Their new title linked them with Biblical heros.

Rutherford, as an able executive, seized a new name for the followers of Russell. The International Bible Students Association, now, became the Jehovah's Witnesses. It gave them blood relationship to Abraham, who was prepared to slay his own son in order to testify that he was a faithful witness. Their new name identified them with Noah,Moses, David, Daniel, and Isaiah. Wherever the word "witness" appeared in the Bible, they saw their prototype. Associated with such a group of immortals, Rutherford's edict built a religious organization that claimed to rule with divine authority. At his headquarters in Brooklyn, New York, he established a Bible College with dormitories, dining rooms, bookstores, and a printing press operated by a staff without salary. The new organization laboured day and night, witnessing and fighting against time, calling out God's anointed people before the fearful day of Armageddon. They canvassed all over the country. Not a single house was missed. Every family could expect a rap on the door. Slammed doors and other insults were signs of a promise that there would be persecution for righteousness sake. They believed ridicule was proof that the Lord wanted them to be punished as verification of his love, and, that people feared "the truth." Rutherford's apostles relentlessly continued witnessing without salary and any form of reward. They only excepted that the end of the world will endorse their claims. On that day it is believed, they will stand up boldly before Jehovah and say, "we have been obedient to the heavenly vision." Slowly against great odds, the Witnesses were accepted by the institutionalized churches as a contemporary movement which was here to stay.They called their meeting places "Kingdom Halls" so as not to be defiled by the word "church" or "chapel." Their services consisted of a thorough study of lessons prepared and published at the Brooklyn headquarters where a president and a board of directors worked with Biblical scholars to construct the teaching. Every moment of the day the Brooklyn presses piled up staggering production figures of millions of books and magazines bearing as their dedication: "To Jehovah and His Messiah." They believe Jehovah's people must be different from the rest of the world. No one can outquote them when it comes to Scripture. Their references from the Holy Writ comes from their own Biblical teachings which must be received without question and with eager passion. Peter in his second epistle stated "...the heavens shall passaway with a great noise, the elements shall melt with fervent heat; the earth also, and the works that are therein, shall be burned up." The new witnesses were given this warning. "You, therefore, beloved ones, having this advance knowledge, be on your guard that you may not be led away..." So say 2 Peter: 17, and so say the Jehovah's Witnesses today.

Russell, Jehovah, and world of devils

Russell felt he had divine authority from God to remove the provisions of specific church law. His theories were based on three dispensations: the first extended from the time of creation to the time of Noah; the second from the time of Noah to the death and resurrection of Christ; his third theory is from the resurrection to the year 1914, at which time, Pastor Russell predicted, the souls of those that sleep will arise and be judged. His followers interpreted his remarks to mean that the end of the world would come in 1914. The movement grew until the dawn of the 20th century. His Watch Tower magazine was their mouthpiece, his studies in the Scripturestheir texts, and his organization,spreading over the world, was known as the "International Bible Students Association." The year 1914 became their target date for the end of the world and for a moment it seemed that Russell's prophecy was terrifyingly true. On June 28,1914, an unknown Serbian terrorist in Sarajevo, Bosnia, killed the Austrian Archduke Ferdinand and plunged Europe into war. The Jehovah Witnesses declared it was the beginning of the end. The assassination caused nation to rise against nation, just as the Scriptures had predicted, and a cry of "Armageddon!" swept through apocalyptic ranks. The International Bible Students were besieged with converts and in addition, the most skeptical theologians wondered whether Pastor Russell might actually have had divine inside information. The war escalated, but the year was running out which led the followers of Russell to say, perhaps there had been a slight miscalculation.A difference of a couple of years, what did it matter? When the hostilities in the Middle East became a focal point with fighting in Jerusalem, no more telling signs were needed. Apocalyptic believers have always affirmed that the final slaughter would take place in the Holy Land. The Witnesses watched and waited as the world dragged on throughout the years of carnage without the intervention from a cosmic power. On October 31, 1916, Pastor Russell passed away and his prophecies remained unfulfilled. However, his devotees found a reason for the prophicies not being fulfilled. They now claim the end of the world had actually begun in 1914 but mankind was not yet fully aware of it. They insisted that Christ entered His kingdom, had subdued the forces of Satan and driven the unseen hosts of devils out of their invisible habitat once and for all. They claim the reason for the troubles in the world such as deterioration of world culture,rise in crime,a trend toward world unrest and war, could be found in the fact that devils which had once lived in the land of a spiritual realm now lived on earth among the children of men, as retribution for man's sins. As this supposition grew, a new and forceful leader arose in the oerson of J.F.Rutherford, a judge in the 14th Judicial District of Missouri. He was forty-seven years old when his spiritual teacher, Pastor Russellhad died.

The apocalypse, the rapture, and the believers pt.1

The belief that the world is coming to an end has tormented the mind of humanity ever since the first mysterious darkening of the sun during an eclipse, the first earthquake, the first volcanic eruption, and the first great flood. From 2 million BC to 10,000 BC,the first humans gouged out shelters in the rock and hilly cliffs and they sought refuge in caves against the day when the gods would destroy everything on the earth. Apocalyptic believers assumed that there will be a thousand years where they will be living in great happiness, peace and prosperity. Such probing into the future of this old world's fate, caught the imagination of religions from the ancient Aztecs to the equally ancient Zoroastrians. At the time of the Babylonian exile, some 600, years before the birth of Christ, the Hebrew people believed their God of righteousness would eventually triumph over the forces of evil. The Hebrew prophets - Daniel, Enoch, Moses, Baruch-sustained their people in the darkest hours with the light of apocalyptic hope. It was the Christians however, who gave the apocalypse its greatest emphasis.The apocalyptic writings of Daniel, Ezekiel and the Book of Revelation became the texts for a timetable in which men claimed to read the mind of God. Nor did the followers of Christ think it strange or curious that they, the most enlightened among the seekers after truth, without question taught that one day the world will end. Awed by the far-seeing eyes of their apocalyptic prophets, the early Christians pinned their messianic hope on Christ.He was their God of the Apocalypse. Less than two hundred years after His death, apocalyptic groups were flourishing wherever Christianity was preached. There were for example, the Montanists, followers of the "pagan" priest, Montanus, who had been converted to Christianity after serving for many years in the temple of Cybele (Aphrodite).He claimed he had a vision in which the Lord revealed to him that men were living in the latter days. Frequently seized by the spirit, Montanus proclaimed in a loud voice that the days were numbered. Virgins followed him, wearing heavy veils so that no man could see their faces until Jesus came and first looked on them. Wives lived apart from their husbands so that the Lord would find them pure. Men gave up all their worldly goods so so that they might meet God empty handed. Secular education, science, art, and worldly pleasures were renounced, and Montanism became a movement of fasting and prayer. Pilgrimages were made to the Phrygian hills (ancient country in Asia Minor)to wait the coming of the Lord. In the third century other enthusiasts grouped themselves around Novatian, a Roman priest, labeled a heretic, who preached that the second coming of Christ was imminent and that the church had better prepare itself and warn its people.Great crowds followed Novatian as others had followed Montanus, chanting their favorite prayer, "come, Lord Christ, clothed in all thy wrath and judgement, come with all Thy vengeance, come."