James Thomas Rook Jr.

Gone Away:
I very much appreciate your perspective, and wish I could be so cavalier ... but faith in Jehovah God and his Christ is much to be desired ... and faith in men who are duplicitous and dishonest continually for  a half century and more is idolatry.

The question was:
"If the organization did not actually prophesy the end in 1925 and 1975, then how come so many Witnesses left the faith immediately afterwards?"
The answer is:
"We" actually did ... exemplified by MANY things of record, which can be denied ... but it  is disingenuous.
During the run-up to 1975 the slogan was " .. STAY ALIVE 'TILL '75."
I have decided to merely try to do the best I know how ... consider 90% of theology to be encapsulated in James 1:27, TRY not to get "thrown under the bus", and where theology assumes cartoon characteristics ( Caleb and Sophia, Overlapping Generations, Blood fractions NOT being blood, and other silly stuff ...) , resolve to try to stay on the road to life ... but stay WAY BACK from the clown car.
And verify the route with  my own map, from now on.
 

Amen to that.
... but NO ONE at Warwick is !
NO ONE!

Instead ... think of a police car ... which you can assemble from parts, just like a cake , and once assembled both the cake parts become cake, and the police car parts become a police car.
A Police car is not just a car ... it is a car DEDICATED for police use., and the Chief of Police has rules and regulations for its use, care and maintenance, and who can use one, and who cannot.  I can imagine County Secretaries or Utility Workers NOT being permitted to use a police car. 
Unauthorized use of an automobile can be considered Grand Theft/Auto, with a two year prison sentence ... at the discretion of the Chief of Police.
Jehovah has set the standards of how blood can and cannot be used ..... and it is quite clear that he considers it as his PERSONAL PROPERTY. 
Being Omnivores, which is clearly evident from the created design of our teeth, we were CLEARLY designed to eat meat, and AFTER the Flood, with the limited supply of animals available, and a year long by necessity enforced vegetarian diet ... God ONCE AGAIN gave mankind permission to eat meat ... as some animals had made copies of themselves during the restful, romantic  Love Boat voyage.
Jehovah set strict rules for the use and handling and sanctity of blood.
But I digress ......
If Jehovah had said "Thou shalt NOT use MY police car!", I seriously doubt he would have been too happy if he caught you sitting on the ground with a set of mechanic's tools, a fender in your lap, and parts all around you, looking up with a sheepish ... " But Lord!, I am not UUUUUUUUSSSSSING your police car .... just some of the FRACTIONS!".
 

I think it might be a good thing, up to a point, to have a sensitivity approaching bitterness. This would be especially true if we realize the depth of the loss of so many who went out from us. These "little ones" were truly stumbled, at least partly because many of us went along with a message that basically said the very thing that Christ warned us against. In this small way, we were being "anti-Christ." 
Christ had said, "If anyone says to you, 'The appointed time has approached' . . ., do not follow them." So, in 1973 we studied a book called "God's Kingdom of a Thousand Years Has Approached." In Russell's day, they often used a translation that said: "If anyone says to you, 'The time is at hand' . . . do not follow them." So Russell's second most famous book was called "The Time Is At Hand." Rutherford had done the same to an even greater degree with 1925. In effect, we as an organization had denied Christ 3 times. And what did Peter do when he realized the significance of his own three-time denial of Christ?
(Matthew 26:75) 75 And Peter called to mind what Jesus had said, namely: “Before a rooster crows, you will disown me three times.” And he went outside and wept bitterly. (Matthew 18: 6-14) But whoever stumbles one of these little ones who have faith in me, it would be better for him to have hung around his neck a millstone that is turned by a donkey and to be sunk in the open sea. 7 “Woe to the world because of the stumbling blocks! Of course, it is inevitable that stumbling blocks will come, but woe to the man through whom the stumbling block comes! . . . 10 See that you do not despise one of these little ones, for I tell you that their angels in heaven always look upon the face of my Father who is in heaven. . . . 14 Likewise, it is not a desirable thing to my Father who is in heaven for even one of these little ones to perish.
Bitterness of soul is also the appropriate response to loss of faithful ones, and the reproach of that same loss.
(Micah 2:4-7) 4 In that day people will recite a proverb concerning you, And they will bitterly lament over you. They will say: “We are completely devastated! He caused the portion of my people to change hands—how he removes it from me! . . .  6 “Stop preaching!” they preach, “They should not preach these things; Humiliation will not overtake us!”  7 Is it being said, O house of Jacob: “Has the spirit of Jehovah become impatient? Are these his deeds?” Do not my own words bring good to those walking uprightly? (Ezekiel 21:6, 7) 6 “And you, son of man, sigh while you tremble, yes, sigh bitterly before them. 7 And if they say to you, ‘Why are you sighing?’ you will say, ‘Because of a report.’ For it will certainly come,. . .
(Isaiah 22:4) That is why I said: “Turn your eyes away from me,
And I will weep bitterly.
Do not insist on comforting me
Over the destruction of the daughter of my people.
There are times when such bitterness of soul, if combined with compassion, is clearly better than those remarks that indicate that we are uncaring about such ones who went out from us because it was their own fault, or even showing that we despise these little ones by calling them anti-Christ.
When Frederick Franz was pushing this 1975 agenda, he obviously knew that the biggest push-back to overcome would be that some of the brothers could use Jesus' own words against the idea, by saying that 'no one knows the day or the hour.' He had to "get out in front" of that objection, and he did it by trying to minimize Jesus' words in Matt 24:34. He may have been arguing that these words of Jesus no longer applied to us now that we had reached this new time period when, in his opinion, we so clearly do know concerning that day and hour:
*** w68 8/15 pp. 500-501 Why Are You Looking Forward to 1975? ***
1975! . . . AND FAR BEYOND! . . . The Watch Tower Society over the years has endeavored to keep its associates abreast with the latest scholarship that proves consistent with historic and prophetic events recorded in the Scriptures. Major problems in sacred chronology have been straightened out . . . . One thing is absolutely certain, Bible chronology reinforced with fulfilled Bible prophecy shows that six thousand years of man’s existence will soon be up, yes, within this generation! (Matt. 24:34) This is, therefore, no time to be indifferent and complacent. This is not the time to be toying with the words of Jesus that “concerning that day and hour nobody knows, neither the angels of the heavens nor the Son, but only the Father.” (Matt. 24:36) To the contrary, it is a time when one should be keenly aware that the end of this system of things is rapidly coming to its violent end. Make no mistake, it is sufficient that the Father himself knows both the “day and hour”! My own father was counseled and disciplined by the District Overseer for adding that same verse to a Circuit Assembly talk in St Louis, Missouri in 1970 (plus or minus six months). It tended to tamp down the excitement over 1975.
I also had heard my own father give counsel to another elder (a returned Gilead missionary) about not getting overly excited over 1975, and this was on about January 2, 1975. The other elder actually thought my father was in the wrong and argued with him about it. (My father had hired the other elder who thought my father was somehow "ashamed of the good news" by not wanting people to know that "this was the year" in his own workplace.)
Of course, all of this stuff specifically about 1975 and 1925 is nearly ancient history. Our real concern should be whether we are willing to be honest about it now, and just how alert we are now to follow the spirit of Jesus' words about not following those who claim they have some unique knowledge about the times and seasons. (And who therefore believe they have the special knowledge to say "the time is at hand" or "the due time has approached.") We are still in danger, of course, because there are many who would give the words of men a higher priority than Jesus' own words. And many of the brothers, even today, will look at the disastrously false and unscriptural "Millions" campaign and shrug it off with words about how at least it pushed them zealously to greater activity. In some ways, many of the brothers are just as anxious to push the same messages:
*** w97 1/1 p. 11 par. 18 Let All Glorify Jehovah! ***
In the early 1920’s, a featured public talk presented by Jehovah’s Witnesses was entitled “Millions Now Living Will Never Die.” This may have reflected overoptimism at that time. But today that statement can be made with full confidence. Even the "overlapping generation" doctrine is being tied to a time schedule as Brother Splane and others have pointed out that even the second group of overlappers are already getting very old and many are already dying out. As more of the older anointed brothers continue to die out, we are creating the same kind of time limit all over again to the date for Armageddon. At least internally, we should all be bitterly weeping at such things.
 

Instead ... think of a police car ... which you can assemble from parts, just like a cake , and once assembled both the cake parts become cake, and the police car parts become a police car.
A Police car is not just a car ... it is a car DEDICATED for police use., and the Chief of Police has rules and regulations for its use, care and maintenance, and who can use one, and who cannot.  I can imagine County Secretaries or Utility Workers NOT being permitted to use a police car. 
Unauthorized use of an automobile can be considered Grand Theft/Auto, with a two year prison sentence ... at the discretion of the Chief of Police.
Jehovah has set the standards of how blood can and cannot be used ..... and it is quite clear that he considers it as his PERSONAL PROPERTY. 
Being Omnivores, which is clearly evident from the created design of our teeth, we were CLEARLY designed to eat meat, and AFTER the Flood, with the limited supply of animals available, and a year long by necessity enforced vegetarian diet ... God ONCE AGAIN gave mankind permission to eat meat ... as some animals had made copies of themselves during the restful, romantic  Love Boat voyage.
Jehovah set strict rules for the use and handling and sanctity of blood.
But I digress ......
If Jehovah had said "Thou shalt NOT use MY police car!", I seriously doubt he would have been too happy if he caught you sitting on the ground with a set of mechanic's tools, a fender in your lap, and parts all around you, looking up with a sheepish ... " But Lord!, I am not UUUUUUUUSSSSSING your police car .... just some of the FRACTIONS!".
 

Call me Ishmael. For many years I sailed onboard the Pequod with the crazed Captain Rook in his maniacal search for Moby Geddon.
"Captain, whale sighting dead ahead!" seawoman Anna shouted out. "Maybe you're wrong!" Rook muttered and shoved her so violently that she toppled overboard, petticoats all aflutter.
"Captain Rook," seaman JWI stated. "My calculations indicate a 78% probability of the while whale's proximity within 23 cubits. Of course, accuracy is necessary, but if you triumverate the trifecta intersect, the conclusion is justified. Look, if you will, at page 673 of 'Nautical Nocturnal Habits of Northern Hemisphere Mammals' that I brought from my private library, which along with others, explains why the entire ship lists six degrees. It clearly indicates (see chart) that...."
"Gag this fellow, and get him out of my sight!" roared Rook.
Moby Geddon breached and the consequent splash soaked every square inch of the vessel. "Captain!" seaman Goneaway shouted, "I sense the whale is near!" "Liar!" Rook shouted. "Throw him in irons below!"
"I'll handle that gladly sir, hehehehe ))))))" seaman Srecko responded.
Moby Geddon breached again and this time its tail caught the stern of the Pequod and spun it like a pinwheel. "Captain!" seaman Truetom cried, "Surely the whale is near!"
"Throw him to the sharks for calling me Shirly!" Rook bellowed. "I'll have respect here, do you hear?!"
"Now hear this, you scurvy dogs! I have a great job offer in Port Zaire, the best I've ever had, and I mean to get there straightaway. Don't cross me, or I'll have you walk the plank like I did seaman Franz and Shroeder long ago!"
 

Gone Away:
I very much appreciate your perspective, and wish I could be so cavalier ... but faith in Jehovah God and his Christ is much to be desired ... and faith in men who are duplicitous and dishonest continually for  a half century and more is idolatry.

 

I did not exist at all .... anywhere in the Universe ... for somewhere around 14-1/2 BILLION YEARS, before I was born .... and it bothered me, to the best of my recollection ... not at all.
There are people that will go insane to stay alive .... but I hope I never succumb to that temptation.
You can only die once .... you can be insane for many, many, many years.
The general perception difference between sane people, ( who are merely eccentric ...) and insane people is usually around 40 million dollars and lots of real estate.

 

Here is one thing to consider ... the Earth itself is about 3.5 BILLION years old, from the time it became a molten target for what is called "The Great Bombardment" of meteors as gravity sucked up almost all the material in the solar system into piles we call planets.
There are six creative days, and one "Day of Rest".  A total of seven "days".
3.5 billion ..... divided by 7,  is 0.5
That would mean the "Day of Rest" would be 1/2 Billion years long. (  For those in Rio Linda, that is 500 million years...).
This is a theory that agrees with Genesis ( if you view it from the perspective of an observer standing on the Earth, or where it would eventually be .... ), all the Fossil HARD EVIDENCE that exists by the hundreds of thousands of metric tons,  Geology, Physics, and all the sciences that we know ABSOLUTELY to be unarguably true. (If you are sane ...).
Get your calculator, some paper to make sketches on and take notes and re-read Genesis using a creative day being 500,000,000 years, and see how that solves MANY theological quandarys.
.... it even solves the "problem" of who Cain married in the land of exile. ( Although he was the son of "Homo Theocraticus" humans directly created by God, the "Homo Sapians" people who had evolved before that were living all over the Earth by this time ... ).
However, unfortunately for professional theologians of all ilk, It DOES NOT generate an artificial sense of urgency, or scare you out of your wallets.
 

This is weird. And it helps me to understand the sensitivity (approaching bitterness) some obviously have on this matter.
For me, the idea that fireworks would start in 1975 was great news, for about 18 months, between 1972 and early 1974.
I came into the truth literally from the street. All I had,  I carried. Everything in life was a bonus from that day on, so as I didn't have anything to give up or cut back on at the time,  it was all good to me.
I can remember the sarcastic comment one of my worldly friends made in 1973 when I mentioned the closelness of the end. He said "When I see you on the street in 1976, I will be laughing like a drain!" My response at the time was a lame  "Well, at least we'll both still be here!"
I must admit I felt awkward when I did see him from a bus window after 1975. He fulfilled his promise as he caught sight of me. By then I had improved my understanding of matters as previously discussed. So I didn't get "off the bus" figuratively speaking, like the many Koreans cited in the '88 yearbook account. I was just glad that abandoning date-oriented thinking occurred early on in my development as a Christian, particularly prior to '75, as the non-event served as a vindication rather than an embarrassment or disappointment. Actually, I wonder how many of those who did get off the bus at the wrong stop managed to get on again as the years passed? It would be interesting to see a contribution here from someone who did that.
But "Society" bashing over dates seems Quixotic to me. The "Society" is just an instrument people use to get a job done in today's world.
The people are the problem, with their quaint mix of attitudes. Who cares really if the people behind the "Society" got something wrong about dates, 43 years ago? "They" certainly don't really, do they? "They" have moved on, and so have many others. And who really cares if some of the written accounts have been subjected to some selective editing? I have my personal experience to balance the exaggeration on both sides. Quite frankly, if you weren't there, why care? There is no doubt that Jehovah will bring an end to this system, and every day that passes in the current one is a day nearer it's (or my) end. As Paul said:
"Do not owe anything to anyone except to love one another;...................do this because you know the season, that it is already the hour for you to awake from sleep, for now our salvation is nearer than at the time when we became believers." Rom. 13.8;11.

I was only pithy because I thpilled the urine thample.

(Speaking about the resurrection after 1925)
the writer suggests the following in TWTP pg 228 on how to recruit decorators to redecorate the homes that would now be available.)

“You will have secured the services of the best decorators you can find. Some of them used to be undertakers; but since there are no more people dying, they have to seek some new occupation. Their experience as undertakers prepared them to become decorators with very little difficulty.”

Soon enough .... perhaps TOO soon, we will ... each and every one of us ... will know for sure.
In the meantime, my major concern is to have common sense, a correct view of reality the way it REALLY is, and to stay sane when it seems all around me, people are going bat crap crazy, interpreting invisible things with absolutely no REAL evidence of any kind.
What that means is ... I am going to do the best I can ... and ignore all the prognostications.
In the history of civilization .... no one ... no one at all ... has so far gotten it right.
I hope it will be good enough .... but if it is not, perhaps I will die ..... but at least I will be sane.

.
..... I dunno, but I remember when the ex-JW Janet Jackson, sister of Michael Jackson,  had that "wardrobe malfunction" during a half-time performance at the Superbowl years ago, I was so horrified that I can no longer drink chocolate milk !
 

True, but they were not even candid about this until 1988. The "candid" letter of 1977 never even mentioned "some Bible teachers."
It was quite similar to the counsel the previous year:
*** w76 7/15 p. 440 A Solid Basis for Confidence ***
BE CAREFUL TO KEEP A BALANCED VIEW 10 Jehovah’s word or message is true when it speaks about our entering into God’s rest now and remaining in it through the “great tribulation,” after which Christ’s thousand-year reign will transform the earth into a paradise garden. God’s word is indeed ‘sharp like a two-edged sword.’ It will show what we really are, revealing what our thoughts and the intentions of our heart are. Are we serving Jehovah God because we love him, trust him and have full confidence in what he says? Or are we ‘becoming weary in well-doing,’ looking for a certain date primarily as bringing a relief to ourselves, with little concern for the lives of other people? (Gal. 6:9) Are we appreciative of all the good things we have had from Jehovah and from association with his people? Have not the things we have learned helped us in our family lives? Do we not love the many genuine friends we have now gained as a result of knowing the truth?—Mark 10:29, 30. 11 It may be that some who have been serving God have planned their lives according to a mistaken view of just what was to happen on a certain date or in a certain year. They may have, for this reason, put off or neglected things that they otherwise would have cared for. But they have missed the point of the Bible’s warnings concerning the end of this system of things, thinking that Bible chronology reveals the specific date. 12 What do Jesus’ own words show concerning the proper attitude as to the end—to look for a date, or what? He said: “Pay attention to yourselves that your hearts never become weighed down with overeating and heavy drinking and anxieties of life, and suddenly that day be instantly upon you as a snare. For it will come in upon all those dwelling upon the face of all the earth. Keep awake, then, all the time making supplication that you may succeed in escaping all these things that are destined to occur, and in standing before the Son of man.”—Luke 21:34-36. 13 Did Jesus mean that we should adjust our financial and secular affairs so that our resources would just carry us to a certain date that we might think marks the end? If our house is suffering serious deterioration, should we let it go, on the assumption that we would need it only a few months longer? Or, if someone in the family possibly needs special medical care, should we say, ‘Well, we’ll put it off because the time is so near for this system of things to go’? This is not the kind of thinking that Jesus advised. It was blamed on the selfishness of brothers looking for their own relief, some who had a mistaken view, but these "some" people obviously missed the point of the Bible's warnings due to their own "thinking" that Bible chronology reveals the specific date.
This is why I brought up the question of "honesty" in the title of another 1975 topic. Because the Society was willing to conceal their own responsibility for several years, evidently to avoid embarrassment, many brothers were very quick to follow their lead and also avoid embarrassment, claiming that they were never fooled into such wrong thinking. I noticed that by 1977, even brothers who cashed in insurance policies, put off dental work, went into debt, and even some who sold their houses in 1973 through 1975 quickly claimed that they never bought into all that talk about 1975. Within a few short years after 1980, I heard brothers begin claiming that there never was a 1975 problem except for just a few disgruntled brothers and ex-brothers who had been serving Jehovah with a date in mind. Even now, I have very close Witness relatives in responsible positions who lived through it but now believe that the Society "never really said anything about 1975," and that it was started by some of the brothers on their own.
 

I would, but Jubilee math gets so complicated, as the Insight book shows:
*** it-1 p. 1200 Inheritance ***
The sale of land was, in effect, only the leasing of it for the value of crops it would produce, the purchase price being on a graduated scale according to the number of years until the next Jubilee, at which time all land possession would revert to the original owner if it had not been repurchased or redeemed prior to the Jubilee. I heard that @James Thomas Rook Jr. has a graduated scale that he might loan me, but I think he said it's for measuring urine samples.
 
 

A 1988 Yearbook example from one representative country explains it pretty well:
*** yb88 pp. 189-191 ***
All seemed well in the spring of 1975. The Bethel family moved into their spacious new facilities, and Brother Lloyd Barry visited . . .  to give the dedication talk. The 1975 service year ended with an outstanding field report—including 8,120 baptized that year. Thus, in just three years’ time 19,600 were baptized. Well over half of the . . .  Witnesses had been in the truth for less than three years. However, the first few months of the 1976 service year began with a marked decrease in publishers and home Bible studies. This downward trend was to continue for over three years, bottoming out in a 26-percent decrease in publishers, from 32,693 in August 1975 to 24,285 in November 1978. Memorial attendance dropped too, from over 68,000 in 1975 to 49,545 in 1978 [27 percent drop]. The brothers at the branch were perplexed. Would the trend be reversed? Of course, neither they nor the Society were just letting it slide by. The Society’s letter of April 4, 1977, stated:    "We hope the brothers are careful in their teaching. Evidently some were very strong on the 1975 date, and so a good foundation was not laid. The foundation, of course, should be faith in Christ Jesus and the ransom sacrifice, and the dedication should be with understanding.” A very candid observation indeed! Too much emphasis was placed on a date by some Bible teachers. Many newly baptized ones took up the truth on a wave of emotion. Even some elders had their hopes pinned to 1975. . . . The effect: apathy among the brothers. THE ROAD BACK, LONG BUT CERTAIN More than 24,000 Witnesses, solid in the faith, were not shaken by any date. Still, the road back to a new peak of publishers was to take eight long years and was not reached until August 1983. Very "candidly," the Society was still blaming the problem on "some Bible teachers." And the fact that newly baptized ones had taken up "the truth" based on a wave of emotion over a current falsehood. And the fact that even some elders had their hopes pinned to 1975. But if you look carefully, none of that was said in the 1977 letter, which only blamed it on the fact that "some were very strong on the 1975 date." Even the historical rewrite of this letter appearing in the 1988 Yearbook never blames it on the source, just some Bible teachers, some newly baptized ones, and some elders.

Fred Franz was called the "Oracle" even while I was there at Bethel, although it was with the utmost respect until about 1978 when I first heard it used sarcastically. His very odd demeanor, and his own sarcastic and pontificating haughty manner, made him considered to be the channel of all "new truths" at the time. Knorr deferred to him to write his speeches. No "deep" book on prophecy could be written by anyone else even long after the failure of 1975 was obvious. No one would write on any prophetic subject (OT prophecy or Revelation) of any length without using Franz' previous writing as a basis. No one has really tried to replace "Revelation  - Its Grand Climax at Hand" yet, and it's going on 30 years since he died.
I worked directly with (for) Brother Schroeder when he as good as admitted that he wanted to be the next Fred Franz, assuming Fred Franz did not outlive him. Of course, that meant removing Raymond Franz who was the obvious but unassuming heir apparent. He privately expressed jealousy that Raymond Franz had worked on the Aid book. Schroeder tried his hand at coming up with "new truths" when he went abroad, especially his yearly trips to Europe. He came up with several ideas that would have been considered apostasy if promoted by anyone else, and nearly got in big trouble himself. He looked for areas where he could make his mark that he was "like" Fred Franz.
I don't know him, but I think there is talk that Brother Splane should now be seen as the primary one who needs to approve prophetic explanations. But fortunately it does not seem like he is involved exclusively as Fred Franz was. The committee is much safer.

I have known several people disfellowshipped and reinstated multiple times.
Forget about them for just two minutes .... what is the effect on US who deal with it?
There is another word that we do not use to describe this cruel, brutal shunning practice by:
1.) Loving our Family unconditionally,  (assuming they are in fact lovable...) if they are approved by the Congregation Elders;
2.) Abhor them and treat them like they were dead if they are NOT approved by the Congregation Elders;
3.) Loving our Family unconditionally, if they are approved by the Congregation Elders;
4.) Abhor them and treat them like they were dead if they are NOT approved by the Congregation Elders;
5.) Loving our Family unconditionally,  if they are approved by the Congregation Elders;
6.) Abhor them and treat them like they were dead if they are NOT approved by the Congregation Elders;
etc., etc. etc.
Being able to flip your emotions completely on and off ... on and off ... on and off like a light switch ... which is what we have been trained year after year to do .... through shunning ...
..... is INSANE!
I firmly believe THIS is what the Bible says when it uses the phrase "... the love of the greater number will cool off".  It does NOT pertain to worldly people.
It applies to US.
 
 
 

I have known several people disfellowshipped and reinstated multiple times.
Forget about them for just two minutes .... what is the effect on US who deal with it?
There is another word that we do not use to describe this cruel, brutal shunning practice by:
1.) Loving our Family unconditionally,  (assuming they are in fact lovable...) if they are approved by the Congregation Elders;
2.) Abhor them and treat them like they were dead if they are NOT approved by the Congregation Elders;
3.) Loving our Family unconditionally, if they are approved by the Congregation Elders;
4.) Abhor them and treat them like they were dead if they are NOT approved by the Congregation Elders;
5.) Loving our Family unconditionally,  if they are approved by the Congregation Elders;
6.) Abhor them and treat them like they were dead if they are NOT approved by the Congregation Elders;
etc., etc. etc.
Being able to flip your emotions completely on and off ... on and off ... on and off like a light switch ... which is what we have been trained year after year to do .... through shunning ...
..... is INSANE!
I firmly believe THIS is what the Bible says when it uses the phrase "... the love of the greater number will cool off".  It does NOT pertain to worldly people.
It applies to US.
 
 
 

I have known several people disfellowshipped and reinstated multiple times.
Forget about them for just two minutes .... what is the effect on US who deal with it?
There is another word that we do not use to describe this cruel, brutal shunning practice by:
1.) Loving our Family unconditionally,  (assuming they are in fact lovable...) if they are approved by the Congregation Elders;
2.) Abhor them and treat them like they were dead if they are NOT approved by the Congregation Elders;
3.) Loving our Family unconditionally, if they are approved by the Congregation Elders;
4.) Abhor them and treat them like they were dead if they are NOT approved by the Congregation Elders;
5.) Loving our Family unconditionally,  if they are approved by the Congregation Elders;
6.) Abhor them and treat them like they were dead if they are NOT approved by the Congregation Elders;
etc., etc. etc.
Being able to flip your emotions completely on and off ... on and off ... on and off like a light switch ... which is what we have been trained year after year to do .... through shunning ...
..... is INSANE!
I firmly believe THIS is what the Bible says when it uses the phrase "... the love of the greater number will cool off".  It does NOT pertain to worldly people.
It applies to US.
 
 
 

Don't mind the upvote.
I was very keen for the end to come in 1975 after learning the truth in 1971. My first shepherding call was from a brother who explained at length why he had cancelled all his insurances.
But this view only lasted for a few months because, (as I've previously stated), I was put wise by a very influential and respected brother who said he was not part of the 1975 club, as no man could possibly know the day or hour. Because this individual had made quite an impression on me in many other spiritual matters, I felt his reasoning to be pretty sound at the time, because I could never get my head around the date oriented mentality. It always made me feel uneasy, like something that you thought you ought to believe because of the sparkly eyed assertions,  but that just didn't have any substance. Now of course, I know better.
But there was no shortage of those who wanted to believe it although the platform promotion was consderably less intense where I was than in the USA. I can understand the "once bitten, twice shy" view of some skeptical ones today. And it's the same with the nodding, knowing heads today. They still make me feel uneasy. I just find the whole topic embarrassing. The best advice I ever got on this whole area was something an old missionary brother used he say to me in his heavy Scottish  accent "Your Armageddon came the day you dedicated your life to Jehovah, laddie. You can't take it back you know." or something like that.
Scripturally, 2Tim.4:2 seems most relevant here regardless of which area of the ministry it applies to: "preach the word, be at it urgently in favorable season, in troublesome season" and also Gal.6:10: "Really, then, as long as we have time favorable for it, let us work what is good toward all,"