C.T. Russell Claimed Modern Inventions Were Harbingers of the Millennium

by Kenneson 35 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

  • Kenneson
    Kenneson

    The April 15, 1915 Zion's Watch Tower, page 126 has an interesting brief article entitled "The Typewriter and Progress" that is certainly worth perusing.

    "Amongst the great inventions of our day is the typewriter. It came upon the market just forty years ago, in 1874, as a merchantable and usable convenience, after having been seven years in process of development. The Bible, we believe, marks the same year, 1874, as the beginning of the Harvest of this Age. What a wonderful forty years it has been! What wonderful blessings these years have brought to mankind! What evidence they give of the dawning of the New Dispensation, which the Bible teaches began there. Notice some of the great inventions--the telephone, electric light, trolley-car, perfecting printing press, cheap pulp paper, linotype and monotype machines, gas engine, automobile, aeroplane, talking machine, moving pictures, and a hundred other conveniences, improvements, etc., not forgetting the wireless telegraphy.

    "Great as the blessing enumerated, none of them surely can compare with the great blessings that God has given his consecrated people, who have in these same years been seeking the light of the New Dispensation in the Word of God. The blessing, joy and enlightenment which they have received is beyond all comparison and all valuation."

    Goodness, if he was so impressed by a typewriter, I wonder what his reaction would be to seeing a computer.

  • minimus
    minimus

    Computers have nothing to do with the "harvest of this age". It has zero to do with the monumental year of 1874.

  • Kenneson
    Kenneson

    And don't forget 1878 (when the saints were resurrected) and 1914 (the end of the Gentile times) either! ALL are monumental dates for Russell.

  • minimus
    minimus

    I think I'm gonna become a Bible Student. Yeah, that's the ticket!

  • mineralogist
    mineralogist

    ... and don't forget the steam lokomotive! An every-day experience - at least in those good-ol days

  • RR
    RR

    There ios a simple reason for why Russell and Bible Students today believe that the Lord has returned since 1874.

    Daniel spoke of this Day over 2,500 years ago calling this day "the time of the end [when] many will run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased." (Dan. 12:1-4) We believe these signs have their fulfillment in our day. Man is running to and fro. We have evidences that knowledge (light) has increased since 1874. The following list of revolutionary advances in both knowledge and travel indicates clearly that since 1874, Daniel?s prophecy, in conjunction with our Lord?s return, has begun to take place.

    "Knowledge Shall Be Increased"

    1874 Invention of light bulb
    1876 Telephone, gas engine
    1877 Phonograph
    1884 Motor car
    1887 Celluloid film
    1888 Kodak camera
    1889 First skyscraper in USA
    1890 Data processing cards
    1893 Cinematography
    1894 Steam turbine ship
    1895 Wireless radio, x-ray
    1896 Radioactivity
    1900 Quantum theory
    1902 First Gramophone record
    1920 Radio broadcasting
    1926 Television invented
    1927 Talking pictures
    1928 Penicillin
    1938 Nylon invented
    1939 Calculator 1942 Nuclear reactor
    1944 Digital computer
    1945 Microwave oven
    1946 Electronic digital computer
    1948 Transistor invented
    1953 Polio vaccine
    1953 DNA discovered
    1957 Space satellite

    ISRAEL, GOD?S TIME CLOCK
    Our Lord indicated that at the time we begin to see the restoration of Israel, the Kingdom of God will be nigh at hand. (Luke 21:29-32) Prior to 1874, the nation of Israel had been scattered and persecuted throughout the world, for over 1,800 years. Consider the following list and read in amazement how God is again working in Israel?a direct fulfillment of prophecy as it relates to the Bible Millennium.

    1878 Berlin Congress of Nations decreed Jews could own land in Palestine.
    1878 First Jewish settlement, Petah Tiqvah
    1882 25,000 Jews entered Palestine in 11 years
    1897 First Zionist Congress
    1897 Concept of a Jewish State developed
    1917 Balfour Declaration asserted that theBritish Government looks favorably upon a Jewish homeland in Palestine
    1917 General Allenby frees Jerusalem from the Muslim Turks
    1939 British issue white paper prohibiting Jewish immigration to Palestine, trapping Jews in Nazi Europe and Stalinist Russia
    1940 In five years, the Holocaust kills six mil- lion Jews. This prompts in the minds of survivors a desire to seek Israel as a refuge
    1948 Israeli statehood?six Arab countries attack
    1956 Jewish - Arab War
    1967 Six-Day War ends with Israel gaining control of the Old City of Jerusalem
    1973 Yom Kippur War-Israel gains more territory
    1989 Fall of Communism, numerous countries establish diplomatic relations with Israel
    1990 Jewish immigration soars to over 100,000 a year, the most in over 40 years
    1991 Scud missile attacks from Iraq

    To just name a few!

    RR

  • minimus
    minimus

    You think the invention of the lightbulb is "clear" evidence that the Lord returned in 1874?

  • shotgun
    shotgun

    RR...I enjoy many of your posts and comments and will not comment on your Russell beliefs considering some of the things I used to believe as a dub.

    Other than he was a nut...with his brain seized in a vise...but he could be quite lovely at times.

  • RR
    RR

    Well Minimus, you apparently don't see the correlation, of knowledge shall increase and the Lord's return. So I'm not going to debate this issue since it's obvious you're only goingh to make light of it. I'll leave it at that!

    RR

  • Terry
    Terry

    I recently visited a member of the International bible students at his home (a mobile home) where he lived with his fully grown son. His entire life had been spent teaching Charles Taze Russell's Study in the Scriptures along with the famous wall chart demonstrating how the Great Pyramid illuminates the epochs of dispensation. Blah blah blah.

    I sat through his entire presentation. I listened very carefully.

    I have to be honest with you. I almost started crying. Why? I felt so sorry for this sincere, dedicated, faithful believer! He LIVED for this presentation and had it down cold. It was black and white to him and logical as 2+2=4

    I also saw myself in him! I saw in him my zeal and utter conviction at the age of 18. Only in his case, his family was second and third generation Bible Students!

    I asked him alot of questions. I didn't pretend I was somebody that I wasn't. I explained to him ahead of time that I had been one of Jehovah's Witnesses and that I was now Agnostic and my purpose in speaking to him was to leave no stone unturned in settling religious issues in my mind.

    He explained to me that it was the voice of Jehovah leading me back to him and that I was one of the anointed being called home!!

    May I confess something here? This struck me like a lightning bolt! I got a strange chill down my spine. I did; I really did! For a long (too long) moment I was filled with a peculiar physical reaction. I ACTUALLY ENJOYED HEARING what he had just told me! I swear to you that I WANTED TO BELIEVE HIM!

    Why? Because it would make me very special, indeed. I would be one of God's chosen! How can anybody resist such an offer?

    Then my rational mind jumped in and pulled me out of the deep emotional water. I saw the bribe. This Bible Student had offered me a better deal than the JW's! I could get the extra benefit of going to heaven and living with Jehovah!! All I had to do was..........

    Well, there it was. I saw in an instant that what this whole thing really amounts to is a con-game. Here are the elements.

    1.An unimpeachably honest person approaches you and offers you the deal of a lifetime: heaven! God's approval! Life everlasting! Protection from evil and harm!

    2.God's honest salesman gives you a dog and pony show that purports to demonstrate how the real story of life is written by god and he is in control.

    3.All you need do is sign on the dotted line and get your pyramid chart and dozen copies of Studies in the Scripture and god does the rest.

    Geez, Louise! How sad.

    I really liked the man and his son. They live a very lonely life lost in their gorgeous dream of distant splendor and immune to the siren's call of an everyday life; an ordinary life. Armageddon is outside their kitchen window and the sound of their Lord's shepherding voice wafts over the trailer parking lot to assure them of their new home of many mansions.

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