Jehovah's Witnesses—Proclaimers of God's Kingdom, “Chapter 10, Growing in Accurate Knowledge of the Truth”
“Similarly, they also first thought that global troubles culminating in anarchy (which they understood would be associated with the war of 'the great day of God the Almighty') would precede that date. (Rev. 16:14) But then, ten years before 1914, the Watch Tower suggested that worldwide turmoil that would result in the annihilating of human institutions would come right after the end of the Gentile Times.”
The organisation's own history records that the Bible Students at first expected the trouble to precede 1914 and that in 1904 The Watch Tower moved the expected culmination to after October 1914; the same paragraph says they had also thought 'that by that date the Kingdom of God would have obtained full, universal control'.
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Provenance and verification note for Jehovah's Witnesses—Proclaimers of God's Kingdom, Chapter 10, Growing in Accurate Knowledge of the Truth
Confidence note. Opened on the Watchtower Online Library on 19 September 2026; wording confirmed and page taken from the page marker (135).
Corroborated by. src-jv-1993-00-p133-1874
Notes. Added after the adversarial review noted that the site quoted the first half of this passage without the 1904 revision.
Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID. src-jv-1993-00-p135-1904-revision