@The Searcher wrote:
The countless failed predictions made by past and present Governing Bodies are there for all our brothers and sisters to see in the Watchtower CD ROM.
@djeggnog wrote:
There isn't a single prediction to be found in the Watchtower Library cdrom. I invite you to point out just one of what you are here referring to as "predictions" to me at least one example of what you mean. Over the years, Jehovah's Witnesses have been guilty of speculating many things, but to claim that such speculations were tantamount to predictions is laughable. But I'll wait to see what example(s) you provide in response to this request.
@The Searcher wrote:
Have a "laugh at this then; (he who laughs last......)
"The Nations Shall Know That I Am Jehovah", chap. 12 p. 216, par. 9
"Shortly, within our twentieth century, the "battle in the day of Jehovah" will begin against the modern antitype of Jerusalem, Christendom".
As someone with a superior education (and attitude) to me, can you explain to me in simple language (so that I can easily understand ) exactly which part of the above quoted paragraph is NOT A PREDICTION?
End of discussion.
You have hear done the very thing I had really cautioned you against doing, calling what were merely speculations you read in one of our publications a prediction. And then you go on to say to me "end of discussion," as if you had proved something to me? No, what you proved to me is how ignorant you are, that you could not comprehend something you read in the Know Jehovah book and think you are intellectually able to confront me about what you think what things your ead in this book meant. I have no doubt that you would be numbered among the many former Jehovah's Witnesses that thought obtaining a Bible education to be more important than obtaining a high school education when both were equally important for one to be able to obtain a grasp on matters that are germane to fully comprehending certain concepts about which the Bible teaches.
If you wish to end this discussion, you are free to withdraw at any time, but since you did take the time to find this quotation in one of the Society's publications, I believe you at least deserve a response from me as to whether the paragraphs you quoted in your messages constitutes "a prediction," and my answer is no, for there is nothing in these paragraphs you quoted from the Know Jehovah book that does more than what Jehovah's Witnesses do today in discussing how many of the things we read in the Bible were foretold, and what other things we anticipate will occur in the future.
I'm now going to provide an example that doesn't require you to be exceptionally bright, for someone that hasn't completed high school can possibly comprehend someone winning or losing a baseball game, a beauty pageant, a spelling bee or, as in the following example that explains the nature of what a prediction is, a presidential contest. If you don't understand this illustration, I'm sorry for you, because at the moment, this is the only one I intend to provide, and trust that you will print it out and get someone that has had a decent education and an understanding of how the world works to help you grasp the simple concepts it contains.
Here in the US, the coronation of another American president is currently underway in a presidential campaign called "Election 2012," and while there are presently three nominees vying for the nomination of one party, ultimately there will be at least one nominee from one party and the incumbent from another party for which the American electorate will choose to serve as president for a four-year term.
Now many pundits here in the US are of the belief that the incumbent, POTUS Obama, who will have already served four years, will be reelected to serve a second term, and pundits and other commentators suggest that Obama will win his second four-year term of office this November, and there are discussions currently underway right now as to how the Patient Affordable Care Act that became law on March 22, 2010, will affect health care for some 30 million uninsured Americans during his second term on January 1, 2014, even if the SCOTUS should force Congress to redraft the portion of the health care law related to the individual mandate that already exists universal health care mandate under US law that requires US hospitals to provide medical treatment to any sick person that enters the emergency room regardless of whether they have health insurance or not.
There are other pundits that determined to coronate former Massachusetts Governor Romney to serve in Obama's stead as POTUS, and these pundits not only believe that he will be elected to serve his first four-term of office this November, but that as a result Romney will repeal the Affordable Care Act.
One might properly refers to these prognostications as predictions, but what kind of predictions are these? A few questions should be of help in ascertaining the answer to this question.
If POTUS Obama is defeated in November by Romney, would you conclude that the pundits and supporters that predicted a win for Obama lied? No, but they were in anticipation of a win for Obama and things just did not turn out the way they hoped they would, but to say that Obama's pundits and supporters lied would be overstating the case. Are you comprehending what it is I'm saying to you here?
Similarly, if Governor Romney should lose his bid for president in November, would you conclude that the pundits and supporters that predicted that Romney would win lied? No, but they were in anticipation of a win for Romney and things just did not turn out the way they hoped they would, but to say that Romney's pundits and supporters lied would be overstating the case. Are you getting this or have I lost you? If so, then you shouldn't even try to read the rest of this message, ok?
Romans 8:19 says that "the eager expectation of the creation is waiting for the revealing of the sons of God," and so we, as Christians, are eager for the revealing, and we know we would all do well to "keep on the watch" and "be vigilant," because we truly believe that the end of this system of things is near. This is really what all of our publications advise our readers to do. (Matthew 24:42; 1 Peter 4:7)
Accordingly, the predictions that Jehovah's Witnesses have shared with others about the sign of Christ's presence, such as when nations warred against nations in 1914, the scarlet colored wild beast that in 1939 went down in the "abyss" of inactivity as the League of Nations and in 1945 ascended out of that abyss as the United Nations have all proved the prophetic word to have been true (Matthew 24:3, 7, 8; Revelation 17:8), and we fully expect the predictions regarding the coming judgment on the harlot and the great tribulation to come true as well (Revelation 17:16, 17; Matthew 24:21) because all of these prophecies are spoken in the name of Jehovah. How is it that no one but Jehovah's Witnesses knew that the League would be revived from the abyss of inactivity some six years after the hostilities of WWII had ended as the UN? Because this event had been predicted in the Bible and we spoke that prediction.
At Deuteronomy 18:20-22, we read how one can determine whether a prophecy said to have come from Jehovah is true or false, and it clearly explains that the prophet that presumes to speak the words of such a prophecy "in the name of Jehovah" that either "does not occur or come true," that prophecy didn't come from Jehovah and the one who has spoken a word in Jehovah's name that "does not occur or come true" is a false prophet.
Jehovah's Witnesses have speculated that the end of this system of things would probably come by the end of the 20th century, but what we have never done is presume that what things we may have speculated upon were predictions made "in the name of Jehovah." We have made it clear over the years that we are not inspired, so that we are looking at world events as we examine Bible prophecy in order to determine when a prophecy has been fulfilled. We have never made predictions in God's name, but we have speculated -- as we did in the Know Jehovah book -- that the end would likely occur sometime before the end of the 20th century. But we never taught that what we speculated or predicted was a prediction from Jehovah, that what we predicted was based on a scripture found in God's word. If we had ever done this, then we could rightly be accused of being false prophets.
Jehovah's Witnesses are no more false prophets then is the meteorologist that forecasts 100% chance of rain for the weekend, which prediction causes us to change our plans for the weekend, only for us to curse the meteorologist for getting it wrong, but is the meteorologist a false prophet because he or she predicted rain and it doesn't rain? No, the meteorologist is human, not inspired, and what is more, the meteorologist did not presume to predict the weather in the name of Jehovah, for then the making of such a prediction would have been him or her a false prophet.
Like, for example, before 1925, Russell had thought that the "woman" at Revelation 12:13 represented the early church, the "dragon" represented the pagan Roman empire and the "male child" represented the papacy, but it was after 1925 that Rutherford came to realize from an examination of world events that the "woman" represented "God's organization, the "dragon" represented Satan's organization and the "male child" represented the heaven kingdom of God. It was only then -- in 1925 -- that we came to realize that this meant that the Messianic Kingdom had been born, that Christ had begun to rule and that Satan had been hurled down to the earth, which meant that only a short period of time remained until the end of this system of things occurred.
The Know Jehovah book was not written with the expectation that the ignorant -- that is to say, those without at least a high school education -- would necessarily be able to comprehend all of the material the book contains. The Society now realizes that some of the things written in this book were "high brow" -- and "high brow"is not phrase a coined by the Society, but this is how I would characterize some of the material we have published in the past as such often went way over the heads of some of our brothers and sisters and one of the reasons we now publish a "simplified" edition of the Watchtower -- and it was often suggested that some of the material be used in Bible studies conducted by us with the goal in mind of studying the Truth book with our Bible students.
Not this is 2012 and the Know Jehovah is now more than 40 years old, and it doesn't matter what Jehovah's Witnesses may have studied as a congregation back in 1971, which happens to also be the year when this book was first released, since it is clear that you evidently thought this book to have been a book of failed predictions, which is totally ridiculous!
Why? Because you nearly had me believing that you actually were an active Witness. However, your pompous and arrogant language, coupled with your downright refusal to acknowledge & read the Scriptures given, clearly show a smugness I've never encountered amongst any of my brothers & sisters.
One of your problems is that you cannot see what is right in front of your eyes. If you were competent to determine who is and who isn't one of Jehovah's Witnesses, you would have already done so, so it no wonder that you should think me to be pompous, arrogant and smug. You may have considered yourself to have been one of Jehovah's Witnesses for many years, but clearly you do not know what it means to be one of Jehovah's Witnesses. You're totally clueless and yet you claim that you have read and have a knowledge of the Bible when what you really have is a knowledge of some of what you can remember from reading some of the Society's publications!
And yes, I am truly a serving brother who examines closely what is offered as "spiritual food". Clearly you don't - otherwise you would know that the thinking of the Governing Body (for many years) about Sodom & Gomorrah, is that those people will get a resurrection.
You don't seem to realize that I don't care what you may recall reading about the future life prospects of Sodom and Gomorrah since the current understanding of Jehovah's Witnesses is that they do not have any future life prospects, meaning that they will not receive a resurrection. What possible difference would it make to be discussing what things we used to believe if we have abandoned those beliefs? This is just stupid talk on your part.
You just ain't up to speed are you? And you obviously never checked the CD ROM (if indeed you have one) to "test the inspired expression". If you do have one, research the false prediction I've given you. Also, the WTBTS is no longer registered with the U.N. - please check your information is bit more up to date!
I am not going to retract what it was I said regarding Jehovah's Witnesses being listed by the UN as a NGO. It's not necessary for me to argue with someone that doesn't want to listen. It is perfectly acceptable to me that you should believe what things you choose to believe. The only point I would make here is that you are, as I said earlier, more versed in what you recall having read when using the Watchtower Library cdrom to conduct what you have referred to as "research" into the former beliefs of Jehovah's Witnesses than you are in what things the Bible teaches.
This preoccupation of yours in finding discrepancies in the older articles you may have unearthed on our cdrom isn't exactly what 'testing the inspired expressions' means, but you are certainly free to believe whatever it is you choose to believe about my knowledge of the Bible, which is inspired word of God, since I don't care about the uninspired articles you might have read that are contained on the cdrom of which you have such a fondness.
@etna wrote:
Again you don't read the bible, just the watchtower. The bible says that Jesus became KING when he returned to HEAVEN.
@djeggnog wrote:
[T]he apostle Paul, in quoting Psalm 110:1, indicated at Hebrews 10:12, 13, that after his ascension to heaven, Jesus didn't begin to rule as king, but that he merely "sat down at the right hand of God, from then on awaiting until his enemies should be placed as a stool for his feet." So while it is true that God had appointed Jesus to be the Messianic king, Jesus had not yet been given authority to rule as such because God had yet to make Jesus' enemies a footstool for his feet.
Ephesians 1:20-22 states that God had seated Jesus "at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above every government and authority and power and lordship and every name named, not only in this system of things, but also in that to come[,] ... subjected all things under his feet, and made him head over all things to the congregation,"as he awaited God's making Jesus' enemies his footstool. But note that although from 33 AD Jesus sat at God's right hand in the heavenly places, and he had not yet been given authority to rule as the Messianic king and judge, God had made Jesus "head over all things to the congregation" and he had kingly authority over those of his anointed followers that had been "transferred into the kingdom" while they were alive here on earth. (Colossians 1:13)
But just as Ecclesiastes 3:1 says, that "for everything there is an appointed time," and when "the appointed times of the nations" were fulfilled in 1914, it was only then that "the kingdom of the world did become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ," and Jesus began to rule as the Messianic king and when "the appointed time" for those dead in Christ to be judged and receive their reward, so clearly it wasn't when he had ascended to heaven back in 33 AD, but in 1914 when Jesus began to rule as the Messianic king and judge. (Revelation 11:15-18)
@The Searcher wrote:
Jesus was not waiting to become king, he was only waiting for his enemies to become a stool for his feet, because he had already become a King/Priest as Melchizedek had been.
What you are teaching here is totally false.
Kings have subjects, don't they?
Yes, and Jesus' subjects are the body of anointed Christians described at Hebrews 12:23 as "the congregation of the firstborn who have been enrolled in the heavens," for as I pointed out to @etna in a previous message, these anointed followers of Jesus were the ones "transferred into the kingdom" while they were alive here on earth. (Colossians 1:13)
@djeggnog