Do I have this straight? In the time of the end.....

by OnTheWayOut 21 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  OnTheWayOut

  In the time of the end, (Great Tribulation/Armageddon/whatever) the activities of Jehovah's Witnesses would be severely increasing? Didn't they give the impression that they would have like 93% pioneers and be "studying" their literature with tons and tons of people who need to get into the organization before it's too late? Isn't it supposed to be a great army?

  In the time of the end, wasn't the number of anointed supposed to drop to nearly ZERO while the activities and numbers of the Great Crowd grew and grew?

  In the time of the end, did they give the impression that branches and Headquarters buildings would be closed? OR Did they give the impression that all the Kingdom Halls would be overflowing and they couldn't keep up with the demand to build more Halls?

  Do I have that straight? Is it nowhere near the time of the end?
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  Flat_Accent

  I don't think it's quite like that. They use that scripture that says "the love of the greater number will cool off". My parents always use the uninterested people they meet as evidence the big A is near.

  You're right about the anointed though, but that's been increasing on a yearly basis. I guess we're sticking around for a little while longer ;D
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  Witness My Fury

  We were always told they would be at full steam, expanding, growing right into the big A. This was likely a reasoning tactic to explain away all the ever increasing and expensive expansion plans they had at the time planned for 10+ years ahead... they knew the expansion policy caused unease among the sheeple so they needed an explanation for it.

  Now we are seeing the reverse, literally. Downsizing, reductions. But the spin (and that is what it always is) will be that we are "so close to the end now".
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  OnTheWayOut

  Good points, Flat_Accent. So they have always been talking out of both sides of their asses.

  Ever-increasing, but the love of the greater number cooling off.

  Still, they gave the impression that the world would clearly be getting worse (love cooling off) while their people drew off the cream of the world that rose to the top. Sort of like, people not being "good" worldly people anymore but either becoming wonderful JW's or getting more "worldly" and doing drugs and having orgies all the time.
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  OnTheWayOut

  WMF, exactly what I was thinking.
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  blondie

  Jesus said it would come at a time you think not..........

  So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him. (Matthew 24:44)...I always thought it was amazing this is just before Matthew 24:45-47

  Matthew 24:44 was why I did not climb on the 1975 bandwagon and resisted pressure from WTS so-called authority. It was amazing how quiet those people got on January 1, 1976 and developed convenient memories.
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  Amelia Ashton

  I have yet to see them acknowledge that earthquakes have not increased!

  You would have to be a contortionist to "spin" that fact.
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  WTWizard

  I have bad news for them: The end isn't coming for roughly another 140 years. And, when it does, it will simply be as the end of one month or the end of one season. I never saw the end of one season wipe out most of the population.

  What does this mean? Simply, we are nearing the end of the Age of Pisces. "The end of the world" is a corrupt version (thanks, Jews) of "The end of the age". As we get nearer the end of Pisces, we are going to see more people detached from religion. Gone are the days when most people were Christians and most of them went to church every Sunday. Gone are the days when the Christian church ruled even kings. Even if Agenda 21+ doesn't come in and throw a monkey wrench in the works, Christianity's days are numbered. You can expect it to disappear more, for references to Christianity to become scarcer, church attendance to continue declining as many "Christians" almost never go, and for it to even become more offensive to the majority.

  Once we are right at the end of the age, I would expect some new religion to come up out of nowhere. As Aquarius is more of a free paradigm than Aries or Pisces, I would even expect some form of Satanism to become mainstream and accepted as the new truth. People will then be free from the shackles of religion, and those few that cling to Christianity will wither like the Jews did soon after 1 CE. The terms "BC" and "AD" will be replaced, in the mainstream, by the more technically correct "BCE" and "CE". We may even get a new calendar sometime after the year 2150 CE.

  Now, of course, that is not what the washtowel story is. They claim that the work will speed up, new peaks will be widespread, and then Armageddon will come. I am seeing far fewer witlesses actually out in field circus now than in the mid 1980s. The anointed are actually increasing--I expected that the anointed would end up going down into the triple digits or so before the end, not back up to 5 figures. Smaller and fewer rags, wimpier publications that are ripped off from earlier littera-trash, boasting sessions with wimpier comments, and the wretched excuses for "music(??)" we now see are not exactly my idea of speeding up the work.
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  Disillusioned Lost-Lamb

  No you don't have it straight; R&Fers, apostates and worldlies never have it straight.

  Because even when you're right you're wrong and if they later acknowledge your point you were twisted and wrong until they say it's right then you're straight and right, but not quite.
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  tootired2care

  Yes you're right, the scripture I always remember hearing from platform is that God is going to rock the nations (haggai) and we'd have overflowing interest. The reality is most new ones getting baptized are born-ins and i've watched annointed go from high 7k to 10k (go figure). I've noticed over the last several years lower than normal numbers getting baptized at assemblies too. Four years ago, there was just one baptism at the assembly, which made it comedy because all of the manuscripts were in written in plural form so the brother was stumbling all over himeself trying to give the talk.