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What
are Jehovah's Witnesses waiting for?
Jehovah's Witnesses have
been on the edge of their seats waiting for an event that
has been promised to them by the Watchtower Bible and
Tract Society. The Watchtower has made a bold promise to
a generation of their followers since 1935 and this
promise has caused their followers to put their full
trust in an organization that claims to speak for
God. The promise that Jehovah's Witnesses today are
clinging tenaciously to is the promise that the 'great
crowd' of Jehovah's Witnesses that had its beginning in
1935 will be the generation of Jehovah's Witnesses who
survive Armageddon and enter alive into the new earth.
They will be the only ones who will be fully human
as we know it today. According to the Watchtower this
special group of Jehovah's Witnesses that God has been
gathering since 1935 will be the only people brought
alive into the new earth who will be capable of marriage,
capable of having sexual relations and capable of
producing children. Everyone else will have died and be
resurrected on the new earth but their resurrection will
make them incapable of marriage, incapable of having sex
and incapable of producing offspring. Revelation,
It's Grand Climax at Hand, 1988 pg 128
says, You
of the great crowd will be unique among mankind as the
"millions" that did not even have to die!
Yes the
Watchtower has indeed made the 'great crowd' a unique and
special group that has existed since 1935. Their promises
have been very bold and specific as they claim God
allowed them to identify in 1935 the special group
destined to enter the new earth alive.
How
does the Watchtower define the 'great crowd'?
To be certain what the
Watchtower means by the term the 'great crowd' let's look
at the April 15, 1995 Watchtower on page 31 where the
question is asked about the difference between the 'other
sheep' and the 'great crowd'. The article defines the
term 'other sheep' as true Christians who are not of the
heavenly class or 'little flock'. The 'great crowd' is
also of the 'other sheep' but they are a specific group
that has been given the promise of surviving Armageddon.
The Watchtower says, So
the "great crowd" is composed of those who come out of,
or survive, the great tribulation…In summary, we
might remember "other sheep" as the broader term,
encompassing all of God's servants having the hope of
living forever on earth. It includes the more limited
category of sheeplike ones today who are being gathered
as a "great crowd" with the hope of living right through
the impending great tribulation. Most of those loyal
Christians alive today are of the "other sheep," and they
are part of the "great crowd" as well.
Does
the Watchtower claim this is God's
interpretation?
Does the Watchtower claim
that the 'new light' about the generation that started in
1935 is their own interpretation of the 'great crowd'? Or
does the Watchtower claim that a brilliant sparkling
light from God revealed the generation of people destined
by God himself to be the ones who will enter alive into
the new earth following the destruction of Armegeddon?
The answer to this question is found in the Watchtower's
Revelation
Its Grand Climax At Hand on pages
119-129. On page 119 in
the box at the bottom, the Society says that
Interpretations
Belong to God. They say
that it is only when the fulfillment is due that the
correct interpretation is given by God. How did this
happen in 1935? One page 122 under the heading
Confirming
the Identity of the Great Crowd,
they say, How
can we state so positively that the great crowd is this
modern-day group of dedicated Christians who hope to live
forever on God's earth?
This follows their statement on page 120 that,
The
understanding of Revelation 7:9-17 was now about to burst
forth in all its sparkling brilliance.
On page 120 the scene describing the revelation of the
'great crowd' is described. They say, The
Watchtower magazine had repeatedly expressed the hope
that a convention scheduled for May 30 to June 3, 1935,
in Washington, D.C., U.S.A., would be "a real comfort and
benefit" to those pictured by Jehonadab. That it proved
to be! In a stirring talk on "The Great Multitude,"
delivered to about 20,000 conventioners, J. F.
Rutherford, president of the Watch Tower Society, gave
Scriptural proof that the modern-day other sheep are
identical with that great crowd of Revelation 7:9. At the
climax of this talk, the speaker asked: "Will all those
who have the hope of living forever on the earth please
stand?" As a large part of the audience stood up, the
president declared: "Behold! The great multitude!" There
was a hush, followed by thunderous cheering. How elated
was the John class-and also the Jehonadab group! On the
following day, 840 new Witnesses were baptized, most of
these professing to be of that great crowd.
In the spring of 1935 a
large portion of the 20,000 people in attendance were
told that they had been identified by God as the 'great
crowd'. Of those 20,000 people the young adults in
attendance that day who were a mere 20 years old are now
approaching 90 years old in 2005, if they are even
still alive. Those that were in attendance that day who
were 35 years old and older are long dead and
buried and the mere babies in their mother's arms who
were not even capable of standing on their own two feet
when asked who has the hope of living forever on the
earth will be turning 70 in the year 2005.
Time
is running out for those promised marriage, sex and
children
 For
the new-born babies in attendance that day, the time
clock is ticking away as we are fast approaching the end
of the 70 year generation, the farthest limit possible to
the generation of 1935. Where are the promises that Judge
Rutherford made to that group of people? Where is the
large portion of that group ready to enter the new earth
alive, the only ones of humanity the can have sex,
marriage and babies?
J.F. Rutherford did not
tell the truth that day when he identified the group of
people gathered in 1935 in Washington, DC as part of the
Great Crowd with the hope of entering the new earth
alive. He did not tell the truth to the crowd of people
gathered at the convention that day when he claimed God
as the source of the new light about the identity of the
great crowd. He certainly did not tell the truth to those
20,000 people when he said that they could enter the new
earth alive to marry, have sex and produce babies. Those
20,000 people are almost all dead. They were given broken
promises about being the special group that would have
the mandate to populate the earth. Rutherford spoke as a
representative of the Watchtower Society that day but he
certainly didn't speak as a representative of the true
God who cannot lie. By 2005 the Watchtower will have to
face up to the fact that they have only broken promises
to offer their followers as the generation of 1935, the
promised generation of Watchtower survivors has been lied
to.
What
are you going to do?
Who are you going to
believe for your eternal life? If you trust in the
Watchtower to give you accurate light from God, you will
die in your sins, never receiving the promises. Psalms
118:8 says "It
is better to trust in YHWH than to put confidence in
man." When you trust in
an organization to give you life you have broken God's
commandment not to have any other gods before him. We are
not to trust in man's word to give us life, but in God
alone. Pick up your Bible and start reading it without
the Watchtower helps and see what God really has to say.
Pray to YHWH to reveal truth to you through his word.
Take your New World Translation and place other
translations beside it and let God show you what his
truth is not what the Watchtower says is truth. Follow
the words of Jesus in the New Testament because he is the
only spokesman for God. Jesus said in John
14:6 "I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes
to the Father except through me."
If you are going to God through any organization, through
any other way than Jesus alone, you will die with broken
promises.
Click here to read
The
Last Generation and
find out the Watchtower's view of who is 'in' and who is
'out of paradise earth.
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