Jehovah Witnesses

3. Does the Watchtower measure up to this test?
The Watchtower has made numerous false prophecies. I have found that for the average person many of them are hard to
verify. The reason for this is because the local library does not collect old publications by the Watchtower. It can be difficult but
not impossible to find these old publications. I have decided to share one false prophecy that is found in the New York Times, N.
Y., Monday, Oct.5, 1914, pg.8. I have chosen this false prophecy from among the many others. The reason why is because, the
average person can obtain it from the local library. I found it on microfilm at Southern Oregon University. If your library does not
have it simply ask them if they can borrow it from another library or if they can at least photo copy the requested page from the
microfilm. The library will charge a small fee for this service.

You can also obtain a whole book of false prophecies including this one found in the New York Times.  There are 2 ways you
can do this:
(1) You can borrow the book from your local library by giving them the following information.
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Morey, Robert A., 1946-
How to answer a Jehovah Witness.
Bibliography: p.
1. Jehovah Witnesses - Doctrinal and controversial works.
2. Witness bearing (Christianity) I. Title.
BX8526.M66          289.9'2        79-25502
ISBN 0-87123-206-5

(2) You can buy the book. Simply ask your local book store to order the book titled "How to answer a Jehovah's Witness" by
Robert A. Morey. It was published by Bethany House Publishers Minneapolis, MN. 55438,


The following next is the text as it appeared in the New York Times, N.Y, Monday, Oct.5, 1914, pg.8.
I have re-typed it so all of the words are legible and easy to read. Copies from microfilm are readable, but not always easy on
the eyes.
Read the article then answer the following questions:
1. What battle was prophesied to follow World War 1?
2. When will the kingdom be established on earth?
3. What date was assigned as the close of the 6,000 years since Adam's creation?
4. Is this a true or false prophecy and how should you respond according to the Bible?

New York Times, N.Y, Monday, Oct.5, 1914
Pastor Russell addressed a very intelligent audience last evening at the New York City Temple. His discourse was based upon
the text, “Upon the earth distress of the nations with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring; men’s hearts failing for fear and
for looking after those things that are coming upon the earth,” (Luke 21:25, 26) He said:
Our Honorable President with praiseworthy intent has requested all Christian people to make this a day of prayer for peace in
Europe. I have been asked to sermonize accordingly. However I cannot concur with our worthy President in this matter. Much
as I appreciate peace--and I have labored all my life to be a peacemaker--I cannot pray the Almighty to change His plans to
conform to those of our honored President.

For 2,500 years, God through the Bible Prophets, has been telling His people about this great war and concerning
the more terrible Armageddon which will follow it;
and can we expect Him to reverse this programme at our behest?

The prayers of these millions praying for the prosperity of the Germans and the extermination of the Allies, and the prayers of
other millions for the successes of the Allies and the annihilation of the Germans, and the prayers of the Pope and our
President and other good people that this awful war shall promptly cease will all go unanswered if I read my Bible aright.
The
war will proceed and will eventuate in no glorious victory for any nation, but in the horrible mutilation and
impoverishment of all. Next will follow the Armageddon of anarchy.

After that, peace, everlasting peace, may be hoped for because God has declared it!
It will be brought in by Messiah’s Kingdom, for which so long we have prayed--”Thy Kingdom come!”

For forty years I have been proclaiming this very war and its glorious outcome by sermons oral and printed, and in my books on
Bible study in twenty languages.
Now, when the very year has come and the prophecy is being fulfilled, could I
consistently ask the Almighty to change his programme? Nay! Rather my discourse will be, as announced, from
the Master’s words respecting the present “distress of nations with perplexity, *** men’s hearts failing for fear of
those things about to come upon the earth.”
GOD’S PART IN THE PRESENT WAR.

Doubtless many will be shocked with my declaration that this war and the resulting greater calamity or of Divine
permission and arrangement, clearly prophesied in scripture.
The gathering of the nations to this present struggle is
referred to in the prophecy of Joel, where the weak nations are called upon to assert their strength and where all of them are
commanded to go down to the valley of Jehoshaphat- the Valley of Graves--the cemetery outside the city of Jerusalem being
used by the Prophet in illustration of terrible slaughter now going on.

Surely this war brought more to the grave than any previous war; and it is only beginning. For years the nations, in harmony with
Joel’s prophecy, have “beating their plowshares into swords, and their pruning-hooks into spears.” in the sense that they have
been spending for military purposes money, which should properly have been spent on agricultural implements and
developments.

Apparently all the nations will yet be involved. Happy would it be if our own land shall escape! Our president and our Secretary
of State are men of peace, and will surely do all in their power to avoid complications and war itself. Nevertheless the great
nations of Europe, realizing how much they will be weakened by this war, will do all in their power to ensnare these United
States, lest all conclusion of the war we should tower above the others financially and otherwise.

WHY GOD PERMITS SIN AND DEATH
Only as we look at the Divine Plan as a whole can we understand God's relationship with this bloody war-- and with all war. To
the majority it is confusing to think that God would bring about any war. There is surely something wrong or there would not be
such perplexity, for the Lord tells His people concerning this time of trouble that they "need not be in darkness that that day
should overtake them unawares." God's people should have general information regarding His plans and arrangements.

Meaning have seen only small portions of the Divine Plan, and so have failed to grasp the great lengths, breadths, heights; and
depths of God's great purpose. But whoever has an understanding of the great plan of God will ever after be able rightly to
appreciate and to locate not only the events of today, but also everything that is coming: for the Bible outlines the history of man.

The Scriptures clearly teach that our earth is the only rebellious province in all God's fair creation. In this little planet God has
permitted sin to take its course-- to bud, to blossom, to bring forth its fruitage-- that both men and angels may see the dire
results of opposition to the Divine Government.

The Bible tells us how this world became rebellious. It tells us that God did not create mankind imperfect, as we are today. Man
was created perfect, and earthly being in the image of his Heavenly Creator. In the sense of having a moral character, but
limited to earthly conditions. This perfect man was place was placed in a perfect home, in every way adapted to his needs.
This Eden was especially prepared for him and he was to enjoy it. He was the king of the whole earth; and therefore his
Creator instructed him that as his family increased he was to subdue the earth and develop it. Had mankind remained in
harmony with God the world would have become as Eden.

God foreknew just what would occur; however, He foreknew Adam's sin and fall, as well as the mental, moral, and physical
degeneracy, which would result from the disobedience of our first parents. He foreknew our weakness and imperfection, our
attempts at moral, religious, and mental reform and at mental and physical health. Yet He permitted all to come to pass. Sin
entered the world, and has continued to rest upon the human family for six thousand years.

God's penalty upon man is death, and it matters not whether that death come through war or pestilence or famine or by slower
processes. Meantime, God would use all of man's experiences of the past six thousand years as a great lesson on the
exceeding sinfulness of sin and on the utter hopelessness of any other help than that which God Himself has provided.

From the creation of Adam until now has been a period of six thousand year--days--man's work week--during which he has
been permitted to try everything he could imagine for his own relief from sin and its penalty of death.

So far from gaining life everlasting for our race, all our efforts of accomplished nothing. Our most learned physicians and
specialists declare that the world is on the verge of collapse; and that at the present rate of increase there would not, in one
hundred and sixty, years, be enough sane people in the world to care for the insane. They tell us that various diseases are
increasing  so rapidly as to endanger the race in a very short time; and that this is so not withstanding the fact that sanitary
conditions are made necessary even to the extent of individual drinking cups.

Our only hope lies in the great Seventh Day , the antitypical Sabbath. In it Messiah, associating with Himself the saintly ones of
this Gospel Age, will set up the Divine Kingdom amongst men--a spiritual Kingdom, not an earthly one, but ruling amongst
mankind, blessing and uplifting them. For a thousand years the work of uplift will progress until all the willing and obedient will
have attained again the lost likeness of their Creator; and the whole earth will be there Paradise.

"Times of the Gentiles."
Amongst other lessons which God has been teaching mankind is the fact that they are incapable of establishing a government
such as is necessary for the real blessing and uplift of the race. God appointed Israel after the flesh to be His typical Kingdom
for a time and selected King David and his posterity to be rulers. By and by He cut these off, discontinuing the earthly typical
Kingdom.

The last monarch of David's line was King Zedekiah, of whom we read: "O thou profane and wicked Prince, whose time as
come that iniquity shall have an end. Remove the diadem, take off the crown.*** I will overturn, overturn, overturn it until He
comes whose right it is, and I will give it to Him." (Ezekiel xxi.,25-27.) Messiah is the One whose right it is-- Jesus the Head, the
Church His Body-- on the spirit plane.

Certain Scriptures indicate that the period during which God's Kingdom would be removed would be seven prophetic Times,
each 360 years long. Seven Times would therefore equal 2,520 years. Reckoned from the time of King Zedekiah,
that period
ends this year;
for, according to the Scriptures, King Zedekiah's crown was taken away in 606 B.C. If so, with the close of the
present year Messiah should take to Himself His great power and begin His glorious Reign of a thousand years, the beginning
of which according to the Bible will be a very dark hour--
"a Time of Trouble such as was not since there was a nation," "no, nor
ever shall be" the like again.--Daniel, xii, 1; Matthew,xxiv, 21.

When God removed His typical Kingdom, 606 B.C., He gave to the Gentiles authority or permission to do their best in
governing the world in bringing it in righteousness and happiness. That we might know all this, He gave a dream to
Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, and sent the interpretation of that dream though the Prophet Daniel. The dream showed a
great image, whose head was of gold, representing Babylon; its breast and arms of silver, representing the succeeding
government of the Medes and Persians; the belly of brass, representing the Grecian Empire, which followed the Medo-Persian;
and its legs of iron, representing Rome, the government of the Caesars. Each of these governments has had universal sway,
each has shown the best it could do for humanity, and each has failed.

Next came the feet of the image which were of iron smeared with clay, thus made to resemble stone feet. These iron feet
represented the Holly Roman Empire, which was really a part of the Roman Empire and
the divisions of which are at war with
each other today
. The dream and its interpretation showed that a stone cut without hands stuck the image in its feet, ground
them to powder and utterly destroyed the entire image. This stone represented Messiah’s Kingdom, which will ultimately fill the
whole earth, according to this prophecy.
 
The clay smeared on the iron feet, making them like stone, represent the fact that the present Roman governments Europe
claim to be Christ’s Kingdom. On their coins, and otherwise, they claimed to represent God. They have been deceived into
thinking and speaking of themselves as Christendom, which signify Christ’s Kingdom.
In reality they are the last
representatives of Gentile power-
- “kingdoms of this world”-- the toes of the image of Gentile supremacy of which King
Nebucahadnezzar dreamed.

The present war will weaken the nations, draining not only their life blood, but also their wealth :and it will demonstrate the
inefficiency of all Gentile Kingdoms to bring to the world peace, righteousness, satisfactory government. But Messiah’s
Kingdom, which will then be inaugurated, will be “the desire of all nations.”
                                 
The  Prophetic Forecast.
  This war, and anarchy of Armageddon, which will follow it, will prove conclusively the need of Divine interposition in human
affairs. As Jesus said,
speaking of the present trouble and the resulting anarchy. “Unless, those days shall be shorten, there
would be no flesh be saved.” So virulent, so selfish would that strive be that our civilization would perish did not God though
Messiah’s Kingdom, the Elect, intervene to bring order out of chaos.

Doubtless earth’s great rulers have done the best they new how to do for their peoples. Some of our very best laws came from
Julius Caesar, in combination with the Mosaic code. Some of the world’s rulers today are also doing their best :but they are
confused. Having a false idea of what constitutes Christ’s Kingdom, they seem to think it their mission to conquer the world.
They also believe that they foresee a general upraising of socialism, and their hearts are failing them, fearing the things coming
upon the earth.

While they knew that this would be the worst war ever known, yet they preferred it to that which they were striving to ward off and
which they have succeeded in keeping off for the present. But they have lost their best blood, their best energy, their money,
commerce & c.: and when the war is ended, these nations, sorrowful and famine-stricken will be greatly angered at their rulers.
Then will come the determination something like socialism. This the Governments will endeavor to put down, into some extent
they will succeed. Then will come the great explosion the Armageddon of the Scriptures. Then will be the Time of Trouble,
immediately proceeding the Messianic Kingdom, which will inaugurate the long-promised Peace on Earth.

After reading this article can you answer the following questions?
1. What battle was prophesied to follow World War 1?
2. When will the kingdom be established on earth?
3. What date was assigned as the close of the 6,000 years since Adam’s creation?
4. Is this a true or false prophecy and how should you respond according to the Bible?
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