14 hours 4 minutes 000 seconds
How Long Will ARMAGEDDON Last?
by Cold Steel 26 Replies latest watchtower bible
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Finkelstein
Fictional ancient mythology is what Armageddon is, so make a time scale yourself, you'll be right every time.
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Giordano
Didn't anyone get the memo? Armageddon is over and our side won. It was an invisible war fought by invisible armies. All that crap in the book of Daniel and Reverlation et all was a clever misdirection. Satan never saw it coming.
New Memo. Paradise earth has been cancelled.........this is as good as it gets.
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Cold Steel
Thanks for your comments, AbleBodied. From the Jehovah’s Witness point of view, Armageddon is a when, not a where. For most other Christians, however, it’s a where and a when. When it’s a place, it’s called simply Armageddon; when it’s a when, it’s called the Battle of Armageddon. And since, like all battles, there will be casualties on both sides, it’s not improper to ask when all these things will be? Or when will this great battle take place?
But with Jehovah’s Witnesses, I’m never sure what their beliefs are on such matters. They make it sound like some day in the very near future, a huge storm will gather. Then, suddenly, demons and angels will come whoopin’ out of the sky and tearin’ into each other. Then, as the “true Christians” watch in horror, or glee, they’ll see angels dragging out their Catholic and Protestant neighbors and settin’ them on fire. The clouds then roll in thick and black, and lightning crashes in the heavens. Suddenly, like a thief in the night, the clouds part and Jesus descends whilst all the Jehovah’s Witnesses rise to meet him in the air.
In other words, it could come any moment.
Most other Christians have an eschatology that begins with Judah gathering to the lands of its inheritance and becoming a nation. After that, a kingdom will rise out of other kingdoms and that it will be a kingdom that once ruled the world, was disestablished and then reestablished. John saw the kingdom as a beast that would seek to overthrow God and utter great blasphemies. Bolstering him will be a “false prophet” who, like the beast, will receive his power from Satan. But it’s the false prophet who will wow the nations and people of the world with miracles such as calling down fire, and he will defer in all things to the beast.
Like other prophetic beasts, these will be real flesh and blood men, just as Alexander the Great was depicted before his coming as a beast revealed to the prophet Daniel. This beast, however, will come down on Jerusalem and occupy the third temple. He may even help build it. After a period of time, however, he will viciously turn on the Jews and begin slaughtering them. Zechariah points to the nations “round about” Jerusalem that will be Israel’s primary enemies, which is why I think the beast and false prophet will be Muslims. Two prophets of God will stand up against the beast and the power of Satan and the power of God will create a stalemate. But after three and a half years, the power of the beast will win out and the two prophets will be slain, their dead bodies left in the streets while a celebration takes place. But after three and a half days, these two prophets will miraculously stand upon their feet and ascend into heaven in the sight of the beast and his armies. Then all will hear a voice and a shout, and then every eye shall see the Messiah coming in the clouds and descending towards the Mount of Olives.
The remaining Jews will instantly know it’s their Messiah, and when the mountain is ripped in two by a horrendous earthquake they will flee into the newly created valley to meet him. But as they approach him, according to Zechariah, the Jews will say to him, “Where did you get these wounds?” (referring to the marks in his hands and feet). Then the Messiah will answer, “These are the wounds I received in the house of my friends.” Then it will dawn on them that their Messiah was Jesus, whom their fathers turned over to the Romans. Then they begin lamentations throughout the land. The Messiah will at that time be taken to the East Gate of the city and will be heralded into the temple. The East Gate will then be resealed and never opened again.
What about the beast and his minions? All but a sixth of them will be incinerated at the Lord’s coming. And thus the great Battle of Armageddon will be over.
In prophecy, the events are structured. If, for example, you live to see the two prophets killed, you will know when Jesus will come.
Thus, Armageddon is seen differently by first century Christians and modern day Jehovah’s Witnesses. The latter see it as a when. So my question was, according to those beliefs, how long do most Jehovah’s Witnesses believe the Battle of Armageddon will be?
(BTW, in your video, you made a number of errors in my view. First, it’s a stretch to believe that the JWs are directing people to Christ in Bethel. In other words, they don’t fulfill those warnings because those warnings are literal. The GB can claim to speak for God, but that’s not the same as saying that God is actually present at Bethel. Speaking for God isn’t the same as being God, as prophets have spoken for God for years. Also, when Satan told Adam and Eve that they would become as God, knowing good from evil, wasn’t a lie; the lie was that they wouldn’t die. Remember, later the [eloheim] said, Man has become as one of us, knowing good from evil. Without partaking of the forbidden fruit, man never would have become mortal. And if he didn’t become mortal, he could not have been redeemed, and if he could not have been redeemed, he never could have been achieved his potential of becoming like Christ in power and glory, inheriting all that the Father has. So arguably Satan’s temptation inadvertantly fulfilled the Lord’s plan; otherwise, why did the Father put the forbidden fruit within easy reach in a place where Satan had all the time in the world? Bottom line, the GB are at worst false prophets. They aren’t setting themselves up in God’s temple, proclaiming that they are God.)
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Finkelstein
the GB are at worst false prophets.
Actually the organization has been commercialized false prophets/profits.
The organization did make open evaluation of some of the short comings of Christendom
but at the same time created and propagated its own false teachings.
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Paralipomenon
This reminded me of a good friend I had in my hall growing up.
We used to sit back and make wisecracks and largely get glared at and scolded.
In reference to the start of Armageddon, the public speaker mentioned the scripture that Jehovah's reaction would like as if someone had touched his eye.
I turned to my friend to make a smartass remark and discovered him there, staring deadpan at the speaker, without any emotion, rubbing his finger over the surface of his eye.
I have no idea how he was able to keep doing it, but I audibly laughed out lough and had to make a hasty retreat to the bathroom to try to supress the giggles which was not easy. I cannot hear that scripture without an image of my friend masaging his eyeball. Even now typing this up I have a giant grin on my face.
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THE GLADIATOR
The Watchtower Society's have a history of moving the goalpost. The faithful men of old did not physically return in 1925 as promised. The promised return of Jesus to earth was explained away as an invisible return that they had failed to notice.
It was claimed that many of the promises regarding Israel had been fulfilled on the Witnesses in a spiritual or pictorial way. The promised paradise was, for now, a spiritual paradise.
It would have only been one step more for the Society to declare that Armageddon was to be fought in a spiritual realm and would be one more invisible fulfilment not seen by the membership.
The Watchtower Society will one day declare that Armageddon has already taken place, invisibly, but they missed this event too, but will explain it all, using that wonderful tool of hindsight. Perhaps giving the due apology for having encouraged some of the older members to spend their lives speculating about how many days or years make up a generation.
They will once again claim that many of their promises regarding Israel have been fulfilled in a spiritual or pictorial way. The New World will be the joyous association of Jehovah's Witnesses in their spiritual paradise. Other churches offer an invisible reward after death. It is unverifiable. The WT will adopt the same tactics as their competitors.
It has happened before and it will happen again. History does and will repeat itself.
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Ucantnome
Glee. I can't speak for anyone else but when I was a Jehovah's Witness there was no glee involved in thinking about the death of anyone. there is a scripture i think where it says God takes no delight in the death of the wicked.
however the prospect of the end of all suffering and the raising of the dead in the thousand year reign of Christ with everything being back to how it should be by the end of the 7th creative day was something that was a happy prospect.
there were aspects that bothered me. 1) i probably wouldn't be there anyway. 2) if I was I wouldn't like it. 3) I would probably be the first person after Armageddon to be stoned to death. 4) i don't like fruit salad.
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Giordano
Fruit salad is ok if you put it in Jello. But I agree with everything else you said Ucantnome.
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Cold Steel
ARMAGEDDON is an event that is at the center of JW theology, and is looked forward to with more fervor than the Second Coming of Christ. Jewish and Christian scripture, as well as Islamic prophecy, all see the final battle before the Millennium as the single culminating event that comes before peace can be established.
Why the Jehovah’s Witnesses have deleted Jerusalem from the equation is one of the true mysteries. Ancient Hebrew prophets saw it in vision and said Jerusalem was the centerpiece of the event (Zech. 12-14; Ezek. 38-39), and first century apostles also specifically mention Jerusalem (Rev. 12, 16); and even the Muslims believe it will involve Jerusalem, though they’re a bit confused over who the good and bad guys are.
So, having produced his very long video, AbleBodiedMan had this insightful reply to why Jerusalem was pulled:
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Alas, nothing was forthcoming. I’ve asked this of Jehovah’s Witnesses dozens of times and have yet to receive a single answer. A few years ago in a Bible study, I asked the question, and the next time they brought an elder. That was the first time I sensed that elders were hotshots in the Outfit. The other two guys sat back in the sofa intently staring at the elder. The elder, on the other hand, was sitting on the edge of his seat, a Bible in one hand and his other stabbing the air to make his points. As far as I caught it, Jerusalem in the Bible was a code word for something else — a spiritual reference I guess to their organization. But John calls the great city a spiritual “Sodom and Egypt.” Is that really the position they want to take? And why did John add the words, “...where also our Lord was crucified”? Here is the passage from Revelation 12, where the two prophets are killed:
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How could this in any way refer to Jehovah’s Witnesses or the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society? The primary issue is why more members of the Society don’t see these things. Here Armageddon is their central theme, the one they scare their kids with and the ones they threaten non-members with? The elder said he would read up on it during the coming week and get back to me. I never saw him or the other guys again.
I wasn’t trying to argue with these guys. I wasn’t engaged in a bash of any type, nor was I interested in debating them. Armageddon really is a fascinating aspect of the three major religions of “the book,” and everyone seemed to have the same basic prophecies except the dubs.
Don’t any of you ex-dubs recall hearing people give talks about Armageddon? Did they ever even mention Jerusalem?
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