Mizpah, you said: "My point was that in the 7 churches in Revelation, all had different ideas and beliefs as to what constituted the Christian faith."
That's not how I read the messages to the 7 congregations. They had faults and weaknesses that Jesus brought to their attention, but there is no evidence at all that they were not united on their core beliefs and what constituted the christian faith. You can guarantee none of them believed in the trinity, an immortal soul, hellfire, etc etc. There were disputes over the extent that they were to separate and no longer follow jewish customs etc, but those were minor matters.
Like you I do think the JW's have got a lot of prophetic interpretations wrong and the timing of events. E-watchman of course does a grand job of exposing a lot of their mistakes in this regard, despite his ideas on the future political development of the system sounding quite imaginative (not to say he is wrong mind you). Still, it does not follow that because Jehovah has chosen to keep the JW elite blinded to the truth about a lot of these things that they could not be Jehovah's true Organisation that he has principally used in these last days to reveal the truth about the lies taught by Christendom, to magnify his name to the nations, and to show what the Kingdom really is and the issues relating to universal sovereignty. This doesn't necessarily mean that he HAS used JW's to do this, but neither does it prove he hasn't. To say that JW's definitely aren't God's true religion is dangerous, as God's nation in the past has always had serious faults, rebellions, apostasies in it, yet they were STILL his chosen nation. Same goes in the 1st century. It is fallacious to say that a modern day religion used by God as the true religion should be doctrinally flawless, and flawless in it's treatment of it's own and others. Truth in a human organisation is never going to be 100%, until Jesus does return like you say. I see that his returning could be to cleanse and humble his people, who have grown proud, loveless, and riddled with error, rather than meaning he will at the time of his returning FIRST ESTABLISH a true religion. The way I see it the issue is how close is a religion professing to be the true religion to Christ's teachings and the central doctrines of scripture regarding the important issues, rather than focusing too strictly on the smaller things that are more difficult to be certain of, such as interpretations of ambigous prophecy. On a percentage scale, and if one can excuse what may seem a rather unscientific and subjective approach, I would put JW's at 90-95% (depending on what weighting you give something like the 1914 error they teach, upon which all their interpretations of modern time prophecy revolves). Their is a group remarkably similar to JW's in their teachings that might be up around a similar mark. Then Christadelphians might be around 70%? Then all the rest in Christendom seem to languish pathetically low doctrinally, despite many doing great charitable works and being full of lovely sincere people. Even then, if one accepts for purely arguments sake that JW's score the highest mark for measuring up to what scripture actually truthfully teaches, it still doesn't mean they are the only true religion at this time. There is a very good chance they could be, or once were and have since found God's disfavour, but it is not conclusive. The truth will become manifest at the very end.
It seems to me taht a lot of persons on this site seem to conclude that JW's cannot possibly be God's true religion, and failing to find another religion that comes within cooey of measuring up to scripture like JW's do, they conclude that there must be no true religion. They then start to question the truthfulness of the bible at all. And then some even begin to wonder about God's actual existence. It's a slippery slope. Many also conclude that by their own unhappy personal experiences in the JW organisation, or from observing or hearing about others bad treatment, that this proves it cannot be God's religion. Although that is a natural human reaction, I don't feel that is sensible and could be quite dangerous in that they could be allowing themselves to be blinded to future developments Jesus may yet reveal in relation to JW's. It would be more beneficial to take a more measured approach when in trying to rationally weigh up the merit or otherwise of JW's. (But that's hard to do for victim's of child moletation admittedly - they have every right to feel stumbled).
