TrueTomHarley

Well, I don’t think he must, either. 
All he has to do is show up at this point. He can do it in his sleep. Will his practical opportunities to serve God increase if he retires.? If you think so, tell me how.
Does he have a big ego? He might. But I see no reason to be dogmatic about it, any more than to insist that any of our frequent public speakers must have one.

At Prince’s funeral, one of the congregation’s pioneers told reporters, (I included the quote in the Prince chapter of Tom Irregardless & Me) “I was just standing there and all of a sudden, in he walks. I thought, ‘He just wants to be treated like an average person,’ so I just kind of acknowledged him, and he came in and sat down.” She added: “I think he wanted to be private and my observation is: he had to have his creative outlet. Maybe he just needed it to survive.” 
People do what they need to survive. I’m not sure that he’s not ‘putting Jehovah first.’ Sometimes I fear we expound too much energy trying to pound square pegs into round holes.

This is a variation of an old joke, but “….you know what you call a musician without a paying gig?”.
”…. homeless.”
Not everybody has the same talents and motivations.
Not everybody can live under a rock, endure exposure to the elements, wear rags, and eat locusts.
I do not admire him either.
In fact I don’t think about him at all.

It is a coalition of nations who come up against the Nation of Jehovah in the time of the end... as Ezekiel 38 so well describes.  People of all nations have been collected together in true worship to Jehovah but Gog of Magog devises an evil plan because it looks as if these people have no protection.  When this coalition of nations come up against Jehovah's people, Jehovah will step in to protect a great crowd  ho will survive Armageddon.
Like you, I have also looked at the names of Togarma, Tubal and Ross (Rus), Persia (Iran) and many of these countries who are (at present) part of the coalition of the King of the North (all with totalitarian regimes). 
We do not know who will further join the king of the North (India? some of those in africa and south america?) but we know that North Korea, China, Iran, Saudi Arabia are part of this new financial coalition...     We also know who are supporting the king of the South.  It is as if the entire world is now choosing sides. 
Russia has already started its march towards Jehovah's people on its own (as a single country), but soon there will be a whole coalition of nations together with it who want to take the spiritual spoil - take away all this pure worship. Will Russia and its allies lead this onslaught? - it seems like it .... but it is not a definite outcome.  We know that the UN (the image of the best or scarlet colored beast) will turn against ALL religion and then later, together with king of the North, UNITED against the people of Jehovah as Satan goes forth to finally attack pure worship.  Satan knows it is his deathblow to turn against Jehovah's people but he will be drawn out like a captive animal in iron hooks ........by Jehovah as the nations fulfill Jehovah's prophetic word.
I do detect that you divide the families of Noah into 3 distinct groups.  This is rather a simplistic view of what happened. While some of the nations can be tracked to the children of Noah and their offspring (many nations have a clear pathway from the children of Noah), one must still be careful to lump them together so simplistically. For 4 thousand years nations were taking slaves, going to war, displacing whole nations and murdering whole villages of peoples.  Some nations were assimilated by others. .... And while the language groups sometimes helps us to detect the origin of a nation (indo-european, sino group, kushites,  etc, a nation usually comprises many gene pools that were mingled - depending on who they fought in wars and how stable the geopolitical area was.  

I am sure there is a correct answer, but does it really matter? What I have been trying to convey with my quasi-satirical comments is that in my opinion it doesn’t really matter, and when you try to conflate several things that won’t fit, and can’t fit, wanting to make them fit, and seeing that they might fit, and then it would be fitting if they did fit or they fit or not, it’s enough to give you a fit.
….. meanwhile, it’s all a distraction to keep one from and the important things like  justice and truth and righteousness, and fairness and equity in the brotherhood…… And making sure that orphans and the disadvantaged have food in the refrigerator and clothes on their backs,And have sound guidance and a warm place to sleep.
I know too well how easy it is to get distracted by irrelevant things, and lose sight of important things. Been there, done that.

God goes for that method too as many scriptures attest.
You object to rules that decree participants should avoid bitter backbiting but should instead show reasonable respect for one another? Fine. Plainly, you belong here.

Okay, so now we have Pudgy integrated into the closed forum and hopefully it will stick. Now let’s extend that invitation to @WalterPrescott, which is trickier. It’s trickier because he is so combative, to the point where I and others have wondered if he can possibly be a brother. But I’ve now come around to thinking he is, even if a contankerous one, so he should not be abandoned to where the spiritual rebels are. He should ‘come home.’
Of course, there must be some caveats. Some have noted that in private he is gracious, not argumentative as he is in public. He would have to be equally civil were he to join the closed club. He would have to ‘let Anna be Anna, Arauana be Arauana, JWI be JWI, xero be xero, thinking be thinking, and MOST of all, TTH be TTH. The latter does not have to be kissed up to, though that is of course preferred. 
So Walter has this gig going that no one can quite figure out. He may prefer to stay here combatting the riffraff. Or he may figure that the ‘loyal’ Witnesses are also riffraff and wish to rebuke them for any wordage that does not appear word-for-word in Watchtower publications. If so, please do not accept the closed forum’s invitation. But you are our brother and so it is appropriate to make it, so as not to abandon you to where the miscreants hang out, unless you wish to remain there or somehow perceive it as your calling to fight with them.

and play whak-a-mole, I’m afraid.

and play whak-a-mole, I’m afraid.

Agreed. We must be careful that we do not fall into the trap of Numerology. 

The Genesis account of the creation of the Earth is not taken from a viewpoint in outer space, the entire account is taken from the viewpoint of a person standing on the ground looking at events.
 
What he sees from the ground is what is recorded.

Go to Genesis again and re-read it keeping that idea in perspective firmly in mind, and it makes a lot more sense with what we know happened from solid evidence.

I agree, generally. You can't know for sure that it was exactly 40, since the Bible doesn't tell us. It could have been just those 4.5 hrs (Fri) + 24 hrs (Sat) + 0.5 hrs on Sunday, or as many as 11 hours on Sunday. That leaves a range of 29 hours up to a maximum of 39.5. So I agree that 40 might be the maximum, outside possibility that the synoptics would allow for. And that's where I got the "1.64 days" [max] altogether, similar to your number, less than two days.
You apparently stake quite a lot on the idea that Jesus was dead for exactly 40 hours even though the Bible gives us a range that apparently runs from about 29 hours minimum to 39.5 hours, maximum. I would agree that 40 is an outside possibility, but my point was trying to show that we can't be exact where the Bible is not exact.
And yet, you go so far as to imply that all can be lost, like Satan, if one doesn't accept the meaning of "40" and the fact of Jesus being dead for exactly 40 hours.
More speculation on your part. How do you know that Satan thought a day to Jehovah was 24 hours. Satan seems to be taking advantage of the idea that he knew it would not be within 24 hours that Adam would die. Besides, the Watchtower once taught that a "day" with Jehovah could have been 42,000 years long, since Genesis 2:4 refers to all 6 creative days as a single day, and we used to teach that each creative day must have been 7,000 years long (6x7,000=42,000).
*** it-1 p. 594 Day ***
The entire period of the six time units or creative “days” dedicated to the preparation of planet Earth is summed up in one all-embracing “day” at Genesis 2:4:
(Genesis 2:4) This is a history of the heavens and the earth in the time they were created, in the day that Jehovah God made earth and heaven.
So, for all you know, Satan thought that a day to Jehovah was 42,000 years long, or at least 7,000! Where would Satan have gotten the idea that a day to Jehovah is only 1,000 years, or as you say, only 24 hours??
Somehow, you don't make it sound like your "ministry" is based on faith in God and love of God and neighbor. By going through the machinations to calculate the number of hours Jesus might have been dead, I was hoping you would catch on that this is all just pure speculation and has nothing to do with the Christian objective:
(1 Timothy 1:4-7) . . .Such things end up in nothing useful but merely give rise to speculations rather than providing anything from God in connection with faith. 5 Really, the objective of this instruction is love out of a clean heart and out of a good conscience and out of faith without hypocrisy. 6 By deviating from these things, some have been turned aside to meaningless talk. 7 They want to be teachers of law, but they do not understand either the things they are saying or the things they insist on so strongly.

Here’s a fine gem from this 3-day-old report about the ECHR decision—declaring the 2017 ban on God’s people in Russia illegal, and its underlying premise of “extremism” absurd  (The decision was not unanimous. One judge voted against. Which one? Of course—the Russian one.):
“Even accepting that the texts [used to prove that they were “extremists”] promoted the idea that the religion of Jehovah’s Witnesses was superior to others or that it was better to be a Jehovah’s Witness than a member of another Christian denomination, it is significant that the texts did not insult, hold up to ridicule or slander non-Witnesses; nor did they use abusive terms in respect of them or of matters regarded as sacred by them.”
https://bitterwinter.org/russia-persecution-of-jehovahs-witnesses-unlawful/
A fine example of imitation. Sigh…for me as well. I have had to add a few to the block list. I’m too easily drawn in when certain ones say outrageous, misrepresented, and sometimes just plain stupid, things. It’s my bad. I should have better self-control.

Good boy.

Here’s a fine gem from this 3-day-old report about the ECHR decision—declaring the 2017 ban on God’s people in Russia illegal, and its underlying premise of “extremism” absurd  (The decision was not unanimous. One judge voted against. Which one? Of course—the Russian one.):
“Even accepting that the texts [used to prove that they were “extremists”] promoted the idea that the religion of Jehovah’s Witnesses was superior to others or that it was better to be a Jehovah’s Witness than a member of another Christian denomination, it is significant that the texts did not insult, hold up to ridicule or slander non-Witnesses; nor did they use abusive terms in respect of them or of matters regarded as sacred by them.”
https://bitterwinter.org/russia-persecution-of-jehovahs-witnesses-unlawful/
A fine example of imitation. Sigh…for me as well. I have had to add a few to the block list. I’m too easily drawn in when certain ones say outrageous, misrepresented, and sometimes just plain stupid, things. It’s my bad. I should have better self-control.

Here’s a fine gem from this 3-day-old report about the ECHR decision—declaring the 2017 ban on God’s people in Russia illegal, and its underlying premise of “extremism” absurd  (The decision was not unanimous. One judge voted against. Which one? Of course—the Russian one.):
“Even accepting that the texts [used to prove that they were “extremists”] promoted the idea that the religion of Jehovah’s Witnesses was superior to others or that it was better to be a Jehovah’s Witness than a member of another Christian denomination, it is significant that the texts did not insult, hold up to ridicule or slander non-Witnesses; nor did they use abusive terms in respect of them or of matters regarded as sacred by them.”
https://bitterwinter.org/russia-persecution-of-jehovahs-witnesses-unlawful/
A fine example of imitation. Sigh…for me as well. I have had to add a few to the block list. I’m too easily drawn in when certain ones say outrageous, misrepresented, and sometimes just plain stupid, things. It’s my bad. I should have better self-control.

Here’s a fine gem from this 3-day-old report about the ECHR decision—declaring the 2017 ban on God’s people in Russia illegal, and its underlying premise of “extremism” absurd  (The decision was not unanimous. One judge voted against. Which one? Of course—the Russian one.):
“Even accepting that the texts [used to prove that they were “extremists”] promoted the idea that the religion of Jehovah’s Witnesses was superior to others or that it was better to be a Jehovah’s Witness than a member of another Christian denomination, it is significant that the texts did not insult, hold up to ridicule or slander non-Witnesses; nor did they use abusive terms in respect of them or of matters regarded as sacred by them.”
https://bitterwinter.org/russia-persecution-of-jehovahs-witnesses-unlawful/
A fine example of imitation. Sigh…for me as well. I have had to add a few to the block list. I’m too easily drawn in when certain ones say outrageous, misrepresented, and sometimes just plain stupid, things. It’s my bad. I should have better self-control.

Lending a scriptural passage alluded to above by Arauna.
2 Samuel 24:10-14
10  But David’s heart* was struck with remorse+ after he had numbered the people. David then said to Jehovah: “I have sinned+ greatly by doing this. And now, Jehovah, please forgive your servant’s error,+ for I have acted very foolishly.”+ 11  When David got up in the morning, Jehovah’s word came to Gad+ the prophet, David’s visionary, saying: 12  “Go and say to David, ‘This is what Jehovah says: “I am giving you three options. Choose the one that I should bring on you.”’”+ 13  So Gad came in to David and told him: “Should seven years of famine come on your land?+ Or should you flee for three months from your adversaries while they pursue you?+ Or should there be three days of pestilence in your land?+ Now consider carefully what I should reply to the One who sent me.” 14  So David said to Gad: “It is very distressing to me. Let us fall, please, into the hand of Jehovah,+ for his mercy is great;+ but do not let me fall into the hand of man.”+15  Then Jehovah sent a pestilence+ on Israel from the morning until the designated time, so that 70,000 of the people from Dan to Beʹer-sheʹba+ died.+ 16  When the angel stretched out his hand toward Jerusalem to destroy it, Jehovah felt regret* over the calamity,+ and he said to the angel bringing destruction among the people: “It is enough! Now let your hand drop.” Jehovah’s angel was close to the threshing floor of A·rauʹnah+ the Jebʹu·site."
Read on, to verse 24, it is interesting.
This discussion has gone way too far over the brink. Hope the scriptural passage can redeem and refresh in some way.

Good boy.

You know, this is helpful. It really is. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve grabbed a jar on the store shelf hastily only to be disappointed back home because what I really wanted was another derivative of the stuff.

Yeah, I’m just kidding Peter, playing around with the silly software here that ranks people solely by how long they’ve been around. Had Walter kept the same moniker he would by now be ranked ubergenius.
Of course you are right in what you point out.

You know, this is helpful. It really is. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve grabbed a jar on the store shelf hastily only to be disappointed back home because what I really wanted was another derivative of the stuff.

Yeah, I’m just kidding Peter, playing around with the silly software here that ranks people solely by how long they’ve been around. Had Walter kept the same moniker he would by now be ranked ubergenius.
Of course you are right in what you point out.

Yeah, I’m just kidding Peter, playing around with the silly software here that ranks people solely by how long they’ve been around. Had Walter kept the same moniker he would by now be ranked ubergenius.
Of course you are right in what you point out.

Two more promotions, and I can be a Nemesis!