"He who has endured to the end is the one who will be saved."
And yes, I endured. All three days.
The Convention was pretty much what everyone else here wrote about.
To start with, the whole THEME of the talk, "Godly Obedience" was about obedience to the Faithful Slave Class (no evidence of why they are faithful) and the elders.
Elders are DIRECTLY appointed by Jehovah.
So what happens if an elder doens't follow FDS instructions and does something wrong? We still obey them.
The speaker used the account of Uzzah (who grabbed hold of the ark because it nearly fell) and David, who committed adultery with Bathsheba. Uzzah died for his "irreverant act", but David was Jehovah's anointed.
In other words, David sinned, and he was still King - he still ruled; elders still sin, but they are still APOINTED by Jehovah, so we should obey them.
A whole talk was devoted to showing LOYALTY to the visible organisation Jehovah is using, and this of course is the "Faithful Slave" (TM)
If any of you have the program, you will notice that there is NOT A SINGLE TALK about Jesus Christ - our savior and redeemer didn't get an honorable mention over the course of three days.
The speakers only refer to Jesus when it harmonizes with their doctrine, notably, "You will be witnesses of me" or "Go therefore and make disciples."
It was Jehovah this, or Jehovah that, or obey Jehovah.
The whole convention was full of thinly veiled implied threats of DEATH if you didn't serve Jehovah fully.
"Is it enough brothers to attend all the meetings and have a token share in field service?"
The Drama was OK, but again, higher education WAS STRONGLY condemned.
Youths, are you pursuing spirital goals like TIMOTHY? In the drama, it was alluded to that if you have a family, are comfotable and doing well financially, THIS IS WRONG? Young people - what are your spiritual goals?
In other words, all young people should be REGULAR PIONEERS - full time service, Bethel service, Gilead School, MTS school
This directly contradicts what the Bible says, namely, that some will be EVANGELIZERS, some wil be TEACHERS others will be SHEPHARDS.
The Society wants your SOUL young ones!!!!
There was a talk about "Reaching out" - if you are a brother with no responsibilities, GODLY OBEDIENCE should make you reach out.
They give a demo on the platform about a young brother who notices that the elders in his congregation are doing the microphones, the sound systems etc. This young brother is thinking out loud to himself, about how he should be reaching out and how GODLY OBEDIENCE will move him to do this.
As a poster mentioned on here earlier, the ENTIRE program is devoid of love, compassion and charitable works. There was no commendation, nothing new and more of the old "Do More".
I felt empty, but then at least I was prepared for it.
What an utter waste of time.
They even had a talk, "Return to the Shepherd of Your Souls", for inactive ones to go back to "Jehovah's Organization"
I have this to say: The GB must be desparate. In times past, you would not hear all this rhetoric about "obeying the slave", now it's a relentless drumbeat for EACH and EVERY talk.
The more fear they instill, the more guilty the average dub becomes.
It's a sick religion and it must end.