The February 1st, 2004, issue of The Watchtower carries a study article entitled: "The Scene of this World is Changing." The article is a basic rehash of the Watchtower's archaic interpretations of "time of the end" prophecy and chronology tied to the year 1914.

The information under the sub-heading, "How the Final Act Will Play Out" offers the Watchtower's oft-repeated simplistic view of how Bible prophecy will "play out" in the near future.

Ironically, in the 11th paragraph the Watchtower even admits to having limited insight into future events, saying: "Since Bible prophecies are often fully understood only after they are fulfilled or are in the process of fulfillment, we will have to wait and see."

However, incredibly, that frank admission of lack of vision does not seem to restrain the Watchtower's writers from publishing their own dogmatic assertions of "how the final act will play out."

As pointed out in previous essays on Babylon the Great, for decades the Watchtower has insisted that the great tribulation begins with the destruction of Babylon the Great without offering any solid scriptural support of the assertion. This recent article published by the Watchtower is no exception. The 14th paragraph once again restates the same thing, saying: "The coming destruction will be fear-inspiring for faithful Christians watching from the sidelines. First, the kings of the earth (the political part of Satan's organization) will turn on the supporters of Babylon the Great (the religious part) and will destroy them." (Revelation 17:1, 15-18)

Evidently, as long as Jehovah's Witnesses continue to accept such seemingly inspired statements on face value and do not "make sure of the more important things" having to do with accurate knowledge and full discernment, as the Scriptures admonish, the Watchtower seems content to keep serving up such stale and unpalatable spiritual food.

But, discerning readers ought to take note of the fact that the 17th chapter of Revelation, cited by the Watchtower as a proof text in the extract above, offers nothing to support the supposition that the destruction of Babylon the Great initiates the Great Tribulation.

On the contrary, there is a definite ordering of events clearly and concisely revealed in Revelation, as is indicated by the successive opening of the seven symbolic seals. According to that inspired chronological timeframe, the destruction of Babylon the Great and Armageddon take place as a result of the opening of the 7th seal, whereas the tribulation that rocks the system to its' foundation is a result of the opening of the preceding five seals, but particularly the 6th seal.

Some of Jehovah's Witnesses may shrug and say, 'so what? Who cares if the Watchtower's exact ordering of events is not exactly right?'

The problem has to do with the likelihood that our cultivated false expectations have of leading, not only a loss of credibility for the Watchtower, but more disconcerting is the inevitable disillusionment and potential loss of faith on the part of millions of Jehovah's Witnesses, who up to this point unquestioningly accept the organization as an infallible guide.

But the haunting question is: What will happen to our faith when stark reality finally arrives and it does not match up with our glossy expectations? Or as Jesus phrased it: "When the Son of man arrives, will he really find the faith on the earth?"

Consider the Watchtower's remark quoted above, which says: "The coming destruction will be fear-inspiring for faithful Christians watching from the sidelines."

The reader is left with the impression that Jehovah's Witnesses are going to reside in some sort of protective bubble and simply watch the Great Tribulation devastate Christendom on CNN!  But, are faithful Christians really going to be watching such fear-inspiring events from the sidelines? Hardly! According to Jesus, the tribulation will come in suddenly upon the entire inhabited earth as a potential snare for somnolent Christians! That does not bode well for those who imagine they will have a comfortable arm-chair view of the ending of the world.

But, just what exactly does the Bible say in regards to the opening of the 6th seal?

Revelation 6:12-17 describes the events unleashed at the opening of the 6th seal, saying: And I saw when he opened the sixth seal, and a great earthquake occurred; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the entire moon became as blood, and the stars of heaven fell to the earth, as when a fig tree shaken by a high wind casts its unripe figs.  And the heaven departed as a scroll that is being rolled up, and every mountain and every island were removed from their places.  And the kings of the earth and the top-ranking ones and the military commanders and the rich and the strong ones and every slave and every free person hid themselves in the caves and in the rock-masses of the mountains.  And they keep saying to the mountains and to the rock-masses: "Fall over us and hide us from the face of the One seated on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb, because the great day of their wrath has come, and who is able to stand?"

The Society's Revelation Grand Climax book tries to juggle between two contrary notions concerning the opening of the 6th seal. On the one hand it was supposed to have been unsealed in 1914. On the other hand, the Watchtower says that there is a greater fulfillment in the future. So, which is it? Can it really be both ways? The Watchtower realizes that Revelation depicts the opening of the scrolls as occurring in rapid sequence. And accordingly, the Watchtower claims they were all opened decades ago.  Supposedly, the opening of the first five scrolls resulted in the First World War, food shortages, and pestilence of the 1914-1919 period, as well as the resurrection of the saints.

But, if the 6th scroll was opened back then, why must we wait for a future realization of it?

Are we really handling God's Word aright by such loose and reckless open-ended interpretations?

Reason dictates that any interpretation that fails to take into account that the opening of the 6th seal betokens a unique, never-to-be-repeated, earth-shaking catastrophe, unequalled in human history, is doing violence to God's Word. It will be obvious when the system collapses, no one will need to interpret those events for us; just as it ought to be obvious that no such thing has occurred yet. Assigning the opening of the 6th seal to any past event is simply nonsensical.

In the parallel prophecy in the 21st chapter of Luke, Christ foretold that the men will literally become faint out of fear as a result of the collapse of the governmental powers of the heavens. The question is: How can Jehovah's Witnesses be so naïve and cavalier in their faith to expect to be idle spectators on the sidelines, while the world they live in collapses around them and convulses in shudders of death under the heat of Jehovah's denunciation?

Even according to the Watchtower's own interpretation, (that Jerusalem represents Christendom) didn't Jesus say that the desolation of Jerusalem by a disgusting thing during the tribulation would result in untold hardships for even his faithful followers?

Indeed, Christ speaks very plainly of such difficult times, where he said at Matthew 24:19-22: "Woe to the pregnant women and those suckling a baby in those days!  Keep praying that your flight may not occur in wintertime, nor on the sabbath day; for then there will be great tribulation such as has not occurred since the world's beginning until now, no, nor will occur again. In fact, unless those days were cut short, no flesh would be saved; but on account of the chosen ones those days will be cut short."

It is difficult to understand why the Watchtower continually misleads Jehovah's Witnesses into believing that we will somehow be casual bystanders and spectators during the world's greatest time of trouble. It defies all common sense and modesty—not to mention such a notion is biblically unsupported.  

It appears as if Jehovah's Witnesses are oblivious, unsuspecting passengers on a runaway train called the Watchtower; speeding on a head-on collision course with reality.

But rather than prophecy remaining inscrutable until after it is fulfilled, as if it were impossible to know beforehand, the Watchtower's inability to clearly understand prophecy is due to the fact that her organizational prophets are stupefied—spiritually drunk and blind—even as the biblical prophets have foretold.

But how can that be? Well, the truth is very powerful. And Jehovah's Witnesses have imbibed deeply of the wine of truth found in the Bible. But it seems that in some respects knowing the truth can have an intoxicating effect upon us that can prevent us from reasoning clearly on vital matters. A person who is literally intoxicated is usually unreasonable; over-confident of his abilities and unaware of his impairment. A drunkard is the last person to recognize his own error.

So, in the same manner, Jehovah's Witnesses have assumed that just because we know the truth about basic doctrines related to the nature of Jehovah and his kingdom purposes, that we automatically understand everything there is to know.  There is a detectable unreasonableness and bravado in the Watchtower's persona…the tell-tale signs of spiritual inebriation.

Isaiah perfectly illustrates the sort of spiritual intoxication that afflicts Jehovah's Witnesses.

For example Isaiah 28-5-7 reads: "In that day Jehovah of armies will become as a crown of decoration and as a garland of beauty to the ones remaining over of his people, and as a spirit of justice to the one sitting in the judgment, and as mightiness to those turning away the battle from the gate. And these also—because of wine they have gone astray and because of intoxicating liquor they have wandered about. Priest and prophet—they have gone astray because of intoxicating liquor, they have become confused as a result of the wine, they have wandered about as a result of the intoxicating liquor; they have gone astray in their seeing, they have reeled as to decision."

Reasoning on the above portion of prophecy, if "the ones remaining over," or in other words the anointed remnant of spiritual Israel who are saved, are also in a spiritually drunken condition, why do we suppose the above verse applies to Christendom's clerics? Without question the prophecy applies to spiritual Israel, as opposed to merely physical Israel or Christendom, due to the fact that verse 16 refers to the establishment of the messianic kingdom during a period when Jehovah's judgments are carried out.

The 16th verse reads: "Here I am laying as a foundation in Zion a stone, a tried stone, the precious corner of a sure foundation. No one exercising faith will get panicky."

According to the prophecy, some of the spiritual inebriates will be roused to sobriety and actually put faith in Christ's kingdom during the time of terror and panic that consumes the faithless organizational men.

The greatest irony is that the very attitude that underlies the Watchtower's drunken boastful assumptions, concerning Christians standing on the sidelines, appears to also have been foretold by Isaiah.

Isaiah 28:14-15 reads: "Therefore hear the word of Jehovah, you braggarts, you rulers of this people who are in Jerusalem: Because you men have said: "We have concluded a covenant with Death; and with Sheol we have effected a vision; the overflowing flash flood, in case it should pass through, will not come to us, for we have made a lie our refuge and in falsehood we have concealed ourselves."

For a certainty the Watchtower recognizes that the world is facing a perilous time of judgment in the near term—analogous to an "overflowing flash flood" that will sweep the globe. Isaiah's prophecy seems to exactly describe the mindset imposed upon the organization by the Watchtower Society's leadership, typified in the recent February 1st article, to the effect that Jehovah's Witnesses and the Watchtower organization are impervious to the flash flood of trouble that is destined to deluge the world.

But the very idea that Christians will stand on the sideline is absurd. It is a lie. It is a falsehood repeated over and over and accepted by Jehovah's Witnesses as an authentic vision of the future.

True to prophecy, the Watchtower acts precisely as if they have cut some sort of secret backroom deal with Death. However, according to God's prophetic judicial decision, the Watchtower's bogus contract with Death and Sheol shall be declared null and void during the holocaust accompanying Christ's coming.

Jehovah God goes on to describe the relentless waves of persecution that will sweep away the arrogant assumptions of the spiritual drunkards who are trusting in a mere "visible organization":  

"And I will make justice the measuring line and righteousness the leveling instrument; and the hail must sweep away the refuge of a lie, and the waters themselves will flood out the very place of concealment. And your covenant with Death will certainly be dissolved, and that vision of yours with Sheol will not stand. The overflowing flash flood, when it passes through—you must also become for it a trampling place. As often as it passes through, it will take you men away, because morning by morning it will pass through, during the day and during the night; and it must become nothing but a reason for quaking to make others understand what has been heard."

So, how will the final act play out? That will be the topic of next week's commentary.

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Copyright © 2004, by Robert King
All Rights Reserved.