Chapter Twenty-One/Jehovah's Plagues on Christendom - A Fervent Prayer - Continue

 Can we determine when this happened? Yes, we can, by examining the context, together with the historical developments early in the Lord's day. (Revelation 1:10) During 1918 and 1919 events on earth harmonized remarkably with the scenario described at Revelation8:1-4. For 40 years before 1914, the Bible students-as Jehovah's Witnesses were then called-had been announcing boldly that the times of the Gentiles would end in that year. The distressful events of 1914 proved them correct. (Luke21:24; King James Version; Matthew24:3, 7, 8) But many of them also believed that in 1914 they would be taken from this earth to that heavenly inheritance. That did not happen. Instead, during the first world war, they endured a time of severe persecution. On October 31, 1916, the first president of the Watch Tower Society, Charles T. Russell, died. Then, on July 4, 1918, the new president, Joseph F. Rutherford, and seven other representatives of the Society were transported to the Atlantic Georgia penitentiary, wrongly sentenced to long years in prison. 

Next time: Chapter Twenty-One/Jehovah's Plagues on Christendom - A Fervent Prayer

From the jw.org publications