Gambling on Armageddon?

by Cold Steel 10 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  Cold Steel

  Ever since the Millerites, many people have been gambling on Armageddon and the return of Christ.

  The conventional view is that God will once again gather His people into the lands of their inheritance from the four corners of the Earth, and that once established, the Jewish state will build a temple. A great gentile leader (called "Gog" by Ezekiel) will then bring a vast army down upon Jerusalem and will eventually be destroyed by the returning Christ. According to Zachariah, the Lord will cause a great earthquake to split the Mount of Olives, and when the Jews first behold their Lord, they will ask about the wounds in his hands. He will say that he received them in the house of his friends. Then, says Zacharias, the land will go into mourning as they realize that Jesus was their Messiah.

  John, in Revelation, calls Jerusalem the city that is "spiritually" called "Sodom and Egypt," which means that it will be wicked, and that two-thirds of it will fall before the remaining one-third is redeemed. The nations round about Israel will be politically and militarily allied with Gog, and Zachariah adds that the aminosity after the conflict will keep many of the people in those nations from coming to Jerusalem to participate in the Feast of the Tabernacles. The Lord warns that those nations will be afflicted with draught and pestulence until they comply.

  The Witnesses say all this is symbolic and that in all due modesty...ahem...they will be the ones the Lord is coming to protect and deliver. But when asked when prophecy was ever delivered in such manners, they can't reply. Prophecy, after all, has always been literal in context. Jesus said that the temple in his day would be destroyed and not one stone would remain standing on top of another. That was literal. And so were all the Old Testament prophecies. When John identifies the city as being the one that "David built," we are not free to assume that "city" means "church" and that "David" means "Christ."

  Be that as it may, the Witnesses don't believe that Armageddon has anything to do with Jerusalem and that it has everything to do with them.

  My question is this: Do you know of any cases where the imminant expectation of Armageddon has resulted in Witnesses prematurely cashing in their pensions or squandering their savings? After all, why save for the future if there isn't going to be one? Why not enjoy a 42-inch hi-def TV now when I know that Armageddon is coming?

  I say this because my brother lost his job and isn't looking for another because he thinks the end is right around the corner! Others I know seem to have just given up. Is it just the current world situation or has this been going on for some time?

  How do the Witnesses view the end? After the war, where will Jesus come? Brooklyn? Will he then acknowledge his earthly church and the WBTS? What are the leaders saying now, and do they think they'll be the first ones embraced by the Savior when He returns?
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  St George of England

  With all due respect to friends in the US, I think if Jesus or anyone else came to live on this earth, Brooklyn would probably NOT be his/her first choice of venue. Maybe somewhere with a better climate, vista etc etc.........

  As regards Armageddon being just around the corner, they told us that in the 1950's and to my forebears in the years prior to that. Then in the 1960's Armageddon wasn't just around the corner anymore, it was marching right down the street at us!

  My parents never had life insurance, not needed as the end was so near, they would never die. I was never to go to school in this old system. I think about that as I pull out my bus pass and young ladies hold doors open for me! My education was unimportant when I did get to school as I would never have to work in the old system.

  Fortunately, after I married, my wife encouraged me to go to University and this has saved us from financial ruin in old age. I would encourage any JW's at school to plan on Armageddon not coming in this millenium, and to plan accordingly.

  George
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  Think About It

  With all due respect to friends in the US, I think if Jesus or anyone else came to live on this earth, Brooklyn would probably NOT be his/her first choice of venue. Maybe somewhere with a better climate, vista etc etc.........

  Like maybe San Diego, CA?

  Think About It
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  St George of England

  You mean 4440 Braeburn Road???

  George
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  Doug Mason

  cold steel,

  We saw (as outsiders of the WTS) JWs who sold their houses, gave the proceeds to the organisation and went preaching the imminence of the End. This happened during the years leading up to 1975.

  Don't blame it on the Millerites. They were only one of a long long list of people who lived centuries before them. There were many others between Miller and CTR.

  Even the John who wrote the book of Revelation thought the end was imminent ("I am coming soon"). Jesus though it would happen within the time of his own generation, as did Paul (he did not write 2 Thessalonians). The list goes on and stretching down time to our own. Before Miller, there was Isaac Newton, Charles Wesley, Whiston, Brown, etc., etc.

  Their success rate is zero, and iy will be exactly the same for today's doomsayers.

  Doug
• 

  Kum Vulcan

  Let's also not forget that from a psycological stand point urgency can not be instilled if doom-gloom events are not to happen in the subject's lifetime.

  You can give rats ass about someone not making it through the firestorm say 500 years from now, right? Just as much as people 500 years ago cared about you...

  No amount of logic can stand in the way of the "just around the corner" reasoning; by the time most peolpe realize they've been duped, they are too deep into the quick sand to make it out unharmed...
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  civicsi00

  My question is this: Do you know of any cases where the imminant expectation of Armageddon has resulted in Witnesses prematurely cashing in their pensions or squandering their savings? After all, why save for the future if there isn't going to be one? Why not enjoy a 42-inch hi-def TV now when I know that Armageddon is coming?

  I can only speak for the JW's around me (family). Yes, they squandered their savings. I have an uncle/aunt who had a home that was paid off and the uncle was doing very well financially. Right before the WT decided to change the meaning of "generation" back in '95, they sold their house and just about all their belongings. They took a trip to Mexico, and somehow blew all their money. They were reduced to living in an apartment for several years. He is now about 70 years old, forced to retire and live off of social security, and my aunt is having to work hard to keep up with the bills. They eventually bought a house again but they're nowhere near paying it off again.

  The same goes for my family. No retirement money, no life insurance, nothing. Still waiting for "the end".

  The GB is very responsible for the financial, psychological, and spiritual ruin they put people through. God will judge them and I am glad I am not one of them.

  So if your brother is out spending his money cuz he thinks "the end is right around the corner", he's got another thing coming. Unfortunately, how do you help the ignorant if the ignorant don't help themselves? God gave us a mind so we could put it to good use.. not allow some stupid religion to govern our minds and not allow us to make decisions like grown adults.
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  OUTLAW

  The WBT$ has been Gambling with Peoples Lives,for over 100 years..

  With a 100% Success Rate of..

  No Winners!!..

  

  ...................... ...OUTLAW
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  Cold Steel

  Even the John who wrote the book of Revelation thought the end was imminent ("I am coming soon"). Jesus though it would happen within the time of his own generation, as did Paul (he did not write 2 Thessalonians). The list goes on and stretching down time to our own. Before Miller, there was Isaac Newton, Charles Wesley, Whiston, Brown, etc., etc.

  That's a popular interpretation; however, there's substantial evidence that both Jesus and his followers knew that Jesus' return would not be in their day. First, Jesus prophecied 1) the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple by the Romans; 2) the dispersing of the Jews to the four corners of the Earth; 3) the preachng of the gospel to all nations; 5) the gathering of the Jews to their ancestral homeland; 6) the re-building of the Temple; 7) the rise of the Antichrist (Gog); 8) the calling of two prophets who will keep them at bay for 3.5 years; and 9) the return of Christ to the Mount of Olives.

  John also prophecied that many things must take place.

  In Matthew 24, the Lord spoke of the end days and spoke in terms of the "generation" in which they would occur. But the word has never been defined further than it's basic meaning -- generate, generation. Perhaps he has reference to dispensations. The scriptures had reference to the Dispensation of the Fulness of Times, a dispensation in which all things would be brought together. According to ancient Jewish traditions, the return of Elijah and the return of Judah were to happen in the same period of time. Certainly if one takes all the unfulfilled prophecies and lines them out, end to end, it's fairly certain that neither Jesus nor his followers would expect things to all wrap up in their lifetimes. While the Jews died in the tens of thousands by the hands of the Romans, the Christians had been warned by their authorities to flee to the city of Pella, where they would escape.

  If one looks at the prophecies in Daniel 2, the vision of the "kingdoms," the first was Babylon; the second was the Persians; the third was the Macedonian empire of Alexander; the fourth was the Roman Empire, and then we see the individual kindoms that would rise after Rome. That prophecy alone would place "the end" far after the lifetimes of Jesus and the apostles. There's every indication that the early Christians understood that many things remained unfulfilled. If the individual Christians themselves expected that Jesus would return in their day, that was their own opinions; however, Jesus and the others were schooled in the scriptures and by revelation. Even in our day, when expectations run high, there are still things that need to happen before Christ can return in glory.

  William Miller spawned the Seventh Day Adventists, which in turn splintered into groups that eventually resulted in the Bible Students and the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society. They aren't so very far removed.
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  Mad Sweeney

  Squander savings? What is this "savings" of which you speak? Dubs don't save money. Most of them barely make enough to live on. Those who do, donate huge portions to the borg. Those who save do it quietly because it would be frowned on as showing weak faith in both the imminent end and in Jehovah's personal protection.

  I know many OLD JWs and only ONE has any form of retirement benefit and that was given to him by his company. They work part-time for as long as they're healthy to supplement their social security checks. It's a sad, sad way to grow old.