness daughters and two Witness sons are suffering horribly from the premature death of their mother, even though they have their faith and are active in it. I can only imagine a scene like this repeated over and over again in the history of the Witnesses, people who never got their paradise, death came too quickly.

  And yet they hang on because the date keeps getting moved up, or replaced with "soon". Soon was not soon enough for many. Even with the promise of the resurrection, these people still hoped to be that generation that would never see death because of their faithful activity.

  I don't pretend to know the destiny of mankind, or of any particular person, but these unfulfilled hopes of never experiencing death really trouble me. If their faith can survive revision after revision of the details of the promise and the time of it, well, more power to them.

  I couldn't live on revised promises anymore. It's time for me to have a life.
• 

  reniaa

  hi mr majastic I think you are right there, you never hear any daughters called Jezabel either hehe.

  Reniaa
• 

  reniaa

  hi isaac I do actually respect you opinion a lot but why isn't this scripture applicable?

  Acts 5:38-39 (New International Version)

  38 Therefore, in the present case I advise you: Leave these men alone! Let them go! For if their purpose or activity is of human origin, it will fail. 39 But if it is from God, you will not be able to stop these men; you will only find yourselves fighting against God."

  every example I know from history where a religion has decided another is evil/apostate etc has ended badly for both sides, isn't the whole lesson of the bible as hamsterbait rightly reminded me about God Jehovah doing the judging through his son Jesus of those outside your faith?

  I am glad you recognise the name Jehovah, if there is one debate I hate it's the one on whether Jehovah is Gods name :S

  Reniaa
• 

  snowbird

  Saul = asked (of God)

  Paul = little man

  I prefer Saul, also.

  Sylvia
• 

  Mr. Majestic

  hi mr majastic I think you are right theer, you never hear any daughters called Jezabel either hehe.

  Reniaa

  I don’t know about that…..

  I have heard many a parent call their growing teenage daughter ‘Jezebel’
• 

  reniaa

  mindmelda they may have had to be refined beyond there dates, i'm not sure but though I do want paradise in my lifetime I'm not sure I want armageddon :S or even the lead upto it.

  I read many debates on why would God do armageddon and I found only one scripture with the answer.

  Matthew 24:22
  If those days had not been cut short,no one would survive, but for the sake of the elect those days will be shortened.

  how bad must man have got that Jesus would say this?

  but I think faith in God and his son Jesus shouldn't mean we need paradise now.

  John 20:29
  Then Jesus told him, "Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed."

  Jesus considers us blessed who believe without having seen, hold onto that :)

  Reniaa
• 

  Mad Dawg

  Ren my dear, you said the following:

  I have yet to see actual proof that date setting is a crime and if it is, it should be applied to every christian faith, since the majority of them have done it Including all the biggies and oldest.

  I have never heard this before. Would you be so kind as to list them? Please list the sources as well. I like to read this stuff. I know of certain idiots that have published books like 88 Reasons in '88. They are indeed false prohpets if they are saying that God told them that it will happen. I don't believe them to be false prophets if they are saying "By comparing the evidence from the Bible to current events, I think that X will happen by Y date."

  The following are a few of the items that make it hard to accept them as anything other than a false prophet:

  • Mr. Russel said that it was God's date that the end of religion and governments would be in 1914. This obviously did not happen.
  • If 1914 was so obviously the parousia, why did it take the WTS almost 30 years to see it themselves when they are God's Spirit directed organization? If they couldn't see it, why should I believe it now?
  • Why did Mr. Rutherford never say anything about the parousia being in 1914? He and Mr. Russel always taught that the parousia was in 1874.
  • Where in the Bible does it say that the princes would return in 1925?
  • I know that this is "very old light", but let's get real here. If Mr. Rutherford had a Biblical basis for this in 1920, then we should find the same basis today.
  • Where are the millions that were alive in 1920 that would never die?

  In medical scools, it is said, "If you hear hoofbeats, think horses - not zebras." The WT said itself that if people did not read the WT, they would go back to the teachings of the historical church. In other words, the WT know that no one would come to the conclusions of the WT unless they were fed this from the WT. They know that a simple, straight forward reading of the Bible confirms historical Christianity. One of the things that people who actually understand the Bible realize is that JW's see some very strange looking zebras in the Bible. True Christians will accept it straight from the horse's mouth - without long, excruciatingly convoluted 'explanations'.

  Have you ever read the old books by Russel and Rutherford? You really should, they are very interesting.

  MD
• 

  reniaa

  HI mad dawg

  no thx and going over back history of imperfect men is not my idea of fun, If you look for imperfection in imperfection you will find it!

  All a ex-Jw can prove by telling how bad such and such a witness was is that they are imperfect men Well! I already knew that.

  Spirit guidance doesn't preclude imperfection.

  and in fact we are told biblically that we await the time when 'imperfection becomes perfection' While I try not to use imperfection as an excuse I cannot allow it as a Reason to condemn either!

  but you asked about the date thing I am not as good at research as leolaia but here's one of the sites I found.

  AD 1000 Christian authority all over the known world predicted the second coming in the year 1000.
  AD 1033 When the world did not end in 1000, the same Christian authorities claimed they had forgotten to add in the length of Jesus' life and revised the prediction to 1033. The writings of the Burgundian monk Radulfus Glaber described a rash of mass hysterias during the period from 1000-1033.

  AD 1284 Pope Innocent III predicted the end of the world in the year 1284, 666 years after the founding of Islam.
  AD 1335 The Joachites again re-scheduled the end of the world, this time to the year 1335.
  
  AD 1367 Czech archdeacon Militz of Kromeriz claimed the Antichrist was alive and well and would show up no later than 1367, bringing the end of the world with him.
  AD 1500 Martin Luther, Protestant reformer, stated: "I persuade myself verily, that the day of judgement will not be absent full three hundred years. God will not, cannot, suffer this world much longer... the great day is drawing near in which the kingdom of abominations shall be overthrown."
  
  AD 1526 Anabaptists in St. Gallen, Switzerland, excited by various leaders and events, began running through the streets and shouting that the Last Day would arrive in exactly one week. Many were baptized, stopped work, abandoned their homes and set off into the hills, singing and praying in expectant furvor. After a week had passed with no sign of their returning Lord, they returned to their homes. --TEOTW pg 145-153
  
  AD 1600 Martin Luther predicted that the world would end no later than the year 1600.
  AD 1694 Anglican rector John Mason and German theologian Johann Alsted both predict the end of the world for 1694. Another German prophet Johann Jacob Zimmerman, predicted that Jesus would reappear in America and organized an expedition of Christians to sail across the Atlantic and welcome their savior when he reappeared. Although Zimmerman himself died on the day of departure, his followers completed the journey and remained encamped in the wilderness of North America until it became obvious that Jesus had stood them up.
  AD 1700 Jonathan Edwards, premier evangelist, was fascinated by the Apocalypse, noted all signs of the times, and calculated and recalculated its coming. He concluded that Antichrist's rule would end when the papacy ended in 1866, and that old serpent, the Devil, would finally be vanquished in the year 2000, when the Millennium would begin. --Apoc pg 171
  
  AD 1700 Sir Isaac Newton, the great scientist, was himself not immune to misprophecy. He developed a carefully constructed grand scenario which predicted that the Jews would return to reclaim Jerusalem in 1899, and that the second coming of Christ would occur precisely forty-nine years later

  AD 1832 Mormon founder Joseph Smith prophesied under "divine revelation" the gathering of the saints and the coming of the New Jerusalem, the temple of which would be built in Missouri and "reared in this generation." Smith added "Pestilence, hail, famine, and earthquake will sweep the wicked of this generation from off the face of the land, to open and prepare the way for the return of the lost tribes of Israel from the north country....there are those now living upon the earth whose eyes shall not be closed in death until they see all these things which I have spoken, fulfilled." --99R pg 120
  
  lol the final line by the site did make me smile though

  THERE WILL LIKELY BE MANY MORE TO COME! Problem is, they can be wrong a million times, it only takes 1 person to be right ;)
  
  
  http://www.armageddononline.org/failed_armageddon1.php

  this was one
• 

  Chalam

  Hi Reniaa,

  Cool thread!

  The sixty four million dollar question is who really are "the church"? Is it the church born again Christians or the church of JWs?

  It is interesting that Saul was persecuting Jesus, not "jehovah" or "jehovah's witnesses"

  Acts 9:4-5 (New International Version)

  4 He fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, "Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?"

  5 "Who are you, Lord?" Saul asked. "I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting," he replied.

  Has the NWT persecuted Jesus and and denied He is Lord by substituting "jehovah" instead in the NT?

  Acts 9:17-20 (New International Version)

  17 Then Ananias went to the house and entered it. Placing his hands on Saul, he said, "Brother Saul, the Lord—Jesus, who appeared to you on the road as you were coming here—has sent me so that you may see again and be filled with the Holy Spirit." 18 Immediately, something like scales fell from Saul's eyes, and he could see again. He got up and was baptized, 19 and after taking some food, he regained his strength.

  Saul in Damascus and Jerusalem

  Saul spent several days with the disciples in Damascus. 20 At once he began to preach in the synagogues that Jesus is the Son of God. When the Holy Spirit came, the blindness was removed from Saul's physical eyes and the eyes of his heart too. Thus, immediately, he began to preach that Jesus is the Son of God, something he was killing Christians for. I pray that the scales fall from many JWs eyes and they see that Jesus is the Son of God, not an angel, Lord of Lords from the New Testament and the Old too. 21 All those who heard him were astonished and asked, "Isn't he the man who raised havoc in Jerusalem among those who call on this name? And hasn't he come here to take them as prisoners to the chief priests?" 22 Yet Saul grew more and more powerful and baffled the Jews living in Damascus by proving that Jesus is the Christ.

  23 After many days had gone by, the Jews conspired to kill him

  Saul had been raising havoc because of the name of Jesus, not "jehovah". Because of Saul's change of view regarding Jesus, they conspired to kill him.

  Jesus is THE way, THE truth and THE life, not "jehovah", "Mohammed", "Buddah", "Haile Selassie" or the next thing person who stands in the place of Christ.

  All the best,

  Stephen
• 

  caliber

  THERE WILL LIKELY BE MANY MORE TO COME! Problem is, they can be wrong a million times, it only takes 1 person to be right ;)

  It's sounds like some sort of lottery.. somebody has to get it right ! should I keep rolling my dice ?

  

  So should we keep rolling the dice or simply love our neighbor and let God decide in his due time ? How

  many times must one bang their head on the wall to realize it's doing us no good ?