Great Crowd of Other Sheep

The Great Crowd of Other Sheep Praise God and Christ – Study 2021/03

“Salvation we owe to our God, who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb.” Revelation 7:10

 [Study 3 from ws 1/21 p.14, March 15 – March 21, 2021]

As a background you may wish to read the following previously published articles which discuss who the Great Crowd of Other Sheep are in depth.

Issue 1

Paragraph 2 quotes “I have other sheep, which are not of this fold; those too I must bring in, and they will listen to my voice, and they will become one flock, one shepherd.” (John 10:16).

Notice how these other sheep were to be added to the one flock under one shepherd, Jesus Christ. It would be by Jesus himself.

Now compare the following two events:

  • The opening up of Christianity to the Samaritans recorded in Acts 8:14-17 and to the Gentiles recorded in Acts 10.
    • The Samaritans received holy spirit after the Apostles Peter and John prayed, likely using a key of the kingdom of the heavens under the guidance of Jesus Christ. (Matthew 16:19)
    • The Gentiles received holy spirit while the Apostle Peter was speaking to them, after angelic direction and a vision probably from Jesus. Acts 10:10-16; Acts 10:34-36; Acts 10:44-48.
    • The context of all these scriptures indicates was clearly Jesus using Peter to add other sheep to the little flock of Jewish Christians.
  • “a history-making talk entitled “The Great Multitude.” That talk was given in 1935 by J. F. Rutherford at a convention in Washington, D.C., U.S.A. What was revealed at that convention?  2 In his talk, Brother Rutherford identified those who would make up the “great multitude” (King James Version), or “great crowd,” mentioned at Revelation 7:9. Until then, this group was thought to be a secondary heavenly class that was less faithful. Brother Rutherford used the Scriptures to explain that the great crowd are not chosen to live in heaven, but they are Christ’s other sheep who will survive “the great tribulation” and live forever on earth”.
    • A talk given by J.F.Rutherford in 1935, the great crowd of other sheep identified by Brother Rutherford.
    • One flock of Jehovah’s Witnesses divided into 2 parts with different destinies.

Did you note the recorded angelic direction of an apostle in the first instance, uniting Jews, Samaritans and Gentiles into one body of Christians compared with a change of teaching with no identifiable cause such as angelic direction, in the second instance which led to a divided body of Christians within the Organization of Jehovah’s Witnesses?

Which of these matches what Jesus promised in John 10:16 where Jesus said he would bring in these other sheep and make one flock? The answer is obvious.

Issue 2

Compare the following two statements:

  • 1 Corinthians 11:23-26 “This means my body which is in your behalf. Keep doing this in remembrance of me. … Keep doing this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me. For as often as you eat this loaf and drink this cup, you keep proclaiming the death of the Lord, until he arrives.”
  • After that talk, the young man mentioned earlier and thousands of others rightly stopped partaking of the bread and the wine at the Lord’s Evening Meal.” (para. 4). They stopped partaking and hence stopped proclaiming the death of the Lord.

Jesus’ instruction repeated by Paul in Corinthians was to partake, and thereby proclaim the death of the Lord.

By J.F. Rutherford’s instruction, thousands stopped partaking and thereby stopped proclaiming the death of the Lord.

There is a further complication.

According to the Organization’s teaching, Jesus arrived invisibly in 1914.

If so, then those claiming to be ‘Anointed’ or part of the remnant of the little flock according to the Organization’s teaching, should also have stopped partaking. Therefore, the Organization is misleading everyone.

If Jesus has not yet arrived, then all true Christians should continue to partake until instructed otherwise by Jesus, and the Organization is misleading everyone.

How do you think your host would feel if you were invited to a meal, but when you attended, you rejected the meal and just watched others partake? Do you think they would invite you again? Very unlikely.

So, how is attending the Lord’s evening meal and not partaking while there, any different? Is it not the point of the Lord’s evening meal to attend and partake? Otherwise, why attend? Nowhere did Jesus suggest that some should attend and just observe.

Issue 3

Subtle misrepresentation of Revelation 7. The Organization introduces an artificial change of subject between Revelation 7:1-8 and Revelation 7:9-10.

Remember, Revelation was according to Revelation 1:1-2 a revelation by God to Jesus, who sent an angel who presented this revelation in signs to the Apostle John. Revelation 7:1-4 records that John heard the number of those sealed was 144,000. In Revelation 7:9-10 records that John saw a great crowd that no man was able to number out of all nations. It is logical to think that the great crowd he saw, was what he heard about just earlier.

If you were explaining what you heard and saw today, if the great crowd were not the symbolic 144,000 then you would qualify by saying for example, “I also saw another different group” so that your intended audience would understand the great crowd was different to the symbolic 144,000.

Issue 4

We have discussed at length that there is only one hope in the series “Mankind’s Hope for the Future, Where is it?”. While some may believe the one hope is in heaven, regardless, there is only one hope for Christians, not two separate hopes.

Issue 5

The Organization’s teaching of 2 groups leads to the following questions:

  • As God is not partial and we would naturally expect those chosen to be from all nationalities and walks of life. So, why have the vast majority of ‘anointed’ Jehovah’s Witnesses been either white North Americans, or white Europeans? Even the current Governing Body reflects this lack of ethnic diversity.
  • The calling of ‘anointed’ is implied to have basically all but closed in 1935. Between the 1870’s and 1935, the majority of Witnesses were only from the USA, Canada, UK and Western Europe. It was only after World War II that more than a handful from South America, Africa, and Asia became witnesses. Surely, that is not the results we would expect of a just and impartial God is it? How will a white American really understand the problems and culture of Africans living in poverty?
  • Para 17 claims “They think about their hope, pray about it, and are eager to receive their reward in heaven. They cannot even imagine what their spiritual body will be like.” So why would God give them a hope that they do not understand and is not explained in the scriptures? Also, in the absence of scripture, why has he not miraculously given them an understanding of what he was calling them to be?

There are many other issues with this Watchtower study article, but most, if not all, have been covered in articles such as those given at the beginning of this review.

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