What is the benefit of God's Kingdom?

Half banana

The Watchtower said when it started out in 1879 that God's Kingdom had already arrived in heaven in 1874 and that its work would be complete by 1914.

With heroic slogans of "destroying the Kings of the Earth" and "all enemies of Christ the King" etc by 1914, "God fearing" humankind was to have been restored to prelapsarian innocence and the Earth to a global Edenic paradise. How lovely......

I need not remind you that in 1914, instead we had WW1. Could any prophecy ever be more wrong? Thank you Watchtower, another Guinness Book of Records first!

CT Russell's prediction had been the result of a manoeuvre to rescue an already failed 1874 Adventist prophecy of the Second Coming from public shame. His method was to say that the prediction was indeed true -- but it happened invisibly -- good one Charlie!

He moved the goal posts forward and changed the interpretations of scriptural beliefs. Well how else could Adventism survive with so many failures in USA in the 19th century? Remember Miller's 1844 "Great disappointment?" Adventism and Jehovah's Witnesses are simply a continuation of this persistent but foolish thread of underlying belief of "the Second Coming". (The focal name changes over time as the disappointments roll by).

The Watchtower lost nearly two thirds of it membership. So in the spirit of keeping the ship afloat, the directors of the Watchtower obscured the obvious defeat and shifted the "spiritual presence" of the kingdom forward from 1874 to 1914. This they must have reasoned got them off the hook since it was the same ploy Russell had used for 1874; claiming an INVISIBLE presence.

Now come on people who have not completely shut down your brain for religious reasons, how does one know about spiritual, invisible things? Even faith has to have some evidence!

Where though is the evidence that 1831,1844,1874 or 1914 was the date when God's Kingdom arrived. Why stick at 1914, why not move it forward to 1975?

Let's be generous and say that 1914 was when the Kingdom arrived invisibly in heaven. What then has been the subsequent benefits of this sublime enthronement of the son of the Creator of the universe? Surely such an event would make the most impressive changes on earth reflecting this consummate universal rule by the King of Kings?

How would we ever know someone or some organisation is not pulling our leg? Are invisible friends real? Are sky gods real? Are invisible kingdoms real? Where's the evidence? Does the expression "building castles in the air" come to mind?

I suggest it is a complete hoax in the long tradition of religious shysters milking the ignorant.

Is this invisible JW kingdom worth the giving up of your time, your life, your family, your education, your conscience for?

What are your thoughts on this invisible 1914 kingdom?

JoenB75

The Kingdom is a gradual process living in the hearts of the saints ('within you') and gradually conquering the world, symbolised in Revelation with the stuff inside and outside the New Jerusalem. Milton S. Terry famously said this might take a million years. There is certainly nothing that indidates all the speculations you speak of here. That is prophecy from Russell and the org. with little credibility.

Half banana

Thank you for thoughts Joen but on the other hand where is there the evidence for your statement that "the Kingdom is a gradual process living in the hearts of the saints"?

Admit it, it's just just religious psycho babble.

blubberyk9

“Even faith has to have some evidence!” -HB

You will never prove spiritual realities with material facts. They exist on differing levels. One is inner and the other outer.

Faith evidence is as personal as faith itself is. An outsider to each person cannot determine the extent or reality of another’s personal faith. It isn’t real to anyone else but the person experiencing it. What may prove spiritually true for one person cannot necessarily be proven true for another. This is precisely why organized dogmatic religious organizations are in error. Each person must decide for themself what constitutes ‘credible evidence’ about anything in the inner life.

For some the kingdom of heaven IS a spiritual fraternity with others who likewise believe in God. The idea is that God exists because they have inner evidence of that existence. For those looking on but without that “evidence” they clamor for the evidence the believer has. Well, how could they possibly know that the believer does not know? They can’t. But they will hypothesize delusions, etc., ignoring that no evidence exists that the believer does not know!

Back to the original question: “What is the benefit of God's Kingdom?” This again is what each person makes of it. If it should become the idealized fraternal bond that exists between those who believe, it could do wonders in how people relate to each other. Then it could become the question: What is the benefit of treating each other with the same love with which a real, kind, long-suffering and honorable parent treats their child versus treating each other with judgment and hate?

But if you are asking what is the benefit of the so-called kingdom of watchtower creation? I haven’t seen spiritual benefit to anyone in that interpretation!! (Financial benefit to WTS, perhaps...?)

JoenB75

Half banana,

Jesus said the kingdom is within you. When you believe in Jesus, a change goes on in your life. The benefit is first of all the restoration of your relationship to God, and secondly a life in faith will result in good works. So the kingdom works in these ways. In the postmillenial view we do not imagine some dramatic second coming but rather that God works in his people to bring about millenial blessings .

EverApostate

When a City Police chief takes a City in charge, he/she would

Eliminate the Trouble makers
Make his presence known to people and interact with them on a daily basis, or atleast once in a few days
Maintain Law and Order and make the people feel secure.

Jesus Supposedly became the King of this Universe and

He never eliminated the greatest trouble maker - Satan -but supposedly drove him to earth to create more trouble for mankind
Jesus never lifted the ban on Christian preaching in many countries
Until now, Jesus had never made his presence obvious to anyone.
And we have to believe that he is invisible and Active

Half banana

Blubberyk9 You have extremely well explained the believer's viewpoint. You expressed that "spritual realities" are not subject to evidence. This implies another world of being.

We all experience this because we have our own mind with an inner discourse which is not subject to external rules or regulations. However this spiritual reality often in practice is enlarged in its domain by a shared community reinforcement we call a culture or religion.Today religion is breaking down as the spirit of the time is one of liberty and individualism. Why do we need others to tell us how to believe?

By discussing faith we are getting to the root problem with religious belief: that it boils down to the fact of dealing with invisible people and invisible events.

With invisible things, anything goes! Anything can be asserted and no one is the wiser and no one can contradict . You just need faith Brother.....How useful is this? Very useful indeed to the authority of religious leaders and the existential comfort of those duped by them.

A life lived with faith may give you an inner smile and a feeling of absolute certainty . . . but it’s a trick of the mind, because it can give hope just like the Watchtower does – but it never delivers.

There is not the slightest testable proof that “God’s Kingdom” is a real thing, less still that it ruled from 1914 or any other date.

It does though give evidence of the essential ingredient of the human spirit, the desire for better things, which will never go away.

eyeuse2badub

Put the word "God" in front of anything and it benefits those raking in the money!

just saying!

Finkelstein

From a theological perspective date setting as which the WTS/JWS leaders have done is an act unloyal apostasy for Jesus himself admonished his followers when on earth of doing just that, saying how dare you set a time upon god's own sacred time.

But selling the new Kingdom order as coming soon was a viable propagation for selling literature to the masses and those who believed in the bible.

They were essentially modern day false prophets active in sin.

The WTS has been selling a tainted commercialized version of the Gospel of Jesus for over 140 years.

smiddy3

Maybe Gods kingdom ? or is it Jehovah`s Kingdom ? or is it the kingdom of Jesus christ ? O.K. ,I know its the overlapping Kingdom of God ? Jehovah ? Christ Jesus ? Holy Spirit ? as a throw in.

Are you confused ? I know I am ,whose kingdom is it ? don`t tell me its God ,JC ,Jehovah a Trinitarian kingship ?

Was Jesus king 2000 years ago ? During this past 2000 years since then ?

Was Jesus king since 1914 ? and onward ?

Or is his kingship of 1000 years yet to begin in the future ?

How many applications of his kingship and when they began are their ?

Or do they all come under Jesus Christs overlapping kingdoms /kingships.

What is the benefit of God's Kingdom?

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