40 Years Ago Today: May 15th 1984 "1914 Generation" issue was released. False prophecy, thy name is WatchTower.

by WingCommander 49 Replies latest jw friends

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  WingCommander

  It's incredible how this cover, and also this "series" of WatchTower's is burned into my mind. I was almost 5 years old when these were released. I say "series" because there were several in row dealing with this end times nonsense they were pushing.

  “1914: A Marked Year–Why?” — April 1, 1984 Watchtower

  “1914: A Focal Point of Bible Prophecy” — April 15, 1984 Watchtower

  “1914 and YOU” — May 1, 1984 Watchtower

  “1914: The Generation That Will Not Pass Away” — May 15, 1984 Watchtower

  Everyone, and I mean everyone was excited about these. They were used as PROOF, right at the doors in the ministry as to how far into the "time of the end" we were. These were placed for years!!!!

  My late parents had all of the WT and Awake! bound volumes from the late 60's thru the early 90's. Of all of them, I only kept (1) - the 1984. That's all you need to see how clearly the Jehovah's Witness Organization is an end-times apocalyptic cult.

  I'm 44 now. My parents and all of the older ones that studied with them are dead. ALL of them. Everyone on the cover below are long since dead. They weren't supposed to die! They were promised that they'd walk into the New Order just like my parents were promised. (Barring some unexpected accident or illness of course) Just think, there are JW's born in the year 2000, who are now 24 years old that know NOTHING of this, just like I knew nothing about 1975, or 1925, etc. It's not even a blip on their young JW minds. But I haven't forgotten. False prophecy, false promises, lies, deception, a stolen youth and opportunities. Add to that, a side of never-ending greed from the phony leadership. What a cult.
  

  

  Link to www.jwfacts.com

  https://www.jwfacts.com/watchtower/generation.php

  Link to my original post about this, 17 years ago:

  https://www.jehovahs-witness.com/topic/133240/1984-wt-bound-volume-review-cult-gold
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  littlerockguy

  I was 16 years old in 1984 and I remember those magazines and had been around the org for years as a lot of family, aunts, uncles and cousins were in.

  It was around that time in 1985 that I started studying and I remember those magazines as well as the Watchtower edition entitled Apocalypse When? with the doomsday clock face with the long hand at 3 minutes till.

  Also around that time they announced the UN's call for 1986 to be the international year of peace and they took that and ran it for all it was worth. They reissued the Peace and Security book and studied it and I think it was around that time that the number of JWs doubled. About half or more JWs in the congregation I was attending were pioneering.

  The smell of armageddon that everybody thought was in the air was just a steamy pile of bullshit.

  LRG
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  Bill Covert

  1984 was a major turning point in church history. It was in 1984 when the Watchtower in print stated that we would be preaching to the "sons and daughters of those "sighing and groaning" Ezk. 9:4. That was the first time in print that I knew Matt.24:34 was headed down the tube.

  1984 was the start of the "obedience to the Organization mantra"! That mantra ushered in a "package deal" comprised of; unquestioned obedience to the GB., introduction of a new enemy "the apostate", introduction of a new sanction "shunning", and the Sept. 1 1987 Wt. article "A Time to Speak When?'.

  See Barbara Anderson's essay "Flawed Decrees Conceal Criminals". That deception of Lev.5:1 was a engineered deception to create a Gestapo hunting license designed to ferret out apostates.

  1984 was the year the GB fulfilled Matt. 24: 48-51, as they had the problem of finding some one with the fertile imagination of Fred Franz to come up with a narrative that could explain Matt. 24:34, demise in 1975.
  
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  LongHairGal

  WING COMMANDER:

  I remember 1984 and those particular magazines.

  Those were the early days of my being in the Witness religion. The fervor for pioneering was absolutely off the charts - and I got so much grief for having a full-time job!

  But, now, here we are and all those people pictured on that magazine are gone.. And, the self-assured somewhat arrogant individuals I remembered in the congregation have gotten old - with some having passed away.. I would have loved to have talked to some of them to tell them how I feel about everything and how I’m Glad I never listened!😉
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  WingCommander

  @littlerockguy: Spot on! The hits kept coming in the 1980's for the Organization. (then referred to as The Society)

  This culminated in them actually stating in a 1989 WatchTower that "this System of Things" probably wouldn't make it to the end of the century! The end of the 1990's is now 25 years ago! They actually removed it from the online digital edition. Total revisionist history, ala George Orwell's 1984 style!

  By 1994 (80 years after 1914) they had to do SOMETHING, so they up and made a change to the Generation by removing reference to it in the WatchTower mission statement and also in an article. Imagine, DECADES of "absolute, indisputable proof of the Truth", gone in a single paragraph. Anyone with a brain left then. If they stuck around, they were truly brain-dead. And for anyone who came in after or was born-in after, the "Overlapping Generations" nonsense should have woken them up as to how the Governing Body are just making shit up as they go along. The chart Splane held up really drove home the man-made convolution of this cult. It's nonsense! Imagine Jesus during His Sermon on the Mount, pausing to hold up this chart and explain that he wasn't really speaking to them, but to people thousands of years in the future?? LOL!! What a load of crap.
  
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  moomanchu

  Remember them well,

  That was the hay day for Watchtower fear mongering about 1914 and the end.

  I remember my dad saying there is no way this world is going to be still going on by1990.

  Dad died in 2015.
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  TonusOH

  If they need another iconic cover, they can use that one with a picture superimposed over it, of more recent JWs. In other words, the images should.... OVERLAP.

  I was 16 in 1984, too. By this time I was probably wavering in my confidence that I would not graduate high school before the end of the present system of things. The same doomed world that is still here, 40 years later.
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  Nathan Natas

  GOOD WORK! THIS is why you are a Wing Commander!

  
  
  
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  oncebitten

  I feel for you. I was stuck in my head too. That's the thing about this cult.. how often things were repeated and drilled into our brains via rote learning complete with their magazine visuals to further cement your brain.

  Then when it flops- it's not their fault. and shut up about it!

  I recall many many years on the back of every Awake magazine reading the signature, CREATORS PROMISE!!

  "Most important, this magazine builds confidence in the Creator's promise of a peaceful and secure new world before the generation that saw the events of 1914 passes away."
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  oncebitten

  These false prophecies have overthrown the very faith of many people. For me, it had the opposite effect as I can now see that Jesus and His apostles spoke about and warned us about these very people. They said, stay away. The WT fulfills prophecy all right. Just not how we thought.

  Too bad I didnt know that then. Glad I do now though.