And, it should be pointed out that the faithful and discreet slave was not assigned to gather anyone—anointed or otherwise. The appointment that Jesus gave his slave had to do with giving the household of fellow servants food at the proper time. Jesus spoke of the faithful slave on two different occasions and in the 12th chapter of Luke, Jesus made no mention of the signs of his presence—he merely urged his disciples to stay on the watch for the master's return. That is significant because it indicates that the first appointment of the slaves has nothing to do with Christ's parousia. What prompted Christ to explain the duties of the faithful slave in the first place was because Peter had asked Jesus to clarify who he was speaking about in the previous illustration; where Jesus had encouraged his slaves to stay on the watch, even if the master seems to delay. Jesus didn't answer Peter directly, but he posed the well-known question to the apostles: "Who really is the faithful and discreet one, whom his master will appoint over his body of attendants?"

No doubt the apostles applied Jesus' illustration to themselves, since they were obviously appointed by Jesus, the master, to oversee God's household. After Jesus was resurrected, he even specifically appointed Peter to watch over God's people, saying to him three times: "Feed my little lambs." Isn't that what the faithful slave is supposed to do—feed Jehovah's sheep-like people? Clearly, Peter and the apostles, as well as other older men, fulfilled the role of the faithful slave during the first century because they fed the household with spiritual food as needed—as is evidenced by the many apostolic letters that we possess today.

The point, though, is that since Jesus' parousia obviously did not occur in the first century, and yet Jesus definitely appointed the apostles to watch over and feed his sheep, it should be evident that the faithful slave is appointed to his first assignment over the domestics before the parousia begins. That is not even in dispute anyway.

But, according to Christ's illustration, if the slave is faithful in his first assignment, then, when the master arrives, like a thief in the night, "he will appoint him over all of his belongings." In other of Christ's illustrations, the reward he gives his faithful slaves has to do with sharing his heavenly kingdom with them. Therefore, it is evident that the promised appointment over all of the master's belongings has not occurred.  Even so, Christ still has a household of domestic servants who are fed by a faithful steward.

Since Jesus has been the head of his congregation from the very beginning, he may appoint men to whatever office or assignment that he sees fit. As Paul wrote concerning some who were apostles; some prophets; some were assigned as shepherds, etc; those various assignments of Christ's slaves were not as a result of Jesus' parousia.

Because the appointment of the faithful slave is contingent solely upon their being anointed by Jehovah, men at any time may come into that assigned role. That means that what we primarily recognize as the "faithful and discreet slave" today, namely the Watchtower, can be such without the parousia of Christ having commenced—as was the case with the apostles. But, because the faithful slave is on hand when the master suddenly arrives to inspect his house, we may be sure that the existence of an institution today that claims to be the mouthpiece of Christ's slave is an indication that Jesus' actual arrival is near. You may consider that a "timetable"—of sorts.

Keep in mind as well, that the first century Christians accomplished an ingathering through the preaching about Christ's kingdom. So too, the modern preaching work of Jehovah's Witnesses has resulted in an ingathering of Christians that want to do God's will. But, just like in the first century, such can be accomplished without any ongoing presence of Christ.

According to Christ, the harvest is a conclusion of a system. In the 13th chapter of Matthew, Jesus explained that during the harvest the angels would go out and separate the wicked from among the righteous. Presently, we imagine that that prophetic parable has been fulfilled as a result of our preaching. That is not possible. Read Jesus' words carefully. He said that the wicked would be separated from among the righteous, not the other way around as we suppose; as if the righteous would be separated from the wicked. Jesus was not referring to our getting out of Christendom and coming into the truth. That would be the righteous being separated from the wicked, according to the way we look at it. That is not what the harvest is about. The harvest Jesus was talking about is when the angels "collect out from his kingdom all things that cause stumbling and persons who are doing lawlessness." We cannot say that the angels have accomplished that in any respect. Forget Christendom. They have no connection to God's kingdom anyway. The prophecy calls for Christ's kingdom to be purged of wickedness. Besides, why would the angels remove lawless persons from Christendom when the whole structure is doomed? That makes no sense, does it?

But, Jehovah's Witnesses do have a connection to Christ's kingdom for the reason that there are anointed sons in our midst who are heirs of that kingdom. However, there are also phony sons of the kingdom in our midst, too—the weeds among the wheat, to be sure. There is an evil slave that is destined to be judged and thrown out of the master's household—his kingdom.

Now, in regards to what we call Jehovah's organization, are there not still numerous stumbling blocks among us? Are there not many persons among Jehovah's people who are lawless? Of course there are! We have all heard about the revelations of child abuse in the organization. How much more lawless can you get than that? And what about the Watchtower's unseemly NGO membership? Has that not already served as a stumbling block for thousands of Jehovah's Witnesses? And there are many other things that we could point to like these.

Honestly, then, since Jehovah's congregation is rife with lawlessness and stumbling blocks, it is not possible that the angels have done their harvesting work yet. Since that is the case, neither can we truthfully say that the conclusion has begun. And, if the conclusion has not begun, as is apparent by the facts just presented, then, neither have we seen the sign of Christ's presence and the conclusion of the system. Do you understand now why Jesus concluded his harvest illustration with the profound statement, saying: "Let him that has ears listen"?

One more thing as regards the ingathering in preparation for survival through the great tribulation: According to numerous prophecies in the Bible, the commencement of the conclusion of the system will coincide with a tremendous upheaval in human society. Haggai foretold that Jehovah would rock the nations so that the desirable things of the nations would come into his house. That "rocking" has not occurred, but we may be sure that, when it does, there will be a parting of the ways among the wicked and the righteous in Jehovah's organization.

That's also what Jesus was talking about with the parable of the sheep and the goats, which, by the way, occurs as a result of Christ sitting down on his glorious throne—again, something that is yet to occur in the future. In other words, that ingathering will be as an indirect result of the preaching work of Jehovah's Witnesses. But only in the sense, though, that our preaching has readied a people who have come to trust Jehovah. When the judgment commences, faithless people and lawless individuals are going to be separated out, while the faithful sheep will be shepherded into Jehovah's place of safety—and come out of the tribulation. Not to belabor the point or overstate the obvious, but that ingathering will not take a great amount of time since it is not dependent upon preaching, but rather the angels will simply take this person and abandon that one, according to our faith—as Jesus described.

However, straightforward reasoning tells us that there is nothing that prevents another world war from erupting—perhaps a war that would make WWI and WWII seem like skirmishes in comparison. Likewise, there is nothing preventing great food shortages and widespread pestilences from sweeping the earth, perhaps even as a result of biological warfare. In short, all the things that Jesus foretold would occur during his presence can happen in a relatively short span—including the conclusion of the foretold preaching work.

As far as the faithful slave dispensing our ration of spiritual food in the customary manner during the conclusion, the Scriptures seem to indicate that that is not going to be the case. Take, for instance the prophecy of the two-witnesses in Revelation: the prophecy describes God's two anointed witnesses as preaching in sackcloth for a period of 42 months, which, not coincidently was the precise length of Jesus' earthly ministry. Also, not to be overlooked, the tribulation upon Jerusalem commenced when the Roman disgusting thing first came into Jerusalem in November of 66 C.E. They returned on the Passover of 70 C.E.—exactly three and a half years later. And, of course, Daniel reveals that Jehovah's holy ones will be trampled upon for similar period of time.

Now, as regards those two witnesses: One represents Moses and the other Elijah because they are described as performing the miracles that Moses and Elijah performed. In the case of Elijah, he shut up the heavens for three and a half years so that a great famine occurred. During that time he was fed by ravens that ferried food to him in his wilderness refuge. Interestingly, in the 12th chapter of Revelation, referring to the time after Satan and the demons are ousted from Jehovah's heavens, the prophecy refers to God's woman fleeing to the wilderness on the wings of an eagle where she is fed for three and a half times. Not to be overlooked, Moses and Elijah were with Christ on the Mount of Transfiguration. Later Peter connected the vision of the transfiguration with Christ's presence in glory.

These prophecies deserve a much more thorough examination than can be provided in the context of this mailbag, but the point is that the prophecies consistently point to a three and a half year period of hardship, during which time Jehovah's anointed ones and their supporters on earth are miraculously sustained by Jehovah God, during what is otherwise described in prophecy as a spiritual famine. Hopefully, none of Jehovah's Witnesses will be so unreasonable so as to insist that all those prophecies were fulfilled back in 1918. So, the ultimate ingathering is when Jehovah gathers back his faithful ones that by then will have been humiliated and laid low by events soon forthcoming.

According to the apostle, each servant is to be judged as to their faithfulness according to their motive, which, as Paul pointed out, only Christ has the power to "expose the motives of men's hearts." And, because Christ is our judge, for that reason, like Paul, we may consider the judgment of other men, as by tribunal, to be a trivial thing.

Jesus often spoke about the basis for the judgment of his servants. For example, in the 25th chapter of Matthew, Jesus related the parable of the talents, illustrating that each slave has a certain amount entrusted to them by their master and they are judged as to how they use their master's resources. Just like Paul wrote above—each servant has been entrusted with secret things of God. In the case of the servant in the parable who was entrusted with one talent, he was judged as unfaithful, not because he beat his brothers and fellow slaves, but because he failed to make use of the small treasure that had been commended into his stewardship. According to the reasoning of the sluggish slave, he knew that his master was harsh and demanding and so he became afraid and went off and buried his master's money instead of investing it to gain a return.

Personally, I am aware that Jehovah has entrusted me with certain sacred secrets. Do I dare bury in the ground what has been given me; perhaps reasoning that I could be disfellowshipped for publishing what I know to be the truth?

In regards to 1914: According to the Watchtower, 1914 has become the all-important pivotal date around which all prophecy revolves.  However, be that as it may, e-Watchman has presented sound scriptural reasons why that date was not the beginning of Christ's presence and the conclusion of the system. The question is, though, what is the truth of the matter? Time will definitely tell. But, if 1914 was not the beginning of the parousia, then it is vital that we take stock of our situation and quickly come to terms with how we could have been so wrong. If it indeed turns out that Christ's presence and the ouster of Satan is in the future instead of the past, we are in a real dilemma.

On the matter of criticizing the prophetic interpretations and policies of the Watchtower: In the 2nd chapter of Galatians, Paul related the account to the Galatians of when Peter temporarily succumbed to Judaism and hypocritically withdrew from associating with the Gentile Christians. In the 11th verse Paul said: "I resisted him face to face because he stood condemned." Further on, in the 14th verse, Paul said that Peter and the other brothers, including Barnabas, "were not walking straight according to the truth of the good news."

So, Paul took a stand against the very apostle whom Christ had entrusted with the keys of the kingdom. it was a matter of principle and truth. Reasoning on the matter: Peter's actions set a potential stumbling block before the Gentile Christians. Paul was bound by his conscience and faith in the truth to resist the evil of Judaism and set the matter straight for the sake of those who might become stumbled by Peter's indiscreet false step. Was Paul judged as a beater of his brothers for setting the truth straight, even if it meant that he might perhaps offend a very prominent apostle by publicly rebuking him? No, in fact, in the 3rd chapter of 2 Peter, years later, Peter refers to the beloved apostle Paul and the wisdom that Jehovah gave to him.

Now, consider the situation with the Watchtower today: Like Peter, the Watchtower's leadership has committed some very serious blunders. Not only the flawed doctrine of the parousia and 1914, but also we could cite the hypocrisy of the NGO affair and the unsatisfactory way that the Watchtower has handled the child abuse situation, and other things besides these. These errors constitute a very real stumbling block for Jehovah's Witnesses who look to the Watchtower for spiritual guidance.

In view of the fact that these many indiscretions and blunders are public knowledge, particularly for the Internet community, it does no good to rebuke the Watchtower privately. Paul did not rebuke Peter privately either, did he? No, the account says that Paul reproved his fellow apostle before them all, and then, of course, the whole affair became a matter of scriptural record laid open before us. So it is that, setting the truth straight among believers does not necessarily constitute an act of rebellion or apostasy. It is merely the right thing to do and what is ultimately in the best interests of everyone that loves the truth.

The question that Paul posed to his Galatian brothers seems appropriate in my own defense: "Well, then, have I become your enemy because I tell you the truth?"