I read Jason Boyett’s blog regularly, and this blog post brought back memories. I’ve talked about my Jehovah’s Witness upbringing a little bit on my blog. I was raised a JW, had to stop attending when I was twelve. I recall when I was a freshman in college, I started to study with the JWs again and the person who studied with me told me that: “I was wasting all of my time on my education and I wouldn’t get a chance to use it.” After all The New Order (A JW term for an apocolyptic event) was coming, we needed to be prepared for this. The generation of 1914 would not pass away before this big event happened, and I was not even ready – I hadn’t dedicated my life to Jehovah (their term for baptism) and I wasn’t doing enough works for my Eternal Life On Paradise Earth (another JW term).
At the time, the JW philosophy was that higher education was not necessary and that it was a waste of time and not recommended. I was eighteen, and told that I needed to put more time in in order to gain my Eternal Life. It boiled down to: stop spending so much time in school and start knocking on doors and help us to gain new members. I was glad I didn’t take their advice. My life would have taken a deep dive if I had. It was also disheartening that the JWs didn’t share the fact with new converts that they’d had false prophesies in the past and the current 1914 generation prophecy was part of this pattern. I had to discover this myself reading literature about the JWs that they wouldn’t approve of my reading. (JWs don’t like for their members to read other literature about them. They only want you to read their literature published through the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society). Sometimes, when members leave or get kicked out of the organization, they publish what the current JWs call apostate literature. A current JW is forbidden from reading the writings of a former member. The apostate literature will sometimes tell of the past false predictions that the current JWs don’t want new converts to know about.
Anyway, it makes me sad when people try to predict Christ’s coming. For the false prophets that scour the earth – I just wish they’d stop with the prophesying because they’re not very good at it and they’re always WRONG!! After all, the scriptures state:
Matthew 24:36-44
The Day and Hour Unknown
36″No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son,[f] but only the Father. 37As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. 38For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; 39and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. 40Two men will be in the field; one will be taken and the other left. 41Two women will be grinding with a hand mill; one will be taken and the other left.
42″Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come. 43But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what time of night the thief was coming, he would have kept watch and would not have let his house be broken into. 44So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him.
I just wish the false prophets would remember that scripture before they attempt their next prediction!
