Apostles, Judas, GB, Raymond, Satan, Holy Spirit

[Vic Vomidog]

3 hours ago, JOHN BUTLER said:

As

[Vic Vomidog]

I had some more to say sbout that rat TrueTom, but I best hold me tongue, so I don’t rile the Librarian, that fine figure of a woman.

[TrueTomHarley]

3 hours ago, JOHN BUTLER said:

Tom, can you honestly show me any reason I should be removed ? Quote "It is very hard for me to justify why he was thrown overboard and the equally bombastic Rook and shrill Butler were not. "

It’s not so much that you should be. It’s that he shouldn’t have been. It is anything goes here. That’s just the way it is.

The one-sided action favors the perception that The Librarian, that old hen, is in bed with apostates. ( Yeccchhhh)

[FelixCA]

Unfortunately, Raymond developed the same obscured understanding, when the Watchtower has kept in line with Bible understanding. To some extent, some within Christendom have kept the fundamental understanding of John’s vision, but yet fail to see the reality within John's vision. The same problem Raymond inherited.

Therefore, there is no reason for the Watchtower to redefine scripture for the sake of some blind faithful.

I asked Raymond how he could see the great crowd celebrating God’s triumphant victory if in that since it was to be literal upon mount Zion, with his updated understanding. The same reason Raymond's books are theologically useless.

The misguided understanding comes by not subjecting the vision in its proper context. 144,000 thousand from all the nations is literal, which Jesus presence along with the saints end up being a symbolic endeavor.

Those that remain will see Jesus victory and God’s glory in the heavens.

 

                           *** w15 7/15 p. 19 pars. 17-18 “Your Deliverance Is Getting Near”! ***

¹⁷ The resulting war of Armageddon will lead to the magnifying of Jehovah’s holy name. (Rev. 16:16) At that time, all goatlike ones “will depart into everlasting cutting-off.” The earth will finally be cleansed of all wickedness, and the great crowd will pass through the final part of the great tribulation. With all preparations completed, the climax of the book of Revelation, the marriage of the Lamb, can take place. (Rev. 21:1-4) All those surviving on the earth will bask in God’s favor and experience bounteous expressions of his love. What a marriage feast that will be! Do we not look forward to that day with eager expectation?—Read 2 Peter 3:13.

¹⁸ With these exciting events ahead of us, what should each of us now be doing? The apostle Peter was inspired to write: “Since all these things are to be dissolved in this way, consider what sort of people you ought to be in holy acts of conduct and deeds of godly devotion, as you await and keep close in mind the presence of the day of Jehovah

 

         *** w51 12/15 pp. 751-752 pars. 13-14 Release Under Way to the Ends of the Earth ***

 

¹³ This joyful prophecy extends now to the Shepherd’s “other sheep” who must be rescued from Babylon before Armageddon. That fact is revealed to us in the Revelation. John the apostle first describes his vision of the gathering and sealing of the 144,000 members of the twelve tribes of spiritual Israel. Then he says: “After these things I saw, and, look! a great crowd, which no man was able to number, out of all nations and tribes and peoples and tongues.” That makes this a Gentile crowd, when compared with the 144,000 spiritual Israelites. But they are where, and what are they doing? “Standing before the throne and before the Lamb, dressed in white robes, and there were palm branches in their hands. And they keep on crying with a loud voice, saying: ‘Salvation we owe to our God, who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb.’”

¹⁴ Have this “great crowd” come to Zion and submitted to the theocratic rule of Jehovah who is seated on the heavenly throne? They have; for one of the elderly persons identifies the crowd to John and says: “These are the ones that come out of the great tribulation [this locates their coming between 1919 and Armageddon], and they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.

ii. Great Multitude in Heaven (7:9–17)

 

The saints who are sealed on earth are next seen in heaven (see arguments below) wearing the white robes of triumph and holding palm branches in a reenactment of the Feast of Tabernacles (7:9). Draper (1983: 135–38) develops this imagery, asserting that the scene builds on Zech. 14:1–21. There the feast is connected with the pilgrimage of the Gentiles to Jerusalem in the last days, and here the great multitude have white robes (= the purity of the feast) and palm branches. They celebrate the great victory of God and the Lamb (7:10) and then are joined by the heavenly host, who sing another sevenfold praise reminiscent of chapters 4–5 (7:11–12). This obviously causes John considerable confusion, for one of the celestial elders tells John both the identity and origin (7:13) of those with the white robes: they are the saints who have emerged victorious from the “great tribulation” and have kept themselves pure (7:14). Their reward is to serve God continually as priests (7:15a) and to experience both the Shekinah presence of God and the shepherding activity of the Lamb (7:15b, 17a). As a result they will never again suffer the deprivations of this life (7:16, 17b).[1]

---

 

[Evacuated]

15 hours ago, JW Insider said:

John heard that the number of those who were sealed was 144,000 out of every tribe of the sons of Israel

I have no objection to someone else softening the focus of the ideas presented in my post by using the word 'might' instead of 'must'.

But for me, there are only two Israels in scripture, the fleshly and the spiritual (regardless of quibbles over the chequered history of fleshly Israel). The fleshly Israel had long lost it's identity when the apostle John wrote the words referred to above. So for me, he must be referring ONLY to spiritual Israel, as international a group in a fleshly sense as the "great crowd" he later describes, but, in contrast, a specific number against the latter, which are innumerable.

And as far as I can see, it is this concept alone, (a spiritual Israel), that incorporates satisfactorily the various references to the spiritual significance of terms like "Israel", "Jew", "circumcision" etc. in the Greek Scriptures. They all have their  connection with the anointed or heaven-bound "firstfruits" of those responding to Jesus. Unequivocally heaven-bound I say, to serve as king-priests alongside Jesus in the fulfillment of the promise made to Abraham that his offspring or seed, (Christ and these 144000 "spiritual" Israelites), would serve for the blessing of all the nations, (the international "great crowd" of Armageddon survivors along with the rest of resurrected, obedient mankind).

I have yet to hear or read of a viable alternative that makes any sense overall.

[FelixCA]

5 hours ago, TrueTomHarley said:

There is some verse somewhere about not running ahead. I cannot quite put my finger on it, but it may be in John’s writing. Help me out, someone. Not you, Butler. That’s not good, to run ahead, but it mostly finds expression in those who are promoting a sect. Is he? It’s arguable, perhaps, but imo he is not. 

The prime component of what makes an apostate to me is a lack of submission to theocratic authority, and he goes out of his way to make clear that he has no problem with that. If you can’t even talk about something that (history has shown) might eventually be adopted, then it really IS true that eight men are the only ones authorized to think. Neither they nor anyone else would want that to be the case, I think.

When push comes to shove, he is submissive to appointed authority. Let that be enough on a bayou backwater thread as this. If he set up a booth at the Kingdom Hall: “JWI’s Thoughts,” that would be one thing, but he doesn’t (you don’t, JWI, right?)

I believe the context you are looking for is found 1 Corinthians 4:5, Philippians 3:13. This, however, can be seen depending on the Bible translation.

1 Corinthians 4:5 New International Version (NIV)

⁵ Therefore judge nothing before the appointed time; wait until the Lord comes. He will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will expose the motives of the heart. At that time each will receive their praise from God.

1 Corinthians 4:5 the Message (MSG)

⁵ So don’t get ahead of the Master and jump to conclusions with your judgments before all the evidence is in. When he comes, he will bring out in the open and place in evidence all kinds of things we never even dreamed of—inner motives and purposes and prayers. Only then will any one of us get to hear the “Well done!” of God.

 

Philippians 3:13 New International Version (NIV)

¹³ Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead,

It’s interesting the perception you have about apostasy. Is it just afore dawn conclusion it’s only meant to “depart” from one's belief or is it also an action taken by one's heart.

James 1:26 ESV

If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his heart, this person's religion is worthless.

 

Matthew 5:22 ESV

But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire.

As you stated, enough of attempting to justify other people’s behavior by their personal actions. Let's move on.

[TrueTomHarley]

42 minutes ago, FelixCA said:

James 1:26:   If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue 

Well, you’ve got me there. And he. I plead ‘No contest.” Probably he will, too.

 

42 minutes ago, FelixCA said:

Let's move on.

Yes. We’re going to get along just fine. I like being corrected by you and I do not blow it off as nothing, even if it does not trigger an immediate change. It surely will trigger a subtle one, in the ‘iron sharpens iron’ vein.

A Christian ought to be uncomfortable to find himself out of the mainstream of the Body of Christ, and he ought be ready to yield to it. THAT is where I might fault some, if anyone is demonstrably unwilling to yield. I do not ever say that the slave is wrong. It is not my place, even were I to think it. I have said, however, that there is a downside to this or that policy, as I did with what is becoming my specialty:

“It may be unavoidable, but the scriptural counsel to avoid apostates come what may has a serious downside. If a youngster of ours succumbs to the oldest trap of human nature- going somewhere out of curiosity because he has been advised not to, and he stumbles, he finds himself totally unsupported because we don’t know what is there ourselves. All we can say is that he shouldn’t go there, which opposers spin as proof that he should stay in order to escape from being “controlled.”  I don’t know the answer, but it would be nice if there was one.”

When I was asked to give the funeral talk by the widow of a good friend, I replied that I would but I didn’t know if it would be allowed at the KH, me being neither elder nor MS. It was. On the night of the talk, an elder there known for dotting ‘i’s and crossing ‘t’s asked me if I was using the outline. I told him that I was not and he was unhappy. Afterwards, however, he was. Another brother there with Bethel experience told me that they don’t mind at all ‘departing from script’ if one can improve upon it...they do it all the time.

Many things that are eventually adopted HQ was initially skeptical of. The quick build KHs are a case in point. They kept their distance until they saw that the brothers with experience in the field could pull it off. When they were satisfied it could be done, they leant full support.

The paranoid JTR often says of the GB, “Everything not expressly allowed is forbidden!” It probably is so in his case because everything he does is accusatory and crass. But in the case of brothers of good heart, I think it is not. They’re okay with probing about and experimentation at HQ, I think, so long as it is done in an appropriate way and so long as the one doing it doesn’t ultimately come to regard it as the hill he is willing to die on. 

I am ‘out there’ in some respects, but I do not think myself above theocratic arrangements. If the brothers at OPI said, ‘FalseTom, what are you doing?? You’re screwing up the works!!’ I would change course promptly. I have not kept myself hidden from them.

[JOHN BUTLER]

To quote the pussycat CA 

²⁶  If any man thinks he is a worshipper of God but does not keep a tight rein on his tongue, he is deceiving his own heart, and his worship is futile.

Ah but if you then look at the next verse 

²⁷  The form of worship that is clean and undefiled from the standpoint of our God and Father is this: to look after orphans and widows in their tribulation, and to keep oneself without spot from the world.

Um, GB and JW Org complete FAILURE  

[JOHN BUTLER]

To quote TTH " I do not ever say that the slave is wrong. It is not my place, even were I to think it. "

This is so sad as I presume he is talking about the Governing Body. 

Psalm 146

 ³  Do not put your trust in princes Nor in a son of man, who cannot bring salvation.

Remember that Tom. Those 8 men are only men. They are not God nor Jesus Christ. 

And ''if' they form part of the Anointed, they are only a tiny part of it. 

[TrueTomHarley]

6 minutes ago, JOHN BUTLER said:

 

7 minutes ago, JOHN BUTLER said:

To quote TTH " I do not ever say that the slave is wrong. It is not my place, even were I to think it. "   This is so sad as I presume he is talking about the Governing Body. 

No John. I keep a slave at home. In some respects I am behind the times.

[TrueTomHarley]

21 minutes ago, JOHN BUTLER said:

Remember that Tom. Those 8 men are only men. They are not God nor Jesus Christ. 

Come, come. This is why your side becomes disorganized rabble, each person flailing away, and ultimately accomplishing little. Worse, they soon take sides over the many divisive issues of this system and are presently at each other’s throats—despite each one’s ‘personal relationship with Jesus.’

Every project needs direction and someone to lead. It is no more complicated than that. Refraining from critiquing them over every little thing is not the same as ‘worshipping’ them.

Many have tried to explain this to you, to no end. For the life of me, I cannot bring myself to explain something so obvious.

[JOHN BUTLER]

38 minutes ago, TrueTomHarley said:

No John. I keep a slave at home. In some respects I am behind the times.

And you need an OUTLINE to give a talk at a funeral ?  

You people really are puppets. 

And you were saying the other day that the GB / Org is not controlling ?

But they want you to stick to an outline to give a funeral talk and they much prefer you to be an Elder or M/S ? 

Bit of contradiction me thinks..