You know, I forgot the Watchtower will not allow its members to go to an "apostate" web site, even if the person has never stepped foot in a Kingdom Hall, so I will have to post more here.. The Watchtower has so much control they restrict independent thinking.
1983 "Avoid Independent Thinking …" {WATCHTOWER Jan 15 1983 22}
First, lets establish that independent research is a requirement.
1969 "We need to examine, not only what we personally believe, but also what is taught by any religious organization….there is nothing to fear from such an examination." {Truth that leads…13}
"Truly it is ‘intellectually dishonest’ not to want any opposing views heard on such a disputed matter. It has to make reasonable persons ask, Why?" {AWAKE Oct 22 1973 7}
“My minister said that J W’s are false prophets…you could say, I’m sure you’ll agree that specific evidence should back up such a serious charge. Did you minister mention any specific examples…” (Reasoning From The Scriptures, p.137)
Second… Let’s establish if the Watchtower is a Prophet or not.
"A PROPHET is a person who professes to proclaim a message from Jehovah God…" (Watchtower 5-15-30 p 153)
"…What is to be gained by hesitating and doubting to the end that Jehovah can raise up and has raised up a genuine `prophet’ within our generation?"(The Nations Shall Know That I Am Jehovah p 292)
“…The members of this class are, like the prophet-priest Jeremiah At this late date, there is a mere remnant of this ‘prophet’ class yet on earth." {WATCHTOWER Oct 1 1982 26-7}
"Yes, the time must come shortly that the nations will have to know that really a "prophet" of Jehovah was among them." (Watchtower, 4-1-72 p 200)
“…Who is this prophet? .. This ‘prophet’ was not one man, but was a body of men and women….Today they are known as Jehovah’s Christian witnesses…” {WATCHTOWER Apr 1 1972 197}
Now lets consider the Biblical test and standard a Prophet of God must meet.
"…If he is a true prophet, his messages will come to pass EXACTLY AS PROPHECIED. If he is a false prophet, his prophecy will fail to come to pass." (Watchtower 5-15-30 p 154)
"True, there have been those in times past who predicted an `end to the world,’ even announcing a specific date… Yet, nothing happened. The `end’ did not come. They were guilty of false prophesying. (Awake 10-8-68 p 23) Here the society reveals itself!
Now.. Has the Watchtower made any false prophecies?
"Therefore we may CONFIDENTLY EXPECT that 1925 WILL MARK the return of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and the faithful prophets of old…to the condition of human perfection." (Millions Now Living Will Never Die, p.89-90)
Ooopsss! Didn’t happen.. We need to cover this up!
"We should therefore, EXPECT SHORTLY AFTER 1925 to see the awakening of Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham…and others mentioned in the eleventh chapter of Hebrews." (Millions Now Living Will Never Die p.224)
Ooopsss. Still hasn’t happened:
"The year 1925 came and went. Jesus’ anointed followers were still on earth as a class. The faithful men of old times – Abraham, David and others – had not been resurrected to become princes in the earth." (1975 Year Book Of Jehovah’s Witness p.146)
1965 "The best method of proof is to put a prophecy to the test of time and circumstances. The Bible invites such a test." {WATCHTOWER Mar 1 1965 151}
"…the ‘battle of the great day of God Almighty’(Rev. 16:14), which will END in A.D. 1914 with the complete overthrow of earth’s present rulership is already commenced." (Pastor Russell, Founder of the Watchtower, THE TIME IS AT HAND, pg.101 1908 ed)
"The date of the close of that "battle" is definitely marked by the Scriptures as October, 1914. It is already in progress, its beginning dating from October, 1874. (Watch Tower 1-15-1892)
"Receiving the gift, the marching children clasped it to them, not a toy or plaything for idle pleasure, but the Lords provided instrument for most effective work in the remaining MONTHS BEFORE Armageddon." (Watchtower 9-15-41 p 288)
“…Are we to assume from this study that the battle of Armageddon will be all over by the autumn of 1975… Possibly…”{WATCHTOWER Aug 15 1968 499-501}
"…[our chronology] IS CORRECT BEYOND A DOUBT. It’s reliability has been ABUNDANTLY CONFIRMED by the dates and events of 1874, 1914, and 1918…"(Watch Tower 6-15-22)
"The Scriptual proof is that the second presence of the Lord Jesus Christ BEGAN IN 1874." (Judge Rutherford, Prophecy pg.65)
"That the deliverance of the saints must take place SOME TIME BEFORE 1914 is manifest…Just how long BEFORE 1914 … we are not directly informed." (Charles Taze Russell, THY KINGDOM COME 1906 ed.pg.228)
Notice the cover-up: "That the deliverance of the saints must take place VERY SOON AFTER 1914 is manifest…Just how long AFTER 1914 … we are not directly informed."(Charles Taze Russell THY KINGDOM COME 1916 ed. pg.228)
I could go on and on and on with fai
I could go on and on and on with failed prophecies of the Watchtower, but we can all see that the Bible tells all independent thinking people that we are not to respect the Watchtower!
"When a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the thing does not come about or come true, that is the thing which the Lord has not spoken. The prophet has spoken it presumptuously; you shall not be afraid of him.
Deut. 18:22
There simply is no way for any thinking person to consider the Watchtower a reliable source of Biblical or Prophetic knowledge. They have proven themselves false by their own admission and are judged by God’s standard in the Bible.
after reading all that, yes
Have you found some new accurate information, since all those are super old articles?
Greetings,
This argument is an absolute misrepresentation of what Jehovah’s Witnesses teach. People similarly misrepresent the Bible by selectively ripping quotes out of context and then claiming that the Bible contradicts itself.
The flat-out truth is that the Watchtower Society has NEVER claimed to give prophesies, to be inspired or to be infallible. This argument is an attempt to deceive others by blatantly taking what Witnesses have said out of context.
Notice this sentence in the "Purpose" statement that appeared in EVERY issue of the Watchtower up to the mid- 70′s including the 1972 edition cited in this question: ***"No, The Watchtower is no inspired prophet, but it follows and explains a Book of prophecy…"***
I can give you similar Watchtower quotes that go back to the 1800′s.
Yes, one who claims to be inspired, or a prophet who claims to foretell the future would be accurate 100%. But, this is where those who passed on this information try to deceive you. Jehovah’s Witnesses have NEVER claimed to be inspired nor have they *ever* claimed to be foretelling the future as Prophets.
Just as an example of how such quotes as presented in this question are ripped out of context lets look at one:
"For this reason forthcoming issues of The Watchtower will further discuss the identity and work of Jehovah’s commissioned messenger as revealed in His vision to Ezekiel….He had a had a "prophet" to warn them. This "prophet" was not one man, but was a body of men and women. It was the small group of footstep followers of Jesus Christ, known at that time as International Bible Students. Today they are known as Jehovah’s Christian witnesses."–w72 4/1 ;197
Do you notice that the word prophet is in quotation marks? Grammatically that means that the writer is using the term in a special, limited sense. In this article it was used in the *primary* Biblical sense, which is just one who speaks the messages of God. This did not necessarily include predictions as most Bible Dictionaries point out:
"Prophet" is used of one who announces the will or celebrates the works of God..and is applied to patriarchs, orators, singers, songstresses, priests, and preachers."–"Hints and helps to Biblical Interpretation–Bible Idioms"
"The basic meaning of prophet is "to speak forth," and foretelling is but *one aspect* of forthtelling. A large part of the prophetic writings in the Bible deals not with prediction of things to come but with God’s judgment on the behavior of his people…Some idea of the meaning of prophet may be gained from the fact that in the Hebrew canon, the books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings are called "the Former Prophets," and these books are almost devoid of predictive prophecy."–Baker’s Dictionary of Practical Theology
If you would care to examine the whole article this quote came from, you would see no prophesy or prediction made, nor even any specific interpretation of any bible prediction! It is absolutely a *deceptive,* *purposeful* lie to use this Watchtower to say we claim to predict the future! And it also demands an ignorance of the Biblical definition of what a prophet is. As a careful examination of the quote itself shows, it simply was saying Jehovah’s Witnesses need to carry out the "Great Commission" given by Jesus to all Christians (Mt.28:19,20). In fact the description most used in these articles is "*Messenger* of Jehovah," not "Prophet." The seriousness of this commission was exemplified by Ezekiel (Ezek.33:7-9).
No JW has ever claimed to be inspired or to have received a dream or vision from God. But I can show you several well known Evangelical Trinitarian ministers who have claimed exactly that (usually when they need more money, or to claim God has forgiven them for moral sins).
Did early JW’s (Bible Students) have incorrect understandings of Bible prophesy? Yes, of course, as did nearly every other religion of that age. I can give you quotes from well known Protestant clergymen from 1823-1870 who pointed to some of the same dates that Bible Students did. You can trace almost every religion’s roots back to some of these clergymen! Now just because they were wrong in their timing, does it *prove* that their current doctrine is wrong? No. Only the Bible proves doctrine right or wrong. Does it mean they were false prophets? No, just honestly mistaken. Virtually every religion was influenced by the "Advent Movement" of the time, and thus had incorrect expectations!! Since these "false prophet accusations do not take this into consideration, they are faulty and prejudicial reasoning. (Also note, every Protestant’s predecessor, Martin Luther’s "corrections" of his initial theology.)
Also, it wasn’t too long ago that Protestants and Catholics taught that black people were cursed, that hell was literally in the center of the earth. And most religions joined in stating that the League of Nations was "The manifestation of God’s Kingdom on earth" in the 1930′s (it died a failure). Most have admitted such past beliefs were false.
Now is it fair of me to go back fifty to a hundred years to your religions roots and point out everything that was wrong, especially when they have commendably corrected wrong understandings? No, although a effective debate tactic, it would be unreasonable and a logical fallacy.
However, this form of argumentation serves no purpose toward identifying the true beliefs of genuine Christianity, since Christ did not say "you would know my disciples because they would never be mistaken."
Any logic that says "they were wrong so that makes them false prophets" would make the Apostles "false prophets." Because even the apostles had incorrect understandings of end-times and had to be corrected. Their writings were misunderstood and misinterpreted several times by fellow Christians. Were these condemned as false prophets? Only by their enemies (Acts28:22). They were humble enough to correct themselves, just as JW’s have.
Jesus didn’t say you would identify the true religion because they never misunderstood prophesy. He said that you would identify the true Christian Organization "by their fruits," or the results of their Biblical teaching (Mat.7:16,20). We can examine the "fruitage" of all religions in light of scriptural requirements. Do their adherents even agree on abortion, homosexuality, special gifts, or baptism? (1Cor.1:10). Does its members shoot and kill each other at the command of Governments. Would Christ or the apostles do this? My religion imitates Christ, and this proves that they are True Christians! WWJD?
Second, anyone who would make the claim that we do not "challenge, scrutinize and compare our beliefs" is either completely ignorant of JWs, or purposely spreading prejudicial information. Again completely dishonest, something no true Christian would do.
The truth of the matter is that any individual who does not continue to seriously examine their beliefs in light of the Scriptures will not become one of Jehovah’s Witnesses and if they are baptized they will not remain a Witnesses. They will go back to the war-mongering, sectarian, immoral, tickle your ears religions of Christendom (2Pet.2:22; 2Tim. 4:3,?4;).
To be a Witnesses you must talk to people of all religions who will challenge your beliefs and force you to continue to research your own beliefs. After a while, we do begin to see that all claims against what Witnesses believe are consistently dishonest or unscriptural, so many Witnesses will not give these claims more than cursory attention. All we have to do is quickly point out that other religions are willing to go shoot members of their own church in war, allow fornication, disagree on doctrine and even remove the Divine Name from God’s Word & etc. All of these things result in God’s curse upon anyone who makes common cause with such imitation Christians (Mat.15:7,8; 23:27; 1Cor.6:9,?10; Rm.1:24-32; Rev. 22:18,19).
While we are not obligated to continue proving what is obvious, most JWs will continue to present evidence to "everyone who demands a reason for our beliefs" (1Pet.3:15), depending on how obnoxious the individual is.
What we see in reality is that most religions of Christendom are the ones who cannot examine and challenge their actions and beliefs because this would prove that they are not living up to the requirements to be Christian (1Pet.2:21; Jn.13:14-15; Mat.16:24).
Only Jehovah’s Witnesses can meet these requirements.
Hope this corrects,
BAR-ANERGES
Sounds like you already answered the question with a YES, by their own admission. By the way, if anyone is thinking of becoming a jehovah’s witness they may want to think twice, as the article cited below states that the rate of mental illness is WAY above average.
EDIT: I confidently expect it will go up to 120 degrees in Juneau, alaska tomorrow (jan 4, 2010) but Please don’t take me out of context or assume I’m a prophet!! Cut me a break. This questioner found a flat out false prophecy. Period. End. Thats it. Now here’s a prophecy. If you become JW you have a better chance of mental illness than the Non-jw. See link below.
Jehovah’s Witnesses follow Jesus … so the answer is no, we don’t follow a false prophet.
If you choose to call Jesus a false prophet ….that’s your choice
I am sure they will come up with some excuse