Where We Are in the Stream of Time

Duncan

I had another visit from Witnesses at my door on Saturday, only the second time in the four years we?ve lived here.

A very nice young girl, it was, offering me the ?Keep on the Watch? magazine.

I let her make her pitch, which was mostly all about how terrible the world was today, and then just replied with enough interest for her to keep going, without giving anything away.

?Surely,? I said ?the world?s a MUCH better place today than at any time in the past. People live longer, they have healthier lives, we?re better fed, and today, most, or some at least, of the world is governed by benign democracies, not subject to some tyrant king or warlord.?

Having got a ?catch? she looked down the road, making contact with someone just beyond where I could see from inside the house, and in a moment or two we were joined by her husband, who came up to my door. Very nice chap, too.

Interestingly enough, he didn?t take over the call, he took a back seat and let her carry on.

The whole call only lasted three or four minutes before they were gone, but she said something I thought was really interesting, certainly something I?d never heard a Witness say before. This was her line on ?Where we are in the Stream of Time? .

It went like this:

?Look, we know that Man?s history on the earth is six thousand years long. The Bible tells us everything about the very beginning, which was with the first man, Adam, six thousand years ago. It?s here in the Bible book of Genesis, right at the very beginning.?

She had her Bible open at the very beginning, just the cover and contents pages on the left, all the rest of the book on the right.

?Then we have the history of the earliest people, and then all the dealings of the Jewish people over hundreds of years, all written down for us.?

Now she is flipping through the pages.

?Then, about two thousand years ago, Jesus is born? Now she is at Matthew chapter one. She says ?Can you see where we are now? Four thousand years have gone, two thousand to go, and we?re about two thirds of the way through the Bible, see??

Sure enough, we were! She continued:

?And now, today, after six thousand years, we are living in the Book of Revelation, the last Bible book.? She has flipped through almost the entire book and now only has a very few pages between her thumb and finger. ?Can you see how short the time is remaining? This is where we are now!? She shows me the thinness of the pages between her fingers, and finished in triumph:

?THAT?S how we know that the End is so close!?

Well, I took the brochure, but declined her kind offer of a free Bible Study.

Thing is, I had never heard this line of reasoning before. Is this the kind of dumbed-down thing they?re teaching at Kingdom Halls these days? Is it one of those things that?s orally taught but never written down in the publications? Or did she just make it up herself?

Anyone ever heard this ?explanation? of the End Times before?

Duncan.

kwintestal

Never heard of it, but it sounds like the type of BS a CO would pass on to the troops on his visit. Something that sounds good, and creates a sense of in the one listening. Thanks for sharing Duncan!

Kwin

new light

I've never even heard of that, and I think I would have gotten a good laugh out of it even back in the diehard dub days. It would have been funny to see how they reacted if you pinched the four gospels in your fingers and asked why three years (or even 33 if counting from Jesus' birth) could consume so many pages relative to their 6,000 year timeline. Technically, we've been living in the book of Revelation since the end of the apostolic age (at least by her logic). If I were a JW, I'd be mortified that people are saying things like that on the street.

Englishman

Yep, recent CO's visit to get all the audience oohing and aahing.

Ooh!

Aah!

Mike Hoo...!

Englishman.

blondie

Actually, since 2001 Does God Care Brochure, there is no mention of the 6,000 years of human history. The WTS doesn't harp on it too much (an average of once a year for the last 10 years) so as not to stir JW memories about 1975.

The "stream of time" is a phrase that occurs intermittently.

w01

7/1 p. 10 Rejoice in the Knowledge of Jehovah ***

Bible prophecies show us where we are in the stream of time and give us confidence in God?s promises for the future. They also reinforce our hope of living forever.

In the Keep on the Watch brochure on page 31:

"By all means, then, let us 'keep on the watch,' being alert to where we are in the stream of time."

Here is the closest I can find of her summary. I don't have access to the KMs for 2004, it could be one of the presentations they are supplied with.

w97

6/1 p. 13 A Secret Christians Dare Not Keep! ***

In fact, some 4,000 years elapsed from the giving of the first Kingdom promise in Eden to the appearance of the King-Designate in 29 C.E. Another 1,885 years elapsed before the Kingdom was established in the heavens in 1914. Thus the "sacred secret" was progressively revealed over a period of almost 6,000 years.

Duncan

Blondie

To be fair to her, I don't think "Stream of Time" was a phrase she used that morning - that's me describing her little exposition (and probably reflecting my age when I was a young Witness - we were ALWAYS going on about the Stream of Time in the early seventies).

I thought the rather ham-fisted attempt at tying certain events to certain locations in the physical book was a new spin, and particularly novel was the idea that we are LIVING IN the book of Revelation, not that it prophesied our time, or anything, but we're right in it.

E-man,

"We ALL ooh"

for Mike Hoo!"

(ps what about the qf draw in the Carling, eh?)

blondie

And, Duncan, she assumed too many things

1) That you accepted the Bible as an authority

2) That mankind's history is 6,000 years long

3) That you should believe the propehcies in Revelation were being fulfilled now on her say so

All without any proof or support.

Hmmm....

kwintestal

1) That you accepted the Bible as an authority
2) That mankind's history is 6,000 years long
3) That you should believe the propehcies in Revelation were being fulfilled now on her say so

Aren't those things that all JW's expect EVERYBODY to know, before the door is knocked on?

Kwin

Mary

Anyone ever heard this ?explanation? of the End Times before?

Are you serious? None of you have ever heard the phrase "where are we in the stream of time", come from the platform before?? Obviously, no one was "paying close attention", as I've heard this phrase all my freaking life. In fact, 55 years ago when my father spoke to the elders in his congregation about joining the pension (he was a teenager at the time), he was specifically told "....brother, don't you know where we are in the stream of time? Armageddon will be here long before you retire!"

While I've never heard anyone grab the last few pages of Revelation and say "that's how much time we've got left", it's not that unusual. Witnesses have been saying that for the last 135 years.

Englishman

ps what about the qf draw in the Carling, eh?)

Well, yeah!

After they gave Sourthampton such a thrashing who in turn beat us.

Worrying..

Englishman.

Where We Are in the Stream of Time

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