César Chávez

Are the “No Long-Winded Idiots” signs thrown in for free? If not, that would be the dealbreaker for me.
There’s no reason, when you’ve cleared 39 million, that you can’t hire a guy to paint a few signs.
I mean, come on! If I shell out 39 million, I should have to paint my own signs as well?

Table of Contents
 
                     Foreword….……...…….………..…..…...….……….Page 2
                     Table of Contents……………..…….…......……….. Page 3
                     Prophecy……………….…………….....….........  Pages 4-5
                     Presence of Christ Foretold (2x) …….....….....   Pages 5-8
                     Sealing of the 144,000………………… .....….  Pages 8-10
                     Better times lay ahead of us…..………...…..……. Page 11
                     Timeline Chart………….……………   ….…..……..Page 11
                     Don’t Give Up...You’re Worth Saving!...….….........Page 12



 
Prophecy
 
"Concerning this salvation, the prophets who prophesied about the undeserved kindness meant for you made a diligent inquiry and a careful search.  They kept on investigating what particular time or what season the spirit within them was indicating concerning Christ as it testified beforehand about the sufferings meant for Christ and about the glory that would follow.  It was revealed to them that they were ministering, not to themselves, but to you, regarding what has now been announced to you by those who declared the good news to you with holy spirit sent from heaven. Into these very things, angels are desiring to peer." (1 Peter 1:10-12)
 
The Prophets that announced the prophecy did not always know the exact timing. For instance, the Prophet Eziekel announced the coming of the destruction of Jerusalem over and over again stating, “An end is coming; the end will come; it will rouse itself against you. Look! It is coming.” (Ezekiel 7:6) Yet, he did not state this would occur in 607 BCE.  It’s not likely he knew and if he did, it was not for them to know. In this case ‘them’ is referring to the unfaithful Jews who were doing detestable things in Jehovah’s Holy Temple. However, the Bible did point to the time of 607 BCE. The 390 days and the 40 days that were revealed to Ezekiel by laying on his side indicated significance. If we apply the pattern of a day for a year then both 390 years and the 40 years pointed to the destruction on 607 BCE.
 
Jesus Christ, the great prophet, stated in part of his answer to the conclusion of this system of things or the end of the age, “Concerning that day and hour nobody knows, neither the angels of the heavens nor the Son, but only the Father.” (Matthew 24:36)  Think about his reply for a moment, here, Jesus Christ makes the claim of not knowing that day or hour.  The firstborn of all creation did not know the day or hour of his second prescence and he claimed the angels did not know either. Recall this scripture?  “It was revealed to them that they were ministering, not to themselves, but to you, regarding what has now been announced to you by those who declared the good news to you with holy spirit sent from heaven. Into these very things, angels are desiring to peer.” (1Peter 1:12)  What you may find interesting is that date and hour was already embedded in the Bible through past prophecy in the Book of Daniel. The Temple would be destroyed in October of 607 BCE. The “seven times” was a calculation of the Jewish year of 360 days. Simple math 7 x 360 = 2520 days. Apply a day for a year. The seven times is actually a reference to the allotted time limit of the Gentiles. It is a ‘timed event’.
 
A good way to calculate this, is that there seems to be a year to be missing. There was 3 months left on 606 BCE when the counting of the time limit began and 9 months to count of the year when the time limit of the Gentile Times came to its conclusion. That’s 1 year. Now, take a calculator and put in 606 then hit the +/- sign so it shows -606 then add 2520 to it. What year do you come up with? 1914!
 
Any Jewish Scholar from the time of Daniel could've figured this out by simple history. So why was this prophecy hidden from faithful worshippers of Jehovah? Then he said: “Go, Daniel, because the words are to be kept secret and sealed up until the time of the end.” (Daniel 12:9) 
 
The Fulfillment of Prophecies are 'timed events'.  They have a Beginning and an End to them which covers a specific time period. Knowing such dates of a prophecy once revealed to those who are being ministered to, does not necessarily beget salvation. It doesn't give a person divine protection or extraordinary insight but it may make a person more accountable to Jehovah.”  One would need to walk by faith...

 

go then you won't be missed on here  

Whoa! Look at this:
I’m smartest.

And what therefore of a God ( so the GB pretend) that would kill you for not being a baptised JW ? 

And here we have it !   This is Xero at her best.  All this writing about 'conscience' was nothing but a smoke screen. It was all hiding his hate for his imagined Opposers.  She/he now tries to pretend that imagined Opposers are all of low intelligence. This makes Xero feel superior. Xero seems to have an inferiority complex. 
Just a quote here from Xero
Yes indeed. Moral pervert  = GB / Watchtower / JW org.  Child Sexual Abuse court cases. GB lawyers. Misused intelligence with no moral standing and no spirituality. 

This one is a laugh..... The GB are obviously led by the Devil, and prove it by telling the Anointed not to gather together and to threaten the True Anointed that they would be ' working against the Holy Spirit' if they did gather together. When Jesus told them they should gather together and to ask for things in His name.   The GB, led by their hearts, are frightened that the True Anointed will prove spiritually strong, so the GB listen to the Devil and do his work. 

And this is why people say, and this proves the point, that congregants ARE controlled / ruled over by the GB / WTS.
This really proves that JWs serve and put their faith in the GB and the W/t / JW org. 
And it's good to see that you recognise  that THREAT of disfellowshipping hanging over the congregation. 
 
 
 

I liked the fact that there wasn't a lot of emotional incontinence at the meetings of JW's when I first started going.
I always found that emotionalism to be incredibly self-indulgent and narcissistic. Jesus would have said (actually he did) "get a room!" 
6  But when you pray, go into your private room and, after shutting your door, pray to your Father who is in secret.+ Then your Father who looks on in secret will repay you - Mt. 6:6
...One brother I know seemed to always have these charismatic types turn on him. His family has a bunch of pentecostals and apparently a group of them (cousins) (hey I don't remember the back story...but somehow they were on the beach in Florida) chased him down in their car on the sand, bumped him w/a car door and tried to pray the demons out of him. (because he was one of JW's).
I studied w/his older brother and it didn't take (never got baptized). I was wondering what happened to him and found his mug shot out there.

I've been told that. It's a baked-in personality trait. I have high-low self esteem. My biggest fear is that people will be too stupid to realize how brilliant I am.
This reminds me of an elders meeting where one brother said to me "Other people have ideas too!" and my response was "Well if we could knock it off with the fake humility and speak as men, maybe we could get these meetings done more quickly. Just spit it out already."
Edited to mention
I remember one brother (was it me?) who said in a meeting in response to the phrase "speaking as men" ..."Oh, you mean like now when we're being rude and tactless?"

I know where you’re coming from, but I agree with Anna. I think it is not good to describe the brotherhood this way. I think it because the scriptures lay no emphasis at all on this “deficiency,” if it is one. Instead, they goes out of their way to show favor to such ones. They pay no attention to the head. They only pay attention to the heart. 
“Wisdom cries aloud from the street,” the Bible says. “Hogwash,” comes the answer from the learned ones. “It cries aloud from the quadrangles. Only ignoramuses are to be found in the street.”
It is their bad, for it cries aloud from the street. 
I like the counsel to Philippians to keep regarding the other as superior. If it seems to me that I truly am superior towards another with regard to smarts, I look for another way in which he truly is superior to me. I usually don’t have to look too hard.

I am told of a certain brother in a developing land who has had great responsibility and is always smiling. “Yes, brother,” he says to this with the local friends, and “Yes,  brother,” he says to that. It is only if you ask him if he thinks the course you are about to embark on is a good idea that he will say, “No, brother,” still smiling, and not offering a better course. unless specifically drawn out.

You are a little condescending here, but I know what you mean

I completely agree with what was said .... 
... also, I am of the opinion that “blood fractions” cannot enter the realm of conscience. Because of the "do not eat blood" itself, as a commandment, it is essentially set as a prohibition, not as a moral dilemma. "Blood transfusion" has become a dilemma (religious, doctrinal, moral dilemma, etc.), because the question arises whether receiving blood for the purpose of a medical procedure can be reduced to just "eating" something that is prohibited in Bible .
“Blood fractions” are not a matter of conscience because there is currently no religious dilemma about it in the WTJWorg official position. (Same is with blood transfusion. This is not matter for conscience of JW member, but only matter of obeying WTJWorg doctrine)  The question of "blood fractions" is a question of the desired choice, similar to the example of "what color of carpet" do you want, or do you not want a carpet in general, but you want ceramic tiles.
The question of conscience is not just a question of whether we will be guilty of something or not. Or, will the social environment accept or reject us. It is also a question of how we will feel ourselves if we do or do not do something.

Well there are certainly mundane things pertaining to conscience. Like minor blood fractions. Quite mundane as the term applies to the earthly realm. One could imagine all manner of things there. Suppose one were to imagine that it would be possible like a Ted Talk I saw, where they were able to manufacture or culture meat, that they were also able to manufacture all that blood is. Would this be allowable, if it were completely indistinguishable from actual blood?
Also, it would seem that IQ and conscience are also related. I would imagine that certain nuance in the exercise of one's conscience might get a jaundiced look from low IQ brothers and sisters. Let's face it, some of our most faithful brothers and sisters have IQ's about the level of a hamster.
I was thinking that once when my wife and I were giving a ride to the circuit assembly for a sister and her daughter. They sat happily in the back eating chips offering nothing in the way of conversation or adding anything to the discussion until they ran out of chips and fell asleep until we got to the assembly hall.
I can't imagine these could ever get stumbled out of the truth by some fancy-pants discussions surrounding relative vs absolute dates in the Hebrew scriptures.

But it was OK for the WTS to use Oracle and Delphi when they set up their accounting systems using an IDE with Object Pascal?

It sounds like you are applying "conscience" to very mundane matters of getting along with others. You are then generalizing these mundane things so that they might apply loosely to matters of spirituality and "sin." Nothing wrong with that of course. It's also what many of Jesus' illustrations and parables do.
But the mundane matters in themselves are not about conscience. If a brother wants a grey carpet in the new Kingdom Hall, and you want a beige carpet, it is not a matter of "conscience" for you to say OK to the grey. It's just a mundane decision. There are no grey areas of right and wrong -- unless it's a very cheap carpet.
Our KH once had wallpaper in the bathrooms with a light fleur-de-lis pattern. Someone mentioned the political, religious, even possible Trinitarian associations, but he was not in the least personally offended; he just wanted to show off his knowledge of history. Since no one else really cared, the COBE decided that when it came time to change it someday, they'd remember not to repeat the pattern.

JWI - The connection w/conscience is the business of going along with a brother or a group. I always ask myself, "What's the harm in going along w/what appears to be a wrong idea? If it's just me "being annoyed" and everyone appears to be amenable, then I go along. Yes, I make a bit of noise w/regard to my objections, but I figure that if it's really important, Jehovah will correct it.
Even at work sometimes you have to let people screw up when you really do know better. This way they actually learn. You can't be constantly "steadying the ark", like uzzah.

I liked your KH building experience. We've all had that experience when we would have made different decisions if we were in charge, and then we are glad we weren't.
But I can't seem to fit your musing on conscience into what I thought was the most common use of the term "conscience" in the Bible. Of course, it might be right anyway, depending on what you mean by consequences. For example:
Let's say that you would love the experience of eating roast beef a couple times a week, but depending on your location (and your time in history) the only viable source is the meat shop just outside the local pagan temple where they sacrifice animals and then sell the meat. In this case, the consequence of eating meat is something you would want to experience, but perhaps you'd rather not experience the consequence of spiritual brothers and sisters who react to your attitude by:
their own revulsion that you would dare be associated with idolatry. talking behind your back and gossiping that you are not a serious Christian because you would dare go against the counsel of the Jerusalem body of elders who declared that you should not eat meat that had been sacrificed to an idol. their being shaken in their faith or even stumbled that you would do this openly in front of them and even defend it as no big deal (because idols are no big deal). Or perhaps you are not truly convinced in your own mind that eating meat sacrificed to an idol is OK. Therefore you think it might be a sin, and are therefore going to suffer the future consequences of judgment against yourself for continuing in sin.
This is probably the way most Witnesses look at blood-sourced medical therapies. Most Witnesses will accept the full range of "allowed" blood products (smaller fractions) that the WTS has identified as OK "if your conscience allows it." What the WTS has currently identified as "not allowed" (whole and larger fractions) are not considered to be a matter of conscience. They are simply not allowed without the potential consequences of disfellowshipping.
But as regards the "conscience" matter of those allowable fractions, the Witness wants the consequences of the therapeutic medical advantages including longer and healthier physical life in this system. You will not be gossiped about behind your back nor will brothers and sisters be shaken in their faith by your decision to take these blood products, because there is trust in the WTS decision that you have made a decision that properly falls under the range of decisions that are allowed by your own conscience. One could argue that this really has nothing to do with conscience, and comments from HLC elders (including one of my cousins) would appear to bear this out.
There have been several comments in this thread where the subtext, at least, shows that we might be confusing conscience at times with guilt or "reasonable" choices regarding sin, or just "reasonable" choices regarding not wishing to offend people.
It occurs to me that the apostle Paul would rather eat vegetables (instead of meat) in front of brothers who might be offended/stumbled. Yet he was willing to write a letter that publicly declared that it was OK to eat meat sacrificed to an idol. Which is worse, eating in front of one who might be stumbled, or writing a letter that offends 10,000 brothers who might be stumbled at hearing your flippant attitude about meat sacrificed to idols.

Long ago I was on a committee to explore building a new Kingdom Hall. A brother as you describe, also on the committee, carried on and on about how we would put a baby changing table in the men’s room! Why should it be just sisters who have to change the infant? Times were changing! Equal work for all! And it was not just work, it was part of the privilege of rearing children—spread the joys and the drudgery evenly! It shouldn’t only be the sisters who have to.....” He discussed brands, the fold=down type, which were sormewhat new at the time. On and on he went, so enthusiastic.
For crying out loud, we hadn’t even located land yet!

Musing - Conscience only seems troubled by the acceptance or rejection of thoughts or ideas which have consequences to us which we'd rather not experience.
Neither here nor there, but for some reason this popped into my mind. Back when we were building our hall, a certain  brother who was slated to be our PO was a bit hyperactive and impatient as we were waiting for the concrete trucks to arrive for our parking lot. Now it would have been normal to construct the forms and tie the steel as these arrived, but noooo brother hyperactive-impatient came up with an idea to create the forms w/the steel already tied!
I immediately thought this to be a really bad idea, a bad idea that I assessed to be a function of his unwarranted enthusiasm and exuberance. I said "So this is the first brilliant idea you decided to run with as new PO?...Mkay..."
I thought it was a really dumb idea, but as it turns out, I was wrong. It sped the whole thing up. Nevermind this brother wasn't some professional steel-tier.
So maybe we imagine bad consequences at times flowing from going along w/something we think is wrong or stupid, but then we find out it's our imagination that's wrong.

You accuse yourself. CC is right about the insinuation. You insinuated that someone committed a heinous crime, but without any basis or evidence. That's a lot different than insulting someone or accusing them of doing stupid things.

I English your second language CC?

More musing....Jesus seems to put up w/all manner of deficient human beings during his time on earth, however for some reason the basement dwellers have a hard time w/their fellow man so they must separate themselves because their views must not only be expressed but embraced by all. Failure to embrace their views means the whole thing must be wrong, because of course they couldn't be wrong and even if they aren't by golly they won't allow themselves to be wronged. Nevermind Jesus allowed himself to be wronged.

...Not to mention the rabbit-hole mentality of the basement dwellers, this sort of thinking simply doesn't address the concerns of the bulk of humanity. Having love among yourselves means quite little when you're in a basement someplace having separated yourself because someone jotted when they should have tittled.
"Why can't they admit they should have tittled! I'm going to leave until they admit it!"