A sweet and Bitter Message

The Grand Climax lesson for this week focuses on the 10th chapter of Revelation. As with most of their interpretation of the Apocalypse, the Society supposes that it was fulfilled in 1914. But reasoning on the import of Revelation 10:5-7, that simply cannot be. Those verses read: “And the angel that I saw standing on the sea and on the earth raised his right hand to heaven, and by the One who lives forever and ever, who created the heaven and the things in it and the earth and the things in it and the sea and the things in it, he swore: ‘There will be no delay any longer; but in the days of the sounding of the seventh angel, when he is about to blow his trumpet, the sacred secret of God according to the good news which he declared to his own slaves the prophets is indeed brought to a finish.’”

What is meant by the angel’s expression “There will be no delay any longer”? Surely it is reasonable to assume that this aspect of Revelation occurs immediately prior to the consummation of God’s judgments. But according to the ardent belief of the leadership of Jehovah’s Witnesses, incredibly, the final period of “no delay any longer” began almost a century ago and is still ongoing! How does the Grand Climax commentary account for this glaring discrepancy? They don’t. They simply juggle some words around pertaining to the meaning of the Greek expression that they translated and put on a bold face and say: “No delay any longer”—how those words appeal to the aging John class today!”

Of course, the entire generation of Bible Students who lived during the 1914 period is not merely aging; they have long since passed away! But to further obfuscate the uniqueness of the grand climax of God’s eternal purpose, the Watchtower goes on to add their predictably arcane commentary to the next verse, saying: “In what respect is there no delay? John informs us: “But in the days of the sounding of the seventh angel, when he is about to blow his trumpet, the sacred secret of God according to the good news which he declared to his own slaves the prophets is indeed brought to a finish.” Jehovah’s time is here for bringing his sacred secret to its happy climax, with glorious success!””

Just how Jehovah may have brought the sacred secret to "glorious success" is not clear. No doubt the Watchtower simply expects Jehovah’s Witnesses to believe that God’s glorious purpose was “brought to a finish” back in 1914. In fact, C.T. Russell’s posthumous work entitled “The Finished Mystery” was published in 1916. But isn't it reasonable to expect that if God’s sacred secret were actually brought to a finish in 1914 that those who were serving God at the time would have been fully enlightened as to the details of God’s purpose? Yet, Russell’s Finished Mystery book was anything but enlightening. In fact, it has long since been consigned to the rubbish heap, along with all of Russell’s prophetic speculation -- as the lesson acknowledges. The fact is, the Watchtower did not come up with the notion that Christ’s kingdom came to power in 1914 until the year 1925. So, apparently it was not until nine years after God’s the sacred secret was brought to a finish that the Watchtower understood what had occurred. That seems pretty far-fetched -- more evidence of the "artfully contrived false stories" that the Watchtower promotes as gospel.