Thanks Blondie for that exposition. I really liked the quotes you included after paragraph 1 establishing how the JW's loyalty is mainly (and blindly) to the WTS organization.

The Watchtower's tack in recent years has been trying to set up a mythic battle between Jehovah and apostates. (They used to concentrate on the invisible spiritual battle between Jehovah and Satan!!)

The fear of evil "apostates" is built up to a ridiculous level. I thought it was Satan the Devil making life so hard for JW's. No -- it's apostates and their reasonings. This article didn't associate bad ol' King Jeroboam with Satan the Devil, no -- he's equated to modern- day apostates!

In this whole lesson, I didn't see any example of how things turned out well for the Israelites who stayed close to Jehovah. I saw no proof that "loyalty" brought them rich blessings. I guess serving Jehovah is supposed to be a reward by itself. My guess is that the average Israelite was just trying to get along in their life and didn't care much who the national God was.