I`m looking forward to Garrett`s update .
smiddy
1975 failed prediction?
by Garrett 84 Replies latest jw friends
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wozza
I did my first study with an elder from the Woodville congregation in Australia in 74/75 and I don't agree that it was the weak or ones being too keen to teach the 75 armaggeddon story for when Ipushed the elder for when would the end come ,he said around October 75.
Though there was a bit of timidity to say this date (perhaps by some who knew of the failed WTS predictions before) but generally many were keen to agree with what my bible study conductor told me with enthusiasm.
I challenged him with the little knowlege I had at that time which my soon to be mother-in-law (a weak witness) shared with me that " nobody knows the hour ,not even the son " and this troubled him a bit and soon after I stopped my first study.
It was a time of high expectation in Adelaide South Australia at the time and the expectations were actually promulgated more so by the "spiritually mature " more than anyone by my observation.
When years later I started another study many tried to say that was'nt the expectations of the WTS at all but then I met many that had radically changed thier lives to pioneer in 74/75 ,borrowed money to buy cars and houses ,as they thought they would never have to pay it back ,amongst those were pioneers and elders. It seems different people handled the 75 fiasco in different ways.
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Finkelstein
A lie is still a lie even when you wrap a ribbon of righteous virtue around it.
How the WTS was able to propagate so many lies since its existence as a publishing house, was accomplished by exploiting the basic belief bible as god's word, as well exploiting people's own ignorance of what the bible says.
That ignorance in itself was used as a preconceived marketing strategy .
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Stuck in the middle37
In the small congregation I attended in northern California they had a chart hanging on the back wall counting down to 1975.We moved there in 72, I don't know how long they had it up before that time -
Village Idiot
Stuck in the middle, how soon did they take the sign down?
By the way, welcome.
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Ucantnome
this is from my previous post
'In 1968 the belief was the tribulation had started in 1914 and had been cut short . The brother who brought my parents,in told them one day u will put the radio on and Armageddon will have started just like those roman armies that returned to Jerusalem in 70.'
I believe that this view was changed in 1970 and the Watchtower of January 15th had an article regarding it. On pages 52 it makes the comment that in the Watchtower of May 1st 1925 the suggestion was set out that the tribulation had begun in 1914 and God had stopped the World War 1 in November 1918 allowing an interval of activity of the anointed remnant for sheep like ones to be saved.
It mentions that at this time the bible timetable presented in the 1889 book The Time is at Hand was thought to be correct and it says 'Hence it was not calculated that six thousand years or man's life on earth were yet to end during the 1970's'
It further mentions that the interval between the first part of the tribulation is 51 years and not over if this view was correct.
On page 53 it says if the suggest for cutting short the great tribulation in the middle were true as suggested in 1925 then 'Then the time interval between the opening part of the "great tribulation' and the closing Armageddon part thereof will prove to be around five times as long as the length of the "great tribulation"
My mathematic skills are not particularly good but this 'will prove to be five times as long' is I think arrived at that 51 years had passed by since 1918 and the war was about 4 years and there was six years approx. to autumn of 1975 from this January Watchtower which would make ten years if Armageddon was to start soon, 5 times 10 is 50, about five times as long. Armageddon needing to be over by autumn 1975 so as not to encroach on the last 1000 years of Christ's reign.
Maybe not but the effect it had on my parents that although the belief had changed they still firmly believed that the end would come by the autumn of 1975. My father had a good job and was reasonably intelligent and had served as a servant and elder conducting the Watchtower study with pioneer children. In the year that this Watchtower change came about he made a decision to move and simplify his life somewhat which would enable him and us to do more in the 'truth' which we did. We didn't even have a television for some years. However if he had retained the house he sold then his estate would have been worth at least 4 times what it was when he died. His children lost out in a financial way but not just us as my children recently pointed out how it has and will effect them. This doesn't include the fact that I turned down a pension policy many years ago because I wouldn't be needing one due to the belief in the generation that will not pass away. I finished my education early due to the 1975 so as to pioneer. Not for my own personal gain. But I have also had to argue that it was due to the teachings of the Watchtower and not something I or my parents read into it that I made the decisions in my life. When I was leaving the JW and the elders came they clearly stated it was nothing to do with the Watchtower. Admittedly I could be wrong on some things.
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William Penwell
That 1976 Watchtower article that chastised those who had sold up their homes and pioneered pre-1975 might have achieved some good had it said the same thing several years beforehand.
This is a big reason why my father sold the family home in 1974. Well the joke is on the borg as he did not have as much money to leave them when he passed away.
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William Penwell
Maybe not but the effect it had on my parents that although the belief had changed they still firmly believed that the end would come by the autumn of 1975. My father had a good job and was reasonably intelligent and had served as a servant and elder conducting the Watchtower study with pioneer children. In the year that this Watchtower change came about he made a decision to move and simplify his life somewhat which would enable him and us to do more in the 'truth' which we did. We didn't even have a television for some years. However if he had retained the house he sold then his estate would have been worth at least 4 times what it was when he died. His children lost out in a financial way but not just us as my children recently pointed out how it has and will effect them. This doesn't include the fact that I turned down a pension policy many years ago because I wouldn't be needing one due to the belief in the generation that will not pass away. I finished my education early due to the 1975 so as to pioneer. Not for my own personal gain. But I have also had to argue that it was due to the teachings of the Watchtower and not something I or my parents read into it that I made the decisions in my life. When I was leaving the JW and the elders came they clearly stated it was nothing to do with the Watchtower. Admittedly I could be wrong on some things.
How can the WT claim it was just a few zealous ones that miss read that they were saying when in fact you can read thousands of stories like this that are very similar. My family story is much the same. My father sold the family house in 1974 because he was told to simplify his life. I think he regretted that decision for the rest of his life as at the time he was still a middle aged working man with a family and at least another ten years of working. He sold the house before the big real estate boom and lost out on thousands of dollars that could have went toward his retirement. So when some dub comes on here trying to minimize the WT culpability in all of this, they are full of it. It just makes me mad when someone tries to justify that cults action.
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Ucantnome
Those who have tried to keep God’s judgment time “close in mind” have, on more than one occasion throughout history, become overly eager for that day’s arrival, in their own minds trying to rush the arrival of the desired events. (2 Pet. 3:12) In the first century, for example, the apostle Paul found it necessary to write to Christians in Thessalonica in this fashion, as we read at 2 Thessalonians 2:1-3: “However, brothers, respecting the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to him, we request of you not to be quickly shaken from your reason nor to be excited either through an inspired expression or through a verbal message or through a letter as though from us, to the effect that the day of Jehovah is here.
The Watchtower article that you mentioned which I've quoted above, SimonSays, quotes the apostle Pauls words we request of you not to be quickly shaken from your reason nor to be excited either through an inspired expression or through a verbal message or through a letter as though from us. and in your earlier post you said 'But just like everything else, those JW’s that were new or didn’t understand the premise took 1975 to mean the fulfillment of Christ presence and overstepped their expectations, by overshadowing what had been published earlier.'
By quoting from the book God's "Eternal Purpose" Now Triumphing For Man's Good published by the Watch tower 1974 in my post along with my other posts where I mentioned what elders (appointed men) said in the congregation that I attended and my own father's view who was also an elder and I a pioneer I hope I have shown why I believed that Armageddon would come by 1975 and it wasn't because we were new it was because of what we received as spiritual food from the slave.
In the Watchtower 1981 Feb15th on page 18 it asks the question
'How shall we view the spiritual food provided by this "faithful and discreet slave"? Should it be viewed critically-'Oh well, it might be true but then again it might not be and so we have to scrutinize it very critically'?'
page 19
If we have once established what instrument God is using as his "slave" to dispense spiritual food to his people, surely Jehovah is not pleased if we receive that food as though it might contain something harmful. We should have confidence in the channel God is using. At the Brooklyn headquarters from which the Bible publications of Jehovah's Witnesses emanate there are more mature Christian elders, both of the "remnant" and of the "other sheep" than anywhere else upon the earth.
Well SimonSays I had that confidence in 1975 and in the teaching regarding the generation but I no longer have that same confidence.
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SimonSays
The JW’s were or are not the only prognosticators of bible truth. While prophets were used in ancient time, Theologians in search of the truth became zealous and anxious to the meaning of Revelation. by the 1800’s. With all that man has been through before 1878 such as the civil war for Americans, and whatever else was going on in your respective countries, pales in comparison to the trials man passed through before that. Before you get confused, I mean by the numbers not actions.
As I continually state: research for yourselves verses accepting what is written in joke facts.
One example comes from this website: http://www.markbeast.com one of many people and religious groups have the same view but get different conclusions. Why because it’s there honest belief that man has but a short time left.
If you have really read the publications of the International Bible Student Association that is linked to Russell and Rutherford, you will find the purpose behind the dates 1925, 1919, etc. Also the IBSA was also interested in other groups that splintered after Russell’s Death, the world conditions and other religious teachings after World War 1.
So study in Dispensationalism, Eschatology, Hermeneutics, brimstone fire, and hellfire so forth and so on to understand the IBSA and just maybe you’ll understand the concept of the 70 jubilee cycle, and then work your way to 1975