Millions of Ex-Jehovah's Witnesses: Many Reasons They Left by Edmund C. Gruss

Author:Edmund C. Gruss [Gruss, Edmund C.]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9781498426541
Publisher: Xulon Press
Published: 2015-09-28T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 6

FALSE PROPHECY, ARMAGEDDON,

AND THE NEW WORLD

When one reads the publications of the Watch Tower Society from its beginning to the present, it is evident that those who were so exposed, came under the pressure of urgency that Armageddon and the New World that would follow were very near, a message which has been promoted for over 130 years—and it continues. They have created an illusion of urgency by the contents of their material and the setting of dates.

As an ex-Witness and professional historian, M. James Penton states this conclusion in his book Apocalypse Delayed:

No major Christian sectarian movement has been so insistent on prophesying the end of the present world in such definite ways or on such specific dates as have Jehovah’s Witnesses, at least since the Millerites and Second Adventists of the nineteenth century who were the Witnesses’ direct millenarian forbears. During the early years of their history, they consistently looked to specific dates—1874, 1878, 1881, 1910, 1914, 1918, 1920, 1925, and others—as having definite eschatological significance…. When these prophecies failed, they had to be reinterpreted, spiritualized, or, in some cases, ultimately abandoned.1

In his explanation as to why the Jehovah’s Witnesses are at the door, Duane Magnani writes: “The JW feels a sense of urgency. The END—Armageddon is coming soon! They are the DOOMSDAY PEOPLE! … People are being ‘scared into’ the JW organization, because they are told it is the only safe place to be when God destroys all the other people in the near future.”2

The Witnesses are not reluctant to expose the failed prophecies of others. For example, The October 15, 1958 Watchtower quoted the Evening Free Lance, a Hollister, California newspaper: “‘SOMETIME between April 15 and 23, 1957, Armageddon will sweep the world! Millions of persons will perish in its flames and the land will be scorched.’ So prophesied a certain California pastor, Mihran Ask, in January, 1957. Such false prophets tend to put the subject of Armageddon in disrepute” (613).

The October 8, 1968 Awake! refers to others guilty of false prophesying and why such predictions failed.

True, there have been those in times past who predicted an “end to the world,” even announcing a specific date. Some have gathered groups of people with them and fled to the hills or withdrawn into their houses waiting for the end. Yet, nothing happened. The “end” did not come. They were guilty of false prophesying.

Why? What was missing? …

Missing from such people were God’s truths and the evidence that he was guiding and using them.

But what about today? Today we have the evidence required, all of it. And it is overwhelming! All the many, many parts of the great sign of the “last days” are here, together with verifying Bible chronology (23).

“Jesus warned the disciples not to speculate … (Acts 1:7) … Thus, the Bible is no supporter of any of the now growing number of doomsday prophets and movements that point to the stroke of midnight on New Years Eve 1999, as the end of the world” (WT, June 1, 1990, 7).

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