Luke 21:8
Luke 21:88Jesus answered, “See to it that you are not deceived. For many will come in My name, claiming, ‘I am He,’ and, ‘The time is near.’ Do not follow them.
The Watchtower acknowledges this verse but neutralises it by claiming Jesus was warning against false messiahs — not against organisations that announce "the due time is near." JWs are taught that the Watchtower's date-based urgency (1914, 1925, 1975, "this generation will not pass away") is legitimate because it comes through Jehovah's appointed channel, not from false claimants. The verse is effectively quarantined: its warning is applied outward to Christendom and rival movements, never reflexively to the Watchtower's own repeated proclamations that "the time is very near now."
Jesus issues a double warning: beware of those who come claiming messianic authority ("I am he") and those who declare "the due time is near." The second clause targets date-setting and eschatological urgency-mongering — precisely the Watchtower's stock-in-trade. The command "do not go after them" is categorical. The Watchtower has declared the due time near for over a century: 1914 was to bring Armageddon, 1925 would see the resurrection of the patriarchs, 1975 was linked to the end of 6,000 years of human history, and "this generation" has been redefined multiple times to keep the urgency alive. Jesus did not say "be cautious about date-setters unless they happen to be right." He said "do not go after them" — full stop. In the Olivet Discourse context ( parallel), Jesus also says "the end is not yet" and "see that you are not alarmed" by wars, famines, and earthquakes — the very events the Watchtower calls the "composite sign" of 1914. is the exegetical key that turns the Watchtower's own eschatology back on itself.