At the Circuit Overseer's talk last week he made the comment that some "of the friends" are finding it difficult to move ahead with Jehovah's Organization (TM)
The CO said that a few had asked, "is it necessary to have 5 meetings a week, and a magazine every other week?"
Yes, the CO said.
"Couldn't we do without one meeting a week, and have monthly editions of the Watchtower?", he then asked.
"Noooo" he slowly said.
"Why is the journey towards the new world so hard?", some may ask.
The Circuit Overseer asked us to get out our "See the Good Land!" brochure, the one with all the maps in. In this brochure, is an account and graphical depiciton of the route the Israelites took when they left Egypt.
What follows next is cultish reasoning.
The CO compared the Israelites trek through the wilderness, for 40 years, with our "trek" to the new system today.
When the Israelites left Egypt, Jehovah could have taken them the shortest route to the Promised Land. But he didn't.
The CO used the scripture at Exodus 13:17
"And it came about at the time of Pharaoh's sending the people away that God did not lead them by the way of the land of the Philistines just because it was near, for God said: "It might be the people will feel regret when they see war and will certainly return to Egypt."
So, the reason the Israelites didn't take the shortest route, was because Jehovah was worried there would be a big battle and the Isrealites would run back to Egypt. Fair enough.
But, what does this have to do with Jehovah's Witnesses? Absolutely nothing.
But, according to the CO, Jehovah is leading his people today the "hard way", not the "easy way", so as to build in us, "the tested quality of faith."
"Yes", the CO admits, "we are very busy people in Jehovah's Organization. We have 5 weekly meetings to attend and prepare for, we have field service, conventions and assemblies, we have the magazines to keep up with, the Yearbook and new releases. Do we need all this literature? Yes brothers and sisters, we do."
So this is the message coming out of Crooklyn
Don't think for one moment that life in a cult will ever get easier, it won't - it will get harder and harder.
Consider the bible passage below, and then think of the Watchtower today...
1 Kings 12: 9-11
"And he went on to say to them: "What is it that you are offering in counsel that we may reply to this people who have spoken to me saying,
'Make the yoke that your father put upon us lighter?'
In turn the young men that had grown up with him spoke to him saying: 'This is what you should say to the people who have spoken to you
saying, 'Your father for his part, made our yoke heavy, but, as for you, make it lighter upon us'; this is what you should speak to them, 'My little
finger itself will certainly be thicker than my father's hips. And now my father, for his part, loaded upon YOU a heavy yoke; but I, for my part,
shall add to YOUR yoke. My father, for his part, chastised YOU with whips, but I, for my part, shall chastise YOU with scourges."