Understanding and Debating Jehovah Witnesses with Nathan Fisher & Daniel Mynyk

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00:21

Can you show me, because we're going to use some hermeneutics, can you show me anywhere in the Old Testament where that word perpetual is not perpetual?

00:29

Because, again, I understand you're appealing, again, sure, and you're talking about God's laws, where any of God's laws have, now, wait a minute,

00:36

I thought, I was going to get to have a talk here. You asked a question. Hang on a second, sir, be quiet now, hang on a second. Well, there you go.

00:42

I will mute you because it's not your show. You asked a question. I'm going to give you the answer. Genesis 6 -4, the word olam is used, referring to those who are of old.

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Deuteronomy, I'll just rattle off all the ones where it's used, not referring to perpetual. Genesis 6 -4,

01:02

Deuteronomy 32 -7, Joshua 24 -2, 1 Samuel 27 -8,

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Job 22 -15, Psalm 24 -7, 24 -9, 25 -6, 41 -13, 77 -9, 90 -2, 103 -17, 106 -48, 119 -52, 143 -3,

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Proverbs 8 -23, Proverbs 22 -28, Proverbs 23 -10, and Ecclesiastes 1 -10.

01:37

Should I go on for more? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. This is

01:44

Apologetics Live. To answer your questions, your host from Striving for Eternity Ministries, Andrew Rappaport.

01:57

All right, welcome to Apologetics Live. Maybe, maybe I was trying to kill a dead horse there.

02:03

I don't know. I ran out of verses to give that guy. Welcome to another

02:09

Apologetics Live. That was that beginning clip. We was from, I forget how long ago that show was on, but this is

02:17

Apologetics Live. We come in and we can ask any questions you have. We're going to do open Q &A, usually second half of the hour.

02:23

The topic tonight will be Jehovah Witnesses, what they believe, and how to witness to them.

02:31

I've got some special guests in with us on that. If you have any questions, just go to ApologeticsLive .com,

02:38

Thursday nights, 8 -10 Eastern Time. Suggest you get in early if you have questions, because a lot of people like to come in at the end, and then there's no time for their questions.

02:48

Come in early, you'll be able to ask first. Any questions that you have, Apologetics, even if it's a challenge, that's fine.

02:57

We are here to answer those questions. This is a show that is sponsored or supported by Striving for Eternity Ministries, so go to Strivingforeternity .org

03:07

and check out all the resources that we have out there. It is also a podcast that can be heard on the

03:13

Christian Podcast Community. With that, I'm going to actually have one of our podcasters here as a guest.

03:20

Uh -oh, I see Melody is in the house, which means we're probably, if she comes in, we might get the, you guys may, our guests may get the question.

03:30

Those that know, you know, the Duns may know the question that they like to ask our guests, and we'll see if they know the answer.

03:38

All right, so we'll see the advantage is they probably don't even know what the question is, so it's great, Melody. You got to, you're going to have to come in now.

03:48

So, what we want to do is talk about Jehovah Witnesses. One of the things

03:53

I want to let you guys know is many people are familiar with Jehovah Witnesses. They know some of what they teach.

04:01

They come to your door. They usually knock at inopportune times, and a lot of people try to avoid them, and the thing is that understanding what they believe has always been a very helpful thing.

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However, they've changed their ways. They are no longer looking to engage with people, and so if you show that you have a little bit of knowledge, they run faster than you trying to get rid of them.

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So, it is actually, if you know some things about them, they usually do not want to engage with you.

04:41

So, full belly bear, I'll put his thing up. Full belly bear, every time

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I go to read that, I chuckle, but his comment is, I don't even know why this is a topic.

04:56

Some Jew already has written a great book on Jehovah Witnesses. It has everything.

05:02

Well, I got news for you. You're going to be surprised, full belly bear, because let me first,

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I'm first going to bring in Daniel Minnick. Daniel is one of the podcasters on the

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Christian Podcast Community. Why don't you introduce yourself, your podcast, and a little bit about what you do, and why we brought you on, because you're writing a book on it, so that's why.

05:24

My name is Daniel Minnick. I am the host of the Truthspresso podcast, and as Andrew has mentioned on other programs, it sounds like I need a lot of coffee or espresso with my truth, but the idea is to basically focus on truth, wherever it may be found, from a

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Christian perspective, and I like to deal with topics that are often not addressed, but still from a

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Christian perspective. We like to get deep into theology, understanding who

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God is, who Jesus Christ is, the attributes of God, atonement, but also even recently

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I've been getting into topics of economics, especially during this era of the coronavirus.

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I think it's important for people, especially Christians, to be able to have a

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God -centered worldview and not trust the state, but I'm also in the process of writing a book that is kind of long overdue from my perspective, because I've been kind of slacking a little bit on getting it published, but it is tentatively titled

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Watchtower Watchers. It's actually a book that I co -authored with my brother, and my brother

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John, he's basically the hero of the plot of the book, and the book is actually a conversation between my brother

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John and Jehovah's Witnesses from what he could recall from his three -hour conversation, and he was equipped a little bit for that conversation, with some of the information and resources that I directed to him, and then the book is kind of a transcript of a conversation, an interview that I had with him about his conversation with Jehovah's Witnesses, so we actually get to see a look into a conversation with Jehovah's Witnesses and a

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Christian, and then basically John and I also converse from that interview to provide some more commentary on that.

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And that was a neat book, because it was more of a casual conversational style.

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Now Melissa's asking, is he standing up and using a mic? Yes, I am standing up.

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All right, let me also bring in Nathan. All right, before you introduce yourself,

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Nathan, I just got to point out to everybody, can you just shift to your left a little, the other left?

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Okay, you see that all those volumes of book, those two bookcases, the entire right side of that, that is by far the best

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Jehovah's Witness library I have ever seen in my life. So thank you for letting me show off your bookcase.

08:29

I have empty books, I feel so sad. My books are practicing social distancing.

08:34

No, Nathan, you and I, and for the record, Nathan knew exactly how to get me to come over to visit with him.

08:44

I was not too far, how far is Pastor Ray from you? Three minutes?

08:50

Pastor Ray is probably about five or 10 minutes away, yeah. Okay, even less. So he's like five or 10 minutes away, and I get a text from Nathan just saying, hey,

09:01

I see that you're over at Pastor Ray's. If you want to come over, my wife will make homemade sushi.

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He knew exactly, exactly how to get me over there, and dude, she made more sushi.

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It was you and I, our wives, and then you ended up having like three friends come over, and there was still sushi left.

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It was a lot. I tried, I really did try. But one of the things that Pastor Ray had told me,

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Ray Rhodes, who wrote the book, Susanna, he told me ahead of time, he's like, you got to see his library on Jehovah's Witnesses.

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So I was like all excited. So when you brought me up to see it, I was like, oh good, I get to see it. Okay, nerdy,

09:45

I know. But could you introduce yourself, a little bit of your background so people understand why do you have the library you have?

09:54

Yeah, so my name is Nathan Fisher, and I'm a third generation Jehovah's Witness. I had left the cult probably about,

10:01

I think it's been 20 years or more, 21 years. And my dad,

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I grew up as an elder son, and he was the main elder or is still the main elder in the congregation that he is in within the

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Jehovah's Witness organization. He was a Bethelite, which is another term that they use.

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It's their headquarters where they do all of their printing work and training of the Jehovah's Witnesses for about four or five years.

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I think he served up in Brooklyn, New York in the 60s,

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I believe. Then he met my mom. So I grew up in a pretty strict Jehovah's Witness family being trained to be the best

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Jehovah's Witness I could be. So I started collecting these books probably about three years ago when

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I came to Christ and decided to use them for apologetics purposes, research purposes, things like that.

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All right. And we have a question that came in already. Can you tell me what it is that they

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Christian or what's their, I guess, belief? And I guess

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I should. So I put up full belly bears comment, but I do have a book that's, let's see, right there on the screen.

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What do they believe? That's a good book to get. It'll go over Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormons, Muslims, Jewish people,

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Catholicism, Christianity, explain what they believe. So there's also there's some heretic in the room.

11:35

Look at this. Let's bring let's bring this character in. Oh, it's it's Dr. Silvestro.

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I'm surprised you have time from your busy video taking. He was just doing a video live and he actually said he would be here.

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And I was like, if you got he did a video about the government and protesting. And I don't know if you guys got a chance to see it was about an hour long and about 20 minutes into it.

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He said, I'll only be one more minute. That's what it's like preaching with Dr. Silvestro.

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He's his view of one minute is just a little bit off. So he did say, you know, he was going to wrap up in another minute, about four or five times in the video.

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So I really didn't believe he was going to be here. I told you I was not going to to overrun your time here tonight.

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So I got done at like seven fifty nine and I don't know, 40 seconds or something. So enough time to advertise for you.

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And we got Justin Pierce saying, yep, saw him ranting. All right.

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So Anthony and I have have done a couple of different things when it comes to witnessing to Jehovah's Witnesses.

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It used to be that you could get into good conversations wherever you find them. And I have an opening line that I start with.

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I usually will ask them why Jesus Christ had to be God. And anyone who understands them and I'll get

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Nathan to give a little bit more of the background of them. That's something they don't believe in. They don't believe Jesus was God. So their immediate thing is like, but wait, we don't believe he is

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God. And I'll always be like, I know, but why did he have to be God? And they don't have an answer to that.

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So that actually is my way of, because usually if you see them on the street, I'm not going to get a lot of time to talk.

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So I want to go right for the most important thing and get them to realize they don't have an answer so that I can give the answer.

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So when they tell me they don't believe he was God, they don't understand. Then I explain that if Jesus Christ was not

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God, then he cannot pay the sins of other people. And if he doesn't pay the sins of other people, then we're all dead in our sins and his death was meaningless.

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And so I go right for the issue of his deity and salvation. Now, Anthony, you started doing something when you get into conversations with them as a very good primer to get started.

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You ask a different question about the time. Yeah. So I do this with Jehovah's Witnesses and with Mormons.

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And so I'll ask them, do you believe that the entire Bible is true?

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And they'll say yes. I'll ask them, do you believe God is immutable?

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He's unchanging. They'll say yes. And then I'll ask them one more thing about how much time do you have to talk?

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And so I get him nailed down for whatever amount of time it is.

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And then when I go into my line of questioning, and usually about four to five minutes in, they start saying, well, you know, we're about out of time right now or whatever it is.

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And I say, well, wait a minute. You just told me five minutes ago. So it's an interesting way to trap them.

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And then I'm able to say, look, it's obvious you guys don't have the truth. You guys don't have the answers.

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Because if you did, you'd be able to stand on the truth. Ever since you said that to me, and it is just great because I have noticed that they'll be like, oh, we have about an hour.

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And they're like four or five minutes in, they want to go. And it's like, but you said you had an hour. Like, what changed?

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So Nathan, you're probably the most, the best expert on this panel right now.

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A hundred of witnesses. I don't think any of us, myself included, have studied it to the depth that you have.

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I mean, I spent many years studying, but nowhere near. Definitely don't have the library.

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I mean, if you come in one day and see your library missing and my shelves filled, you know where they went.

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So could you bring people up to speed on what it is Jehovah witnesses believe? Sure. So we'll start with the deity of Christ.

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Jehovah's witnesses actually are what is considered, you know, theist. So they believe that Jehovah God is the almighty

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God. And that Jesus Christ is a little God with a little

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G. And they render it that way in their actual Bible in John 1 .1.

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They say, in the beginning was the word and the word became flesh and, or the word was with God and the word was a

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God. And that's how they've rendered it since their very first translation. So what they actually believe is that Jehovah God created

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Jesus first as his only direct creation. And through Jesus, Jehovah God created the rest of everything else.

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And they've changed their Bible in a few places to kind of accommodate that. It's really nothing more than an

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Arian heresy, you know, kind of redone.

16:57

Well, back up, back up. You're going to have to explain Arian heresy. Not everyone has studied church history like you, my friend.

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So Arianism teaches that there was a time, Arius taught there was a time that the son did not exist, that the son was not.

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And so it's basically a denial of the eternality and deity of Christ.

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And it was fought in the, in church history. And the council of Nicaea in 327

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AD was decided that, you know, that Jesus was

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God. Well, we kind of knew all along from scripture.

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Yeah, yeah, yeah. But they were having a, basically they were having a church debate or dispute.

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More, I think what it was with that, just to tie into it, the politics of it, right?

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Arianist was, you had different emperors. Arius was kind of favored by an emperor, and that's why he had a voice.

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And then the council got together and said, nope, heretic, throw him out of the land. And it really is.

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They deny that Jesus is God, but there's some more things, you know, go into more of the specifics of some of the things they have.

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And there was a question earlier of, are they Christian? They'll say they are, but where would they differ from what we would hold to?

18:37

Yeah, so they use very similar Christian language. And that's what a lot of the cults do.

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They'll use very similar Christian language to us. They are a works -based religion, which basically means that they believe that they can earn their salvation.

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They do not believe in the five solas, such as the one being faith alone, through Christ alone.

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They believe that they can earn Jehovah's favor. And their whole structure is set up in such a way to help them to earn

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Jehovah's favor. But unfortunately, they are serving an organization secretly behind the scenes.

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That's what it's all set up for, is to serve an organization. So everything they do is in service and dedication to a man -made organization.

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So they believe that Jesus died for their sin, but they believe that there is more that is needed.

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They believe that he died as a ransom or in place of them, but that they have to, and they use

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James chapter two, which a lot of the cults do, they have to, you know, faith without works is dead.

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So they believe that their works are earning favor with Jehovah. If you were to talk with my mom right now and ask her if she's done enough to get into the paradise earth, which is what they believe that they're going to inherit after the end of the world, she would say, well,

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I certainly hope so. Which is a very sad position to be in because it is very much a treadmill of works for them to be on.

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And those works include going out in the field ministry, which is the door to door preaching. They're required to log a minimum of 10 hours a month.

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Sometimes, you know, people will volunteer to do 40 hours a week and they'll become full -time pioneers is what they call it.

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And they'll go out in the preaching work for up to 40 hours a week. Um, uh, so there is, uh, there's just a, you know, this whole structure set up.

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They give their money to the cult. Um, they, uh, a lot of times if a family member such as me, that's been disfellowshipped and disowned by my parents, they would, um, sell the property if they die or if they're about to die and leave it, uh, in the will to, to the

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Jehovah's witness organization instead of to me. Now, I'm not saying that's going to happen with my family. I don't know, but I've heard of those type of stories happening where someone has been cut out of the family and they just sell off the property and give the proceeds, uh, to, to the organization.

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Um, so there's, you know, there's just a lot of stuff that they're following that is, that is not, uh, not necessary for salvation because we know that salvation comes through what

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Christ did on the cross, uh, where he took the punishment for our sins on our behalf.

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He, uh, bore the wrath of God. And, uh, because of that, um, we can be forgiven if we repent and put all our faith in him.

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That's not a message that they believe in. Yeah. And some of the questions that came in, uh, there was a question of, do they believe in hell?

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No, they believe in annihilationism. Um, so they, they don't believe in it.

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It's one of the key things they're going to focus on. There was a, let me see if I can find the comment from full belly bear had some great.

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Oh yeah. Here we go. Full belly bear said, Anthony is always on time. His that is, but, but he, he did pick up.

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He says, Anthony takes dress to match to another level. The mic cover matches his shirt.

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Okay. So yeah, he, he does dress. He is more like a girl in that way.

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He he's got a match. All right. So, um, there, though there was, there was a question here as far as, um, that, uh, just pastor

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Justin had asked about, uh, he had said, this is, is there belief that God grants grace after all they could do?

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And that's actually Mormonism that would teach that. That's the, the, uh, second Nephi.

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Oh, I'm going from memory. I think it's 25, I think. Yeah. What is it,

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Daniel? What'd you say? I think it's a 25, 23. Yeah. Something like that. Yeah. I forgot.

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Um, so that's, that's what he was quoting, but that's, that's actually a Mormonism. And so, uh, so Scott Moses asked this question and I'll, uh, you know, throw it out to either of you guys.

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He said, as, as you were explaining things, Nathan, he says, that sounds like cat. That sounds Catholic.

23:35

How is it different from Catholic? Yeah. So Catholics have sacraments and, um, various other, uh, things that they do.

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Um, the Jehovah's witnesses, um, I mean, it's really not a whole lot of difference other than just the traditions that they follow.

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Because if you think about it, uh, the Catholic, uh, church is a workspace religion that puts you immediately on a treadmill of works from the minute that you accept the sacrament of baptism, you have to maintain, uh, the grace that was infused to you at the acceptance of that sacrament.

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And in order to maintain that you go through, uh, this treadmill of works where you, you basically commit, uh, you know, do the sacraments and the penances and, and keep, keep, uh, keep from doing, uh, uh, venial sins and mortal sins.

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When you do venial sins, you go to a priest and confess when you commit a mortal sin, then you pay your sacraments and your penances.

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So, um, you know, that's all in their tradition in the Jehovah's witness tradition.

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Um, you know, those types of things would be going out in the field ministry, uh, attending regular meetings.

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Uh, they actually watch the attendance of the baptized, um, people in, in the organization and, uh, judge based off of the attendance, whether or not that person is strong in the

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Jehovah's witness faith or becoming weak. Um, if there's any kind of sins, you go to the elders and you confess based on the sins and their judgment of how much repentance they deem that you have had, they may or may not continue with further disciplinary actions.

25:16

Um, and, and so, yeah, so it's, it's, it's got some similarities between the two, especially based that it's a, that's workspace religion.

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Now, Daniel, now, do you get the answer to the question? You asked me why we were bringing him in, you know, he kind of makes you and I look like we don't know what we're talking about with Jehovah's witnesses, huh?

25:37

Yeah. And I apologize earlier. I was a little nervous when we got into the church history. I hadn't been on a video in a while for this stuff.

25:44

He kind of, he kind of knows a little bit more of than you, you, the three of us do. Um, now

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Daniel, you, you have, since you're working on this book on, on witnessing to Jehovah's witnesses, um, which is really,

26:00

I think how you and I first met, you sent me your, your, the book to, you know, to review. Um, I think it's probably still on my list.

26:08

I'm sorry. I got through a couple of chapters. Anthony, I'll tell you, um, um,

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I, I have this long list of books. I actually, I don't know if you could see it. There's a pile of books right there.

26:21

Those are books that people have sent me asking for endorsements. So, um, but when witnessing to Jehovah's witnesses, what, what do you think is effective ways to, to reach, you know, to try to get them into conversation?

26:38

Um, at least, um, personally, I think it's to let the Jehovah's witness talk, demonstrate that you're interested in what they have to say, because that's why they're there.

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They, they have their, uh, kind of scripted things that they want to talk about. And so if you're, you're ready to talk to them, you might first want to let them say something because then they might be willing to listen to what you have to say in return.

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And of course, you know, if you're prepared to deal with their, uh, basically their main doctrines of the deity of Christ, and, um, they have some other pet issues that they might try to introduce, such as the instrument of Jesus's execution, that it was, um, not a cross.

27:26

It didn't have a cross beam. It was just an upright pole. You know, some various other things like that, the resurrection of Jesus being another one, but, you know, first, you know, be courteous, of course, don't want, don't slam the door in their face, you know, act interested in some ways, like don't be deceptive, but like maybe start off just showing that you're interested.

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Don't just immediately tell them, um, you know, I'm, I've studied you a lot, get ready, you know, like, you know, ask, you know, maybe ask them some prodding questions like, you know, show, you know, that's interesting.

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I want to hear what you have to say. And so after they say it, then you can ask them questions in return that would be, you know, challenging questions based on their beliefs.

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And, uh, if I remember, uh, James White, Dr. James White, we might all be familiar with him, he gave the suggestion that, you know, you avoid using terms that the

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Jehovah's Witnesses might suspect that you are a disfellowshipped member, which is someone who is basically excommunicated from their organization, the

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Watchtower, so be careful how you use, like, some of the terms, but you could start with saying, can

28:50

I, um, can I just summarize basically what

28:55

I think you believe? And so they might even be flattered a little bit, so they'll say, sure.

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And so you could give your best shot to explain what you think they believe and ask them if they agree, if that's what they, if that's a good estimate or good summary, so they might even be impressed with that.

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And then, you know, so that you've expressed interest in their beliefs and then that can start a conversation.

29:24

Well, I think that that's actually really important because you want to show that you're not misrepresenting them.

29:33

I don't know about you guys. When I talk to someone, whether it be a Muslim, a

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Mormon, Jehovah's Witness, someone that doesn't agree with us, and they turn and tell me, well, you don't, you believe in three gods.

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I mean, at that point, I'm pretty much like, okay, like, I have zero respect for anything you're going to say about what

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I believe now, right? You've just, you've just kind of nixed that because you've just displayed that you don't understand what

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I actually believe. And so taking the time to understand, asking questions is a great thing.

30:07

That's what I train people to do because you can actually control a whole conversation with questions and you can direct where it goes and you get to play dumb.

30:16

Now, I understand the three of you, okay, maybe Anthony can play dumb, but the two of you, it won't come naturally.

30:24

It comes naturally. I could play dumb well. Anthony, well, maybe he just is,

30:29

I don't know. I mean, you know, he is wearing a red shirt with a red, you know, cover to his microphone, you know, good point there.

30:42

But yeah, so Brian asks this question. I think,

30:47

Nathan, you kind of answered this a little bit, but if Jehovah God, Jesus a

30:53

God and Michael, who's the Holy Spirit? Now, I don't know if you got to this, but either

31:00

Daniel, Nathan, when it comes to Jehovah Witnesses, and I think you addressed

31:07

Nathan, that they believe that God created Michael, the archangel, Michael created everything else, and then

31:14

Michael became Jesus, returns to being an angel. So the question, I guess, is who's the

31:20

Holy Spirit? Yeah, so I didn't get to that. Their theology is very broad, so it's going to take a lot of time to get to some of the various points.

31:31

But if we read out of their New World Translation, Genesis chapter one, verse one and two, it says, in the beginning,

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God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and desolate, and there was a darkness upon the surface of the watery deep, and God's active force was moving about over the surface of the waters.

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So what they actually believe is that the Holy Spirit is not a person. It's not the third person of the

31:57

Trinity. It is God's active force. So it's kind of like the

32:06

Jedi. It is kind of like the Jedi, absolutely. You should be proud.

32:12

I actually got a reference to pop culture, but I understand Star Wars. So I still can't figure out the difference between Star Wars and Star Trek.

32:20

So, you know. Oh, just that was painful. All right.

32:26

So Angie says this, and it's back to what you said, Daniel.

32:31

Question them, nothing but questions, because they believe you're not qualified to read the Bible. They love their

32:38

Watchtower magazines. And this is something you're going to see. One of the reasons I say they're a cult is one of the definitions of a cult is you'll see in my book what they believe.

32:50

I define a cult. And one of the ways the first is going to be that there's an authoritarianism, meaning that you have some person or organization that sets themselves up as the only group or person that can rightly interpret the

33:07

Bible. What that does is set them up as the authority. Now, here's the thing. Whether it's the Catholic Church that says they're, you know, the magisterium or equal in authority to the

33:17

Bible, the Watchtower, which is going to interpret the Bible for you. Once you set up a group that is the authority and only person or group that can interpret

33:30

Scripture. By the way, that's what Andrew does every time he walks into a room. He sets himself up as the only one that can interpret.

33:40

I haven't named Angie's cult yet, but. Oh, see, see, full belly bear says you've lost it.

33:54

See, I'm liking him more and more. All right. But but no, it is it's it's the thing.

34:01

Once you have someone that that the Watchtower says they're the only ones who can interpret

34:06

Scripture. Well, when you when that happens, what automatically happens with that. Is that they are now above the

34:15

Scripture. So the Roman Catholic Church, they set themselves above the Scripture because you can't understand a Scripture without the

34:21

Church. Same with the Watchtower. Same with the, you know, in the in Mormonism, with the living prophet, you have that with all of them.

34:30

And so I saw some other questions spin by. So let me back up.

34:36

Oh, here's a nice one from full belly bear. Anthony, can you read this one? I think that there's a typo.

34:44

I think there's a couple of typos in there, because what it says is Andrew is known for fully understanding and not misrepresenting people.

34:52

It was hard for him to say, you know, but, you know, actually,

35:00

I do have a couple of questions, though, for for you guys that that's so some finer points here.

35:08

Hold on. Hold on. For your benefit. I just saw this one. Scott Moses says,

35:13

Andrew, your shirt matches your mic, too. Stop picking on Anthony. But mine is black.

35:19

You see, that's the normal cover, the color for these covers. See, Anthony went out and specifically got red so he could be different.

35:27

So, you know, I was trying to match up to the striving for eternity logo, which has red in it.

35:33

There is no black in it. No, that was a good tape. Thanks.

35:39

Quick on my feet. OK, so, guys, I do have a couple of questions. Number one is what is there anything else significant about the history of Jehovah's Witnesses?

35:52

Because they it seems like in historical sources that Jehovah's Witnesses are related to the

35:59

Millerites. All right. So the Millerites that broke apart and you had the Adventist group come off of it.

36:04

You had some other groups. Apparently, what the Branch Davidians was that Waco, Texas.

36:10

Those guys. They came off of they claim they go back to the

36:16

Millerites as well. And then you have Jehovah's Witnesses who Charles Taze Russell, from what

36:22

I understand, he was a wealthy individual. He worked for an Adventist newspaper. And then

36:27

I don't know how he got wealthy. So I'm curious about that. And then number two, in terms of him starting the

36:32

Watchtower, like, can you fill in any of these gaps for maybe some listeners who who know some of the history?

36:38

Because I find it fascinating to understand where they came from. So that's my first question. I got one more after that. OK, I address that one.

36:48

OK, so, yeah, ultimately, Jehovah's Witnesses would be traced way back to the

36:55

Millerite movement, as you mentioned, in the mid 1800s.

37:01

That started with Baptist minister William Miller. And he started this process rolling of various interpretations of especially

37:12

Daniel chapter eight or 10, where William Miller interpreted

37:21

Daniel 813. And he used the day year principle to turn the 2300 days that were mentioned there to calendar years.

37:32

So, in other words, there would be 2300 years before God would or Christ, God would cleanse the sanctuary.

37:43

And so he tried to calculate that the 2300 years started in 457

37:50

BC with the first decree of Artaxerxes I to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem.

37:57

So calculating that out 2300 years later, calendar years, the sanctuary would be cleansed and he understood the sanctuary being cleansed, not as the sanctuary in the temple, but as the sanctuary of the earth being cleansed at the second coming.

38:18

And originally he calculated this out to 1843.

38:23

So he realized this was coming up pretty soon, but various calculations, looking at Jewish calendars, he kind of fudged it and adjusted it over time to October 22nd, 1844.

38:39

And so when that happened, the great disappointment is what it's called when thousands of Millerites gathered to be raptured up from the earth.

38:51

And so what happens when some failed prophecy of the end of the world doesn't come to pass?

38:58

Well, you have lots of people who abandoned that original faith. There were some who tried to figure maybe there were different dates.

39:07

Maybe we missed the calculation and others were more like, well, no, the calculation had to be correct.

39:14

So maybe we misinterpreted what the event was. And so some spiritualized the day.

39:20

And so those who eventually determined that that date was not when

39:28

Jesus would come to cleanse the sanctuary on earth, but that Jesus entered some sanctuary in heaven to start cleansing it by introducing, by beginning what's called investigative judgment to see who was faithful to the law.

39:47

And particularly following the seventh day Sabbath, these are the seventh day of Venice that we know today.

39:55

So they evolved out of that idea of that prophecy. And then various other splinter groups differed on various issues as time went on and the prophecy kind of became less and less significant.

40:10

The basically the Millerite was a very eclectic group from, you know,

40:17

Presbyterians, Baptists, and even like, you know, different Aryans and so on joined under that one idea of packing your bags for Jesus was coming.

40:28

And so eventually over time, they started to get to focus more on other issues and divide over issues such as baptism or the identity of who

40:39

Jesus Christ is. Aryanism and Sasanianism became more pronounced. They started differing on various aspects of eschatology.

40:48

And of course, you had the seventh day Adventists and then the Sunday Adventists.

40:54

And eventually things went down to 1914. And I'm sure

40:59

Nathan might be able to address that a little bit more, but then you get into the late 1800s with different Adventists and Charles Taze Russell.

41:11

I have some notes for that, but maybe Nathan would like to talk about that.

41:20

Yeah. So Charles Taze Russell was the founder of the Jehovah's Witnesses.

41:26

He started a movement after the Millerite movement kind of imploded with the failed prophecies and the great disappointment that was just being described by Daniel.

41:37

And he started a small group called, I believe, the Bible Students.

41:43

Let's see here. Trying to read back through my notes. He was actually raised a Presbyterian, which

41:50

I find kind of interesting. Well, there goes, you know, that's... I could think of more

41:57

Baptist now. Now we know the problem. So Colleen Sharp would say, see, that was his problem.

42:05

He left the Presbyterian Church. That's exactly what she would say. He became a Congregationalist then.

42:12

We're really just giving him time to look up the reference. Well, actually, he grew up in a

42:17

Baptist church, then became a Presbyterian, right? Yeah, I believe so. So he was confused once and he got confused more.

42:30

Thank you for that background, Daniel, on all of this. It's very helpful. There were some other questions that I had seen in here that I wanted to try to get.

42:42

Now, Danny, I'm going to miss this. Did you grow up Jehovah's Witness as well? Nope. Never been associated with a watchtower.

42:49

Okay. He's writing a book on a conversation that his brother...

42:56

He's writing a book of a conversation with his brother and a Jehovah Witness. A very conversational way, which...

43:02

Anthony, let me bring you into this while I look for some of the questions that we had earlier.

43:08

But you and I go out on the streets quite a bit. We have seen,

43:13

I think, in the last few years, really ever since they came out with their new website, is when

43:18

I started noticing a change in the way they interact with people. It used to be that they would answer questions and I would tell people, and I'll just say, a good book, if you want to understand and be able to talk with Jehovah Witnesses is go on eBay or wherever and try to find

43:37

Reasoning the Scriptures. It's really their answer to Christianity.

43:43

And so when you have that book, it's kind of like going into a final exam, having the answers to the test.

43:51

You know what is going to be their reaction to everything you say.

43:57

So when you bring up a passage, you know what it's going to be. So when I started talking with Jehovah Witnesses, I would read through that book and I would avoid everything that was in there.

44:06

And I'd bring up things that weren't in their little handbook because now they didn't know the answer.

44:12

They couldn't just regurgitate some. But Anthony, you and I go on the streets quite a bit. We've noticed this change.

44:18

What have you noticed when witnessing to Jehovah Witnesses nowadays? Are they willing to engage with you or not?

44:26

Well, let me say this first about the book. I have several copies of it that I've picked up at garage sales and thrift stores and whatnot.

44:34

And the funniest thing is, I know you know this, Andrew. I had a chance to witness to a

44:40

Jehovah's Witness on an airplane sitting right next to him. And I was from here out to Boise. And I had.

44:46

You're saying he had nowhere to go. He couldn't. He had nowhere to go. He was sitting next to me. He was away from the clock the entire time.

44:51

It was his fault. He asked me what I'm flying out for. And I talked to him about how I'm going out to visit

44:56

Mike Riddle and put together some stuff that we want to do teaching in churches. And he goes, oh, man, I teach in a church too.

45:03

Oh, really? What do you teach? And then the Jehovah's Witness stuff came out. But as we were going back and forth, he literally opened up his iPad and he brought up his reasoning book.

45:15

And all he did was every time something was brought up, he quickly looked it up and then gave all these references.

45:21

It was great for me to watch him, to watch him do this, because they take a lot of those passages out of context.

45:28

And I was able to walk through these things with him a lot. But it was really funny to watch him actually do that.

45:33

Usually they try to hide the iPad from you, especially the novices. But so in terms of what we notice on the streets, this is interesting.

45:45

If you're just preaching on a corner and Jehovah's Witnesses are on the other corner, there are some times

45:50

I won't go right up to him. I'll wait and I'll do my own thing somewhere else, especially if I have a group with me that I'm leading in evangelism.

45:58

So we'll do our evangelism and you'll watch people go to Jehovah's Witness stand. And some people will be standing there for 25, 30 minutes.

46:05

It's incredible. And so you're like, they had a great conversation. These might actually be

46:11

Jehovah's Witnesses that are willing to talk. And then I mosey on over there eventually and five minutes and they're done.

46:17

And what I've come to find out, because now I've actually gone to stands and listened for a little bit before I butt in.

46:23

Jehovah's Witnesses don't want to talk to anybody who they believe is a

46:29

Christian and understands the Bible. They will talk to really anybody else. And I will tell you who their favorite targets are.

46:35

Their favorite targets are either false converts, people who proclaim Christ, really don't know much about the

46:42

Bible. And then they get love -bombed by Jehovah's Witnesses who can walk with these scriptures.

46:47

They seem really nice, right? You know, even just explain love -bombing, explain what that is as well.

46:54

Okay. So love -bombing is something that's used by, especially the New Apostolic Reformation Movement, Bethel Reading, IHOP.

47:03

And what they do is they just, they come to people and they just shower them with love, shower them with compliments, shower them with Jesus loves you and he has a better plan for you.

47:12

And they do these things and they try to catch people in, I don't want to say off -guard, but catch them in a mood where, you know, life isn't going perfect for them.

47:23

And Jehovah's Witnesses, the same way the NAR does, tries to come around you and offer you solutions.

47:30

And really every religion does that, although all the false ones do it in a false manner versus what we do.

47:37

But so that's the type of love -bombing that they can do. It's not as outright as what the NAR will do.

47:44

But, you know, one story that I don't think I've ever shared live, but I've told a number of people, and this is really interesting.

47:52

There's a couple of years ago, I was at a pizza shop with one of my good friends, actually a guy who discipled me early on in my walk.

48:00

We were there together with a few other guys from our old church and we were talking, we were watching the draft.

48:07

It's the Browns when they drafted Baker Mayfields, it's what, two years ago now. And so we're sitting there and watching this.

48:15

And a couple of tables away, because there was one TV, we're kind of all huddled around in this restaurant.

48:21

And a couple of tables away, there were some guys pretty close to us. They had, the guy had a shirt and tie on, woman had a dress on,

48:28

I didn't think anything of it. And we were talking, eventually we got talking about Christianity and it turned out that one of the guys that was a good friend of my friend who discipled me, he didn't seem to have a really good

48:40

Christian worldview. And so I was really pressing him on some questions and walking through scriptures with him.

48:46

And I'm talking about how, if you don't know your stuff better, you don't really sound any different than a

48:52

Jehovah's Witness or Mormon. I mean, I'm going into this stuff and I'm literally walking through the different cults that are out there, how he doesn't sound any different than really any of these

49:00

Christian cults. And the people that were at this table, just a few tables away from us, were listening to every word we were saying.

49:08

So I gave the gospel multiple times and whatnot. So when we all decided to leave and we all get up from the table, the one guy who was in a shirt and tie walks over and says, hey, sir,

49:19

I've got some stuff for you in my trunk, if it would be helpful to you. I did not think anything of it.

49:26

And I left. Next thing I know, I get a call from my buddy just a few minutes later and said, Anthony, you'll never know what just happened.

49:33

I go, what? He goes, you know that guy that was sitting there in the shirt and tie that came over to, and I'm not going to say his name, he brought him out to his trunk and he gave him a bunch of Jehovah's Witness material.

49:45

And so, of course, I literally flipped around in the middle of the street and drove straight back out of the pizza shop. And unfortunately, they were gone by then.

49:52

But this was one story that is reminiscent of a number of stories

49:58

I hear out there that Jehovah's Witnesses look for what are called low hanging fruit. People that have enough knowledge about the

50:05

Bible to be dangerous and Jehovah's Witness can come in and fill in the missing pieces with their heresies.

50:12

So that's what they look for. So when you go up to Jehovah's Witness stand and you start talking to them, they're literally feeling you out.

50:20

And the moment they sense you are going towards Christ and his deity, they stop.

50:28

They literally stop dead in their tracks. It'll be from going in a nice conversation, back and forth, very friendly to all of a sudden, we're done here.

50:41

And that's it. It's incredible. And when they do that, a lot of times they'll turn their heads from you if you keep on talking.

50:47

And the next thing you know, even though I've already established how much time they have, you will see that the next two are walking up and saying, hey guys, it's time for your break.

50:58

We're going to take over. And the thing I've learned about these Jehovah's Witness stands is there's always somebody, some watcher that is somewhere in the background.

51:06

And I saw this at the Super Bowl outreach in Minneapolis where they had multiple stands being managed by one guy who's literally watching all the stands.

51:14

And he was switching people among the stands whenever we stood there and talked for too long. So, I mean, it's incredible what they have in place.

51:20

And I say all this, and maybe you guys can answer, you know, about what techniques they use in terms of when a biblical

51:29

Christian actually comes up and talks to them, all the checkpoints they have in place to kind of get out of those conversations.

51:40

Yeah. So what you were saying is actually, is correct. But when I was growing up, we actually used to debate people.

51:47

My dad got into various conversations at people's houses and tried to reason with them from his view of the scriptures.

51:58

And he was not ashamed or embarrassed to do that. Of course, at some point he would break it off if he saw that he wasn't making any ground.

52:07

But they changed their stance back in 2000 when the internet kind of started to become more popular and more information was being put out by them.

52:19

And they published in the, I believe it's January 15th, I'm reading here, a keep on the watch for the end of the world.

52:27

They said that we see the global preaching work being accomplished, which

52:32

Jesus said would take place just before the end of the system. And then at the end, they gave what

52:39

I like to call kind of a soft nudge to their members that says, nevertheless, the

52:44

Bible does not state that Jehovah will wait until every individual on earth has received a personal witness.

52:49

Rather, the good news must be preached to Jehovah's satisfaction, and then the end will come. So they started permeating this idea that the preaching work was winding down.

52:59

And then from then on, they started to tell their members only pick people that are willing to listen.

53:08

Here's another article that I pulled up that says, why don't Jehovah's Witnesses respond to all accusations made against them?

53:16

And they say, well, Jesus didn't respond to the ridicule that he was receiving.

53:22

He made no answer to Pontius Pilate when he was falsely accused. He didn't respond to those who called him a drunkard or a glutton.

53:30

Instead, he let his actions speak for themselves in harmony with the principle, wisdom is vindicated by its results.

53:36

This is straight from a Watchtower article. Then they give some examples of the Apostle Paul and the Apostle Peter.

53:43

So what they've done is they've used this opportunity as kind of a way to keep their members uninformed on things such as the child molestation scandal, which would be things that people would question them on and other various argumentation that someone would use against them.

54:05

And it kind of locks in their members to where they're not exposed to things that the organization can no longer control them being exposed to.

54:18

Now, one of the things, let me ask you, Nathan, your witnesses don't serve in military or police, correct?

54:27

Correct. Okay. What is their view as far as that goes?

54:33

They consider themselves conscientious bystanders. They respect the government, but they quote the scriptures that Jesus says, you know, my kingdom is not part of this world.

54:46

And basically don't get involved in any type of political service. They don't vote.

54:52

They don't hold any political opinions. They are not allowed to go into the military.

55:02

In fact, if you were to go into the military or even marry someone that's in the military, maybe that's not a believer and live on a military base, you could be disfellowshipped and kicked out of the organization.

55:17

And they don't typically allow people to serve in law enforcement. Now, would they reach out to,

55:23

I mean, would they call law enforcement? Oh, yeah, sure. As far as like if someone's breaking into their house.

55:29

Yeah, absolutely. What if they just don't like what someone's doing? Because here's what we saw happen.

55:36

Anthony and I were out in California and Anthony was on the street evangelizing.

55:43

He was just doing some open air, which is really funny. He had a small amplifier and this guy came.

55:51

If you're Anthony's laughing, he knows exactly what I'm going to refer to. This guy came on a bike and like a megaphone and he was louder than Anthony.

56:00

And they're on different corners. So Anthony's on one corner. This guy's on the other corner.

56:05

And they're the guys heckling Anthony from across the street and going back and forth.

56:12

And on the other corner, the third corner is a Jehovah's Witness stand. And they were there.

56:20

And so I walked up and I went to the first two people that were there. And I said, do you know why

56:27

Jesus Christ had to be God? They said they don't believe that he is. I started explaining why he had to be the guy like Anthony said, the guy that was behind.

56:35

He walked up, had the two people go back, brought two other people up. I asked them the same question.

56:43

I'm a little bit persistent. He then pulled them back. And then he and another person came up.

56:50

And I asked them the same question. And he's like, we're not here to talk to you. I said, well, what are you doing out here?

56:55

We're here to answer questions. I said, but I'm asking questions. And he goes, we're not talking to you.

57:05

I said, why not? Is it that I understand what you believe? And I understand the Bible and the differences there.

57:12

He's like, you can't talk to us. And so me and the person I was talking to, we stepped away from right in front of their booth.

57:20

So now picture the scene. Anthony's on one corner. He's shouting answers to a heckler that's on another corner.

57:27

I'm now on a third corner. And what I'm doing is I'm raising my voice to answer questions to my friend about what

57:34

Jehovah Witnesses believe. So we literally have three of the four corners that we're all doing open air.

57:40

There's someone raising their voice at all three. These guys called the police on me. And the officer came over and said that I was harassing.

57:50

I said, what was I doing that was harassing? And I said, what's their purpose in being here?

57:57

They have a permit for what purpose? And he said, well, to answer questions. I said, all I was doing was asking questions. I said, how is that harassing?

58:04

He's like, you can't be here. I said, sir, at this point, I'm like, I'm probably like 10 feet from them, 15 feet from them.

58:12

So I'm not even like where they're and he ends up like real.

58:17

I said, I'm nowhere near them. There's no law that I'm breaking standing here. And so he goes back over to talk to them, then comes back because he wants me to go away.

58:27

And I said, sir, you know, unless I'm breaking a law, you need to allow me to stand here.

58:34

So he was really frustrated because they wanted him to do something. And I was like, I'm like, so when he finally did leave,

58:40

I walked over and I said, I thought you guys are conscientious objectors. I didn't know you'd call the police.

58:48

So they were they were less than happy. Now, the funny thing was next year that Anthony and I were there, they were there.

58:55

So we were able to do that again, though. Anthony didn't have his heckler. He didn't have the heckler the next year.

59:01

Um, let's see. Full belly bear had some stuff. Full belly bear.

59:08

Anthony had said being stuck with Anthony. Oh, he might be a Jehovah's Witness, but man, do

59:13

I feel bad for the guy. Now, he went after everyone here because he says Andrew does a thing called ridicule bombing.

59:20

That's actually kind of true. No one's going to disagree with that, actually.

59:28

Oh, I like this one. He said he said Anthony just said he made an illegal U -turn.

59:33

Arrest him. He was he was busting even on Scott Moses.

59:39

Where was that one? He had. Oh, oh, here we go. He said Scott. Scott thinks he's cool because he has two first names like Ricky Bobby.

59:49

And then he told me that you're laughing, Nathan. You probably get it. He goes, that's a that's a pop culture reference, by the way,

59:55

Andrew. Yeah, I don't get it. So Nathan, who's Ricky Bobby? I didn't get that. You don't know Ricky Bobby.

01:00:01

Yeah. Anthony, he doesn't know how pop culture illiterate I am. Will Ferrell movie.

01:00:10

About NASCAR. Yeah. We're going to have to educate you on that one.

01:00:19

Well, so I got another question for you guys. You know, I know eventually I want to get into.

01:00:24

I would love for us to get into some some verses that you guys would use to going up as witnesses.

01:00:30

But one question before that would be, is it is it true? Because it sure seems this way.

01:00:37

Is it true that Joe's witnesses are told not to look into their history of the

01:00:42

Watchtower? And so can you can you explain a little bit of that to to all of us?

01:00:51

Sure, that that's absolutely true. In fact, these publications back here, my dad may still have copies of these.

01:00:59

But most of the time, the Jehovah's Witnesses are asked when publications are reprinted and or kind of discontinued or out of date to turn them into the local

01:01:12

Kingdom Hall. And they are sent to the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society for destruction. I can actually show you.

01:01:20

Well, it wouldn't be good for screen, but I can show you a couple books where they predicted the 1975 prophecy of end of the world coming in 1975.

01:01:31

They self predicted that in their book when it didn't occur after people had sold their belongings, donated it to the

01:01:38

Watchtower, not went to college, not had children, not got married, went into full time preaching work, peddling their books.

01:01:47

They came out with a new update of that book where they reprinted it and they took the quote out.

01:01:53

And so they are definitely discouraged not to look into their history. They are told that there are a lot of lies being spread by apostates and the devil and that if they look into that, they may get misled and abandon the faith.

01:02:08

So most do not look and are not willing to look. So they are told that they'll be misled by their own history.

01:02:16

They did this and I didn't know. By the apostate history. But the apostate history, and this is something

01:02:23

I didn't know. I knew that they update stuff. I mean, I have old copies of even the

01:02:30

New World Translation because it's important to have some of the older copies because when you get to Colossians 1, 15 to 18, they add the word other when it says

01:02:44

Christ created all things four times. They add the word all other things because they think he's a created being.

01:02:51

And so early on, they didn't have brackets around it. The brackets reveal that it is added.

01:02:58

It wasn't in the Greek. And so they wouldn't have the brackets around it. Then they basically got shamed into adding the brackets.

01:03:05

And in the most recent update that they've done, those brackets are gone again. And so I like to bring that out to show that they know it's not in the

01:03:15

Greek and it shows the deception that they're doing on their own people with that.

01:03:21

But I didn't know they ask people to turn in the old copies of the watchtower, the awake and those things.

01:03:30

That's interesting. Another Andrew, another example of changes in the

01:03:36

New World Translation is that in Hebrews one, six, where it says, and let all the angels of God worship him.

01:03:48

The 1970 New World Translation actually still said worship, but later versions change that to do obeisance because they wanted to make sure that they weren't instructing their members to worship

01:04:04

Jesus, the son. Hmm.

01:04:11

That's interesting. Nathan, I see you got, you grabbed something. So what do you got for us? Yeah, I was just grabbing the 1980 something

01:04:17

New World Translation. So the story that I heard and I may be wrong is, is that Manti and Dr.

01:04:25

Walter Martin had given them a lot of problems over putting the word other in Colossians one.

01:04:32

And, and there, Dr. Manti was a Greek scholar, famous Greek scholar.

01:04:38

And Dr. Walter Martin, of course, we all know was the author of the kingdom of the cults, but basically did most of his ministry in the cults and minister into cults and taught other people how to do it.

01:04:54

But yeah, they, I think that they under pressure, if I remember the story correctly, put the brackets in Colossians one in the 1980s.

01:05:05

And then after, what's that? I think it was 79 when they put it in and they took it out.

01:05:12

I think, I forget when the latest translation just came out, but they took it out of 2013 translation.

01:05:21

Yeah, it's, it's out of there. And this is why I think Angie says, she says here, the internet must be a nightmare for Jehovah's Witnesses, actually

01:05:29

Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons. The Mormons had, if you're familiar with Mormonism, they've come out on their website and they have these gospel essays and the gospel essays basically support everything that we

01:05:45

Christians used to say about Mormons. Now with the internet, they can't hide it anymore.

01:05:52

So they're trying to, they've come up with a spin on things now. So they're trying to spin it where the

01:05:59

Jehovah's Witnesses kind of just are going quiet. They don't want to talk to anyone that understands kind of what they believe.

01:06:06

Yeah, actually the 1984 version that I just pulled off of my shelf, other was not in brackets.

01:06:13

Was not in brackets. Okay. Brackets in that one. So that's not necessarily a recent change, but, you know, you can take them to their kingdom interlinear if they happen to have that in their

01:06:23

JW library and would be willing to go there and the word other is not in the text, but I probably wouldn't go that route with them because if you don't know your

01:06:34

Greek, they could try to trip you up with a few tricks that they would do. Yeah, they do like to, okay.

01:06:40

So one of the things I've always found is they do like to go to the Greek quite a bit and they try to make cases from the

01:06:46

Greek. Now, what I find is they go to the Greek without knowing the Greek. I mean, and so I had two women that accidentally came to my door.

01:06:56

Now, when I say accidentally, so when I moved into this neighborhood, we had a neighbor up the street and his sister was

01:07:03

Jehovah Witness. And so they used to come, the Jehovah Witnesses used to come as I discovered, they used to come to our neighborhood every single

01:07:15

Saturday morning at 10 o 'clock. I didn't know that because I wasn't always home on Saturdays, but once they identified me, they started skipping my house.

01:07:25

And what happened was I saw them go from my one neighbor's house, skip my house and go to my next door neighbor's house.

01:07:32

And so I grabbed my New World Translation and I ran out. Okay, I am this nerdy. I ran out after them and I went to my neighbor and as he's opening the door, they're standing there,

01:07:44

I'm standing behind them. And they actually, as the door opened, they turned and looked at me and I was like, hey,

01:07:50

Pete, I'm your neighbor next door. They're going to lie to you about the Bible. I'm going to correct them. Go ahead, guys. And I just stood there and they were like, what are you doing?

01:07:58

I said, well, I'm not going to let you lie to my neighbors. And so they literally just left the door and there's my neighbor,

01:08:04

Pete, looking at me. I was like, bye, Pete. And I followed them to the next neighbor. They're like, what are you doing?

01:08:10

I said, I'm not going to let you lie to my neighbors. I'm going to follow you. They never came down our street again for years, for probably about eight years.

01:08:20

We never saw them. All the neighbors were thrilled that I moved in until I gave them all gospel tracts.

01:08:26

And they were like, oh no. But here was the thing. I had these two, they come to me. We were in Colossians.

01:08:33

Here's why I go to Colossians. There's a couple of passages I like to go with them. Colossians 1, 15 to 18 is one of them.

01:08:40

They read, because this is so clearly talking about the deity of Christ.

01:08:45

And this is the thing they deny. Now, remember, they've added the word other. So I'm going to read through this and you're going to see the difference that adding, that he created all things, all creation or all other.

01:08:59

So it says, he is the image of the invisible God. So right there, it's not saying he's the image the way we think of it.

01:09:06

It means he's the form. He's the form of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.

01:09:14

And they'll argue firstborn means he's an offspring. And this is why they say he's Michael. He's the offspring.

01:09:19

He's the first creation. However, firstborn does not have to do with the first in the number born.

01:09:26

It often has to do with preeminence. This is especially true when you look at something like inheritance.

01:09:34

When you look at inheritance, it is always dealing with the issue of birth order. And the birth order, though, is not always a birth order.

01:09:43

Because what you have in inheritance is something like Abraham, who's his firstborn. Well, it wasn't

01:09:50

Isaac, but Isaac is the firstborn. So you end up seeing that it had to do with inheritance.

01:09:55

As you read this, it's all about inheritance. But we see here, it says he's the image of the invisible

01:10:01

God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him, all things were created.

01:10:08

That's anything that's created was created by him. And they're going to add the word all other things.

01:10:14

That totally changes the meaning, doesn't it? So this adding the Greek word is not for help. For by him, all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible, invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities, all things were created through him and for him.

01:10:34

And he is before all things. And in him, all things are held together.

01:10:45

So you see there that all four of those times, adding the word other totally changes the meaning.

01:10:51

Everything that was created, everything. He was before there was any creation. He was before all of it.

01:10:56

And he is the one that not only created it, but it was created for him. Now, that becomes a real problem for them.

01:11:04

And the reason that is, is because they're going to hold to a view that they say that Michael, the archangel was the first creation and he created everything.

01:11:16

So once you go through that, and what I did with these two ladies when they came, they were trying to tell me that the word other is in the

01:11:23

Greek. Because remember, this is when the brackets were removed. So they were telling me that the word other is in the

01:11:29

Greek. And I went, really? And they said, yes, it's there. I said, hold on a minute.

01:11:34

I came into my house. I grabbed my Greek New Testament. I opened to Colossians 1. I turned into them.

01:11:40

I handed to them and said, show me. And they were like, well, we don't know

01:11:46

Greek. And I said, okay, then please don't tell me what is and is not in the

01:11:51

Greek. But the next verse that I'll turn to with them is this. So Colossians 1, 15 to 17, you want to read that.

01:12:02

Then you go to Isaiah 44, 24, which reads, thus says the

01:12:09

Lord, your Redeemer, who formed you out of the womb. By the way, the word Lord there is

01:12:14

Jehovah. It then says this. I am Jehovah who made all things, who alone stretched out the heavens, who spread out the earth by myself.

01:12:32

Now they got a problem because they just said Jesus created all other things, which means he would have been created.

01:12:38

And all of a sudden now we're seeing a created being. You see, this presents a dilemma for them.

01:12:47

They don't have an answer to that because all of a sudden they were arguing that there is, that this is, that Jesus is a created being.

01:12:58

And now all of a sudden you point out he's not. That God alone created.

01:13:07

That is a real dilemma for them. I have a couple more verses I like to bring in.

01:13:12

But I'm going to bring you guys in and see what else, what other, what verses to answer Anthony's question, what verses do you guys kind of go to?

01:13:23

Let's see. Could I bring up, so you could actually use their

01:13:28

New World Translation with this one. And like, you know, as you mentioned, we mentioned before, like asking questions, you can control the conversation.

01:13:38

So this is an example that I actually heard James White talk about. If you read

01:13:44

Psalm 45 verses 6 through 7 and ask who that's talking about, of course, they would say it's

01:13:53

Jehovah God. If you read Psalm 102 verses 24 through 27, it talks about Jehovah God being the unchanging creator of all things.

01:14:08

That, you know, basically all creation grows old and waxes old.

01:14:15

And you will wrap it up as a garment because, you know, you are unchanging and your years will never end.

01:14:23

And then you go to Hebrews chapter 1 and verses 8 through 12.

01:14:29

And you read that this is a quote from those two Psalms. And so, but Hebrews 1, it says, unto the

01:14:39

Son, He, referring to God, said, your throne, O God, is forever and ever.

01:14:44

A scepter of righteousness is the scepter of your kingdom, quoting Psalm 45. And then it says, and, and then it continues quoting from Psalm 102, which describes

01:14:56

Jehovah God, that David described Jehovah God as the unchanging eternal creator.

01:15:03

And there's actually a footnote. I think it's still in the most recent printing of the

01:15:10

New World Translation that will actually go back. There's a footnote in a cross -reference in the

01:15:17

Hebrews 1 passage that will go back to Psalm 102 verses 24 through 27, because that's the quote.

01:15:24

So after you read that, then you can ask them, well, hear from, what was the reference

01:15:33

Psalm 102, what verses? 24 through 27. Thank you. Okay.

01:15:39

So Catherine asked this question. Let me give this to you guys. It should be an easy one.

01:15:45

But question from my mom. She wanted to know if they, Jehovah Witnesses, read the

01:15:50

King James Bible, or do they have their own Bible? They used to, the

01:15:56

Watchtower used to print and publish the King James Bible. Primarily, and I forget the year, maybe

01:16:04

Nathan would know that eventually when they developed the New World Translation, because it allowed them to translate things to fit their doctrine, but they used to primarily rely on the

01:16:17

King James version. Yeah, that's correct. And they also will allow the

01:16:23

American Standard. They have two versions that they will allow their members to use as reference.

01:16:32

One is the King James and one is the American Standard. I didn't know they use the

01:16:37

American Standard. Interesting. That's the old one, not the new American. The old one from the late 1800s, right?

01:16:44

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so I know that they would use the

01:16:50

King James, which is why, with any of the cults, King James seems to be acceptable. An interesting story, by the way, for folks that,

01:17:00

Nathan, I don't, you probably know this, but maybe not, and I think it was Holland that this happened where the translators, you're shaking your head, so was it

01:17:11

Holland? I can't remember if it was Holland, but you're talking about the great trial. Yeah, yeah.

01:17:17

Scholarship of the, yeah. Scholarship of the New World Translation. Here, they're being sued about their translation, and what ended up happening in court, and I don't remember all the details, but basically, the translator claimed that he was fluent in the

01:17:38

Greek and the Hebrew. Jennifer Pepling is saying

01:17:44

Scotland. She's saying it was Scotland. So, and so, yeah, what they had done was they gave this guy who said he's fluent something written in Hebrew and asked him to translate it, and he had to admit he didn't know

01:18:01

Hebrew, and so in a court of law, it was basically revealed that the translators of the

01:18:09

New World Translation didn't know the original languages that they were translating.

01:18:15

Nathan, it looks like you're looking up some information on that. Yeah, I'm probably not going to be able to find it because it's been a while since I've read this book, but this is a book called

01:18:24

Crisis of Conscience. It's got a reprint, and now, so it's a lot cheaper. I paid $175 without paying for it, but this was the book written by former

01:18:35

Governing Body member Ray Franz, and I believe in this book somewhere, he says that his brother was on the committee, and his brother only had about a first year

01:18:51

Greek whenever they did the New World Translation. Oh, wow. Let me give you guys another verse that I always go to with Jehovah Witnesses, and this is how

01:19:03

I set this up. I will ask them to open, even in their

01:19:08

New World Translation, to Jeremiah 23 verse 5, and I will ask them to read verse 5, and let me read verse 5 for you.

01:19:18

It says, Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, or Jehovah, when

01:19:23

I will raise up for David a righteous branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land.

01:19:36

And they read verse 5, and I say, who is that speaking of? And they always, always,

01:19:41

I've never once had them say anything else other than Jesus, and I say, okay, could you read verse 6 and see what he's called?

01:19:52

And verse 6 says, In his days Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell securely, and this is the name by which he will be called,

01:20:04

Jehovah, or righteousness, Yahweh Sikkenu. So, this is his name.

01:20:10

He is called Jehovah. Nobody is called

01:20:15

Jehovah in the Bible, except Jehovah. That's a real problem for them.

01:20:21

And they don't even realize it. They translated it as Jehovah without even looking at the context of who it's speaking of.

01:20:29

Jesus Christ is called God, right there. So, that's one I always go to, because they just go,

01:20:35

I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a. And that's not in their Reasoning the Scriptures book. They don't have that in there. So, it's one that they're not ready for, which is why

01:20:43

I like to go to those. So, that's like, you're quoting that right out of their New World translation, right?

01:20:49

Well, that one I read out of the ESV, but their New World translation will say a similar thing.

01:20:55

It will say Jehovah, or righteousness, which is what you want.

01:21:01

I mean, it's going to, you know, they will say it's speaking of David, or sorry, of Jesus, the branch of David.

01:21:08

And so, branch of Jesse is the king of David, right? So, they'll admit to that.

01:21:15

And they don't even realize that their translators didn't even pick up on what they were actually writing.

01:21:23

Yeah. So, what other verses or tips do you guys have about going up to Jehovah's Witnesses today?

01:21:30

Are there other verses in the New World translation that are easy ones to go to that display Christ's deity, maybe?

01:21:37

One thing that most Christians probably are familiar with trying to go to is

01:21:43

John 1 .1. I would not really recommend going there with them. They have pretty much a canned response for the

01:21:51

Greek indefinite article, which is not actually in Greek, but they have a pretty good response to that.

01:22:00

However, if they do go to that, you can go to Isaiah 43 .10. And Isaiah 43 .10

01:22:07

actually will help you with that verse. It says, let me get it out of theirs because it's better out of theirs.

01:22:21

Says, you are my witnesses. This is where Jehovah's Witnesses actually get their name from, is this verse. It says, you are my witnesses declares

01:22:27

Jehovah. Yes, my servant whom I have chosen so that you may know and have faith in me and understand that I am the same one before me.

01:22:35

No God was formed and after me, there has been none. And then in their

01:22:41

New World Translation, when they render John 1 .1,

01:22:47

of course, they say that Jesus is a God. So they say in the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was a

01:22:56

God. And say, okay, well, wait a second in Isaiah 43 .10, it said there was no

01:23:01

God formed before me or after me. So what kind of God is Jesus? Is he a true

01:23:07

God or a false God? According to your theology. And so you can kind of get the gears kind of going with them, but they'll probably go to all of their, what

01:23:18

I like to call the clobber verses. So they'll try to pull the Colossians 1 on you. Another thing

01:23:24

I wanted to point out about Colossians 1, great response from Andrew on how he handles that.

01:23:29

If you get caught up on firstborn and it mean in preeminence or first in rank, verse 18 in their

01:23:36

New World Translation of that same chapter says, and he is the head of the body, the congregation.

01:23:41

He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead. So that he might become the one who is first in all things.

01:23:50

That verse right there supports the preeminence translation of firstborn in verse 15.

01:23:59

So you can kind of make your argument a little more sound off of verse 18, right from their own

01:24:05

Bible. And most of the time they will stop at verse 17. Yeah.

01:24:11

Cause when you get into verse 18, it's also going to talk about the inheritance issues and things like that. Now I've had where they'll bring up, they'll bring up to me,

01:24:19

John 1, 1. And where I go to with that, when they bring it up to me, I usually ask this question.

01:24:27

Does Jehovah know everything? Is there anything Jehovah doesn't know?

01:24:34

And the reason I ask that, and this is a good thing to always remember, especially with dealing with people in false religions, you want to ask questions upfront that you want to use the answers to later.

01:24:44

And you get to learn when you do this enough, you get to learn the questions that you want to get answers to.

01:24:50

And so I want the answer to this question. Is God omniscient? Is he all knowing? They'll say, yes, he is.

01:24:57

Now, once they say, yes, I then, you know, turn to a different Isaiah passage than Nathan did.

01:25:04

And that is Isaiah 45, verse five. I am the

01:25:11

Jehovah. I am the Lord. And there is no other besides me.

01:25:18

There is no God. In verse six, I am the

01:25:23

Lord and there is no other. Verse seven, I am the Lord who does all these things, that these things being creation.

01:25:33

In verse eight, I am the Lord. I've created it. So you see here, he ends up talking about, he's

01:25:39

God, and he doesn't know of any other God. So when you say

01:25:44

Jesus is a God, well, God says he doesn't know of any other gods.

01:25:49

So who's this other God that God didn't know of? And it can be funny when you put it that way, because they suddenly get tied up in the fact that they're the ones arguing, there's only one

01:26:03

God, one person, and all of a sudden they have multiple gods. And God doesn't know this God that they're talking of.

01:26:10

So I like to do that. Yeah, it's interesting. You brought up, you know, of course, their emphasis on John 1, 1,

01:26:18

C, where the New World Translation has a God. And of course, you know, they think that's gonna help their position by the lack of the definite article.

01:26:30

They're implying that you can insert an indefinite article to make him a

01:26:35

God. But then that, as you mentioned that, that presents problems when, you know, even some of their favorite verses, when they're trying to argue against the deity of Christ, you can use that back on them with like John 17, 3, where Jesus calls the

01:26:50

Father the only true God. Well, is a God in John 1, 1 a true

01:26:58

God? And if they have to say yes, well, then how come Jesus said that the

01:27:04

Father is the only true God? If Jesus is also a true God, who is a

01:27:10

God, a lesser God, who is ontologically distinct from the Father?

01:27:19

Yeah, and I mean, this is where I think they start getting wrapped up, because they have, see, and what you often find with Jehovah's Witnesses is they are not thinking through these issues.

01:27:32

They're taught to regurgitate. They're told what to say, they're told what to think, and they don't process it.

01:27:41

And that's why when you ask questions, we've talked about this, asking questions. Angie says that Andrew sets traps,

01:27:47

LOL. It's not really setting traps, it is in a way, but what I'm doing is asking questions up front so that I could use that later.

01:27:55

There's a reason for that. When they realize that you know what you're talking about, they're gonna be a lot more defensive.

01:28:02

They're gonna be a lot more careful. And I want them giving me the honest answers, not trying to figure out how

01:28:09

I'm trying to trap them in that sense. So I want the honest answers up front, and then I'm gonna use that later.

01:28:15

I mean, I do this with Muslims all the time. I'll say, is God greater than our ability to understand him?

01:28:20

And this is something you could do with Jehovah's Witnesses, but they don't argue this way as much. A Muslim will argue that the

01:28:28

Trinity can't be true because it doesn't make sense to them. And so what I'll do is I'll say, is God greater than our ability to understand him?

01:28:35

And they'll say yes, and I go, okay, thank you. And then later when they say, well, the

01:28:41

Trinity can't be true, it doesn't make sense. I go, wait a minute, I appreciate you conceding that your

01:28:46

God doesn't exist. Then they go, what? And I said, well, yeah, because you can understand your

01:28:52

God and you can understand the Trinity. And we both agreed that the real God is one that's beyond our ability to understand.

01:28:59

You can understand your God, he's not God. He's a figment of your imagination. And so I do that quite a bit.

01:29:05

Now, there is a question here for Anthony from Full Belly Bear. So you know you gotta be careful when Full Belly Bear is asking questions here.

01:29:11

I gotta find out who this really is. But he says, Anthony, my tooth hurts. Can you give me a teeth cleaning?

01:29:19

You're the dentist here. I'm not sure that those two statements go together. So you're gonna be allowed.

01:29:29

You're finally gonna be allowed to clean his teeth soon, huh? Yeah, I mean, we're in Ohio allowed to go back as of next

01:29:36

Monday. But you know, with the government, you never know. Here's a, this is so wild.

01:29:42

Our governor says we can go back. The State Dental Board says we can go back. But the

01:29:47

State Dental Board, when they were asked about what our requirements are in terms of dental office and how we're supposed to keep the office clean, there's different standards now, as well as what type of equipment we need, the personal protective equipment,

01:30:01

PPE. They say to go to the CDC website and check out the

01:30:07

CDC website for that. So you go to the CDC website and they have banned all non -essential procedures, all elective procedures.

01:30:18

So within government, we have conflicts going on.

01:30:23

So honestly, we could find out tomorrow or Friday that we're not going back next week either.

01:30:29

It's, who knows? Yeah, well, I know I say this because A, it kind of triggers

01:30:36

Anthony, but as churches are trying to be, you know, follow the law best they can, whether these laws are actually laws in the sense, because we have laws going on right now that break the, you know, are violations of the

01:31:00

Bill of Rights. So you actually have illegal laws. So you could argue when you say following Romans 13, which laws are you following?

01:31:08

Because we have contradictory laws here that are in place. Very interesting.

01:31:15

You guys know I'm near New York. And in New York, the New York City mayor threatened churches for Good Friday and Resurrection Sunday, that if they don't close, they could be shut down permanently.

01:31:28

So he threatened to permanently shut them down if they have people in the building, not if they have more than 10 people.

01:31:36

It was just if they had services going in the building. Some churches that were live streaming got in trouble because they had a couple of people in the building.

01:31:49

And being in the building was the issue and they were live streaming from the building. And so there was like the pastor and the guy running the camera and, you know, his family or something.

01:31:58

So that's not allowed. Synagogues were told no. Even as recently as I think last week, synagogues were told because there was a funeral and the mayor said, it is past time of warning.

01:32:15

It's time for arrests. But when it comes to Ramadan, oh, the mayor had a message for Ramadan.

01:32:23

He wanted all the Muslim New Yorkers to know that they set up 450 places for them to get halal food for Ramadan.

01:32:31

They could come pick it up at city expense. The city was providing it. Oh, and not only that, but the city was going into the mosques and I saw them taping off areas so that they'd be six feet apart so that they could gather for their worship.

01:32:47

The same city that said they had permanently shut down the churches is setting up tape.

01:32:54

What happened to separation of church and state, by the way? Where did that go all of a sudden? In Minneapolis, the city is setting up loudspeakers for Ramadan so that they can have their five times a day, the call for prayer could go off since they're not allowed to go to the mosque at city expense.

01:33:15

But you as a Christian, no, you're not allowed to worship. Yeah, so I think

01:33:23

I'm spinning Anthony up. He's gonna do another two hour rant. Shall we say?

01:33:31

They've been well thought out. They've not just been rants. They've just been rants. Daniel, Nathan, you heard that, right?

01:33:39

He did admit that it was a rant. I said, what? No, no, no. It wasn't just a rant.

01:33:48

Uber rant. Yeah, it was a well thought out rant. That's fine.

01:33:55

The first 20 minutes was thought out. The next 40, when he was saying he was gonna get off, that was more of a rant.

01:34:02

The next 20 minutes was a little bit of a rant. And the last 20 minutes, I was just full blown rant. So here, so a full belly bear says,

01:34:10

Anthony had a great message on his Facebook about rights. So that's what we're referring to. All right.

01:34:17

Oh, Anthony, a different Anthony has a problem with us. How come none of y 'all have beards?

01:34:24

Well, actually, if you're gonna be following the mandates of wearing a face mask, you're gonna have to shave your beard because you cannot seal a face mask onto your skin with a beard.

01:34:35

You are actually gonna be in violation of every government order across the country. Yeah, well, the simple reason is because we love our wives.

01:34:46

Yeah, I fully admit my wife won't let me. My wife does not like anything scruffy touching her face, but I have a baby face anyway and can't grow a beard.

01:34:57

And I actually know Anthony Vitoli. He's a personal friend of mine. He stayed with me during G3. And yeah, he has a stellar beard.

01:35:05

Good job, Anthony. Let's get that beard back up there. I can grow a beard pretty easily.

01:35:11

My wife actually likes a scruffy face. The problem is there's only like a small period where it would actually work.

01:35:19

And I can't keep my facial hair the specific length that she wants.

01:35:25

So that's why I have to shave. Mine's real simple. Mine's real simple. I made an agreement with my wife very early on.

01:35:32

This is in Peter where it says, dealing with your wife with wisdom. See, I think I look better with a beard and it's easier to maintain.

01:35:38

My wife doesn't think I look good with a beard. However, I think my wife looks amazing with long hair.

01:35:44

And she thinks she looks better with short hair. And she says it's easier to maintain. It's a very simple agreement.

01:35:50

She keeps her hair long. I keep my face clean. That's a good deal.

01:35:56

Yeah. But Anthony's saying that's not your reason there, Nathan.

01:36:03

He was waiting on me to say the baby face remark. Well, Anthony and I happen to know someone who does have a baby face, but he's grown a beard.

01:36:17

And I think when I've seen it without any pictures with him without his beard, he's like you.

01:36:23

He looks like a little child. Baby face he is. All right.

01:36:30

So let me see. I don't think I'm trying to look, see if there's any other questions. Oh, yeah.

01:36:36

KT says, how about loudspeakers with the gospel? I think if there's anyone listening that's in Minneapolis, I believe you should absolutely partition the city and argue.

01:36:48

I sue the city, if need be, to allow the gospel to be preached from loudspeakers every

01:36:54

Sunday. I mean, it should be if they're going to five times a day, force everyone to listen to the

01:37:04

Muslim prayer. I think that they should, you know, preach the gospel.

01:37:10

I think it's only fair. They don't want to force a religion on people. Yikes. Trying to see if there was any questions

01:37:20

I missed here. But any other verses that you guys use when evangelizing to the

01:37:28

Jews? Yeah, I have a set of verses that I like to use. So Isaiah 45 is really just a beautiful chapter for, you know, you were quoting from it earlier.

01:37:40

If you drop a little further down in verse 21, it says, there is no other

01:37:46

God but me, a righteous God and Savior. There is none besides me. Turn to me and be saved all the ends of the earth, for I am

01:37:53

God and there is no one else. By myself I have sworn the word has gone forth from my mouth and righteousness and it will not return to me.

01:38:02

Every knee will bend, every tongue will swear. Loyalty is how they render it in the

01:38:07

New World Translation. But then if you go over to Philippians 2 in the

01:38:13

New Testament, you have starting in verse 6, it's talking about Jesus and him emptying himself and taking on a slave's form and becoming a human, humbling himself, being obedient to the point of death.

01:38:36

And then in verse 10, it says, so that in the name of Jesus, every knee should bend and of those in heaven and those on the earth and those under the ground and every tongue should openly acknowledge that Jesus Christ is

01:38:49

Lord to the glory of God the Father. So you can see that Paul is quoting back to Isaiah 45 from this.

01:39:01

And so you can kind of plant a little bit of a seed in their head. The funny thing is also,

01:39:08

I believe that in the Greek, but I'm not 100 % sure,

01:39:14

Jesus Christ is Lord would be curious. And this is one of the times that they did not choose to translate that as Jehovah because it would have clearly read

01:39:24

Jesus Christ is Jehovah. I probably wouldn't go there with them on that.

01:39:34

Yeah, I had that Isaiah 45 and Philippians 2 in my notes here from the

01:39:43

New World Translation. So you definitely stole my thunder on that, Nathan. I think it would be important also to talk about some of the passages that they use to try to prove that Jesus is a created being as well as some of the alterations.

01:40:01

Real quickly, I'll go through it. A lot of Christians like to go to Exodus 3 .14 where God says,

01:40:09

I am who I am to Moses whenever Moses asked who he is.

01:40:14

And then he says, I am has sent me to you. And then if you go to John 8 .58

01:40:21

and you try to make that jump immediately to there, it says, truly, truly,

01:40:26

I say to you before Abraham was I am. That's been changed in the New World Translation.

01:40:32

In the New World Translation, it says, I will become what

01:40:38

I will become in Exodus 3 .14. And in John 8 .58,

01:40:43

it says, before Abraham was born, I have been.

01:40:49

So you can actually make that connection. The context though, right?

01:40:57

How did he pick up stones to stone him? They didn't change that. Why did they pick up stones to stone him?

01:41:04

For you being a man claimed to be God. So basically, and I forget who it is that who uses this now.

01:41:14

Was it you that use this line? And says, so you're agreeing with the

01:41:19

Pharisees. Well, yeah, I often,

01:41:24

I will ask him the question, you know, why did, why did, why did they put Jesus to die on the cross?

01:41:30

Like what, what was the crime that he, that he supposedly committed? And, uh, and that they know they're caught at that.

01:41:37

They will, they usually won't answer at that point. And I usually say this question right for the ends, because once they stop listening, when you ask this question, they have no answer for it.

01:41:48

And so I readily give it up. And that's usually when they say bye. And, uh, Andrew, you saw that, right?

01:41:54

That happened the last time we were in California at the, at the beach there. Just a few months ago.

01:42:01

Um, let me, let me get a couple of things. Yes. A full Billy bear is asking how come I can't super chat because Google doesn't like us.

01:42:10

They don't allow us to do that. Uh, but if you do want to donate, we would, you can do that.

01:42:16

You just have to take an extra step and just go to striving for eternity .org slash donate.

01:42:22

We're still working with Google to try to allow us to, uh, set up super chats.

01:42:28

But, uh, if you want to donate, that's where you could do it. Um, I want to get to Jennifer's question before we go, but let me ask this one from Angie real quick, uh,

01:42:38

Nathan, you probably would be the one to answer this. Angie says, so the higher ups at the watchtower society know they're lying to their people.

01:42:47

You think that's true? I think to some level it is, uh, there are certain members of the governing body that I definitely would think, uh, are, are willfully lying, um, and keeping things from the members.

01:43:03

All of them to some extent are keeping something from the members. What I mean by how

01:43:08

I said that there, there's some on the governing body that I believe are actually sincere and misled themselves.

01:43:16

Um, they're kind of just put in place as figureheads. Uh, but then there are others that I believe, um, really are misleading their people purposely, willfully.

01:43:27

They do know that what they are teaching is false. They do know that, uh, what they are doing is, is taking advantage of their members to, to some level.

01:43:39

So are they just getting wealthy off of their members? Is that the point? There's been some, some speculation and a little bit of trace into the organization being owned by higher ups than just the governing body.

01:43:54

The governing body in general is not really super rich. They have free room and board, um, and, and things like that.

01:44:04

But I believe that there is a higher type organization above them that is funding, uh, or profiting off of their organization.

01:44:14

Yeah. They're not like the Mormons there. So, um, let's see. So, uh, okay.

01:44:20

So Cody is saying that Slick is the one that uses that you agree with the Pharisees.

01:44:25

Uh, uh, Ethan is saying this. Ethan's like, I'm sure you have a certain number of subs.

01:44:31

He's talking about YouTube. Actually we've, so what we did, Ethan is to try to get super chats.

01:44:36

We have created a new YouTube channel. We need a thousand, uh, subscribers to be able to do super chat for them to maybe let us again.

01:44:47

And we are currently, if I go look this up as of right now at 932.

01:44:53

So we're getting close, uh, but we haven't gotten to the 1000 yet to be able to get subs.

01:44:59

So if you guys want to subscribe, that would help us just go to the YouTube channel that you are watching now.

01:45:05

If you're watching on YouTube and click the subscribe button, click the bell. So you get the notifications.

01:45:11

Let me bring this one up. And I think Jennifer does have one verse wrong in here. Um, she says, not sure if you guys said this one, read revelation one, eight, who it, uh, who is this?

01:45:22

Read revelation 22, 15. She means 22, 13. Who is this? Read, uh, revelation one 17.

01:45:30

Who did Jesus, who did Jehovah die? So, so here, let me read these in order.

01:45:36

So revelation one, eight says I am the alpha and the Omega says the

01:45:43

Lord God who is, and who was, and who is to come the almighty. So the, the

01:45:50

God almighty, the Lord God, or what they'd say is the almighty God referring not the mighty

01:45:56

God. Jesus is the mighty God. Jehovah is the almighty God. So the almighty

01:46:02

God is alpha and Omega. If you go to revelation 22, 13, it says,

01:46:08

I am the alpha and Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end that's

01:46:15

Jesus speaking. So then with what Jennifer is saying, go back to revelation one 17, when

01:46:22

I fell out, when I saw him, I fell at my feet as though dead, but he laid his right hand on me saying, fear not.

01:46:30

I am the first and the last, the living one. I died and behold,

01:46:38

I live. I am alive forevermore. So what she's pointing out there is here.

01:46:46

You have God being called the alpha and Omega, the first and the last.

01:46:52

And yet at the same time, you end up seeing that that's

01:46:57

Jesus. So that's who that's referring to. So that's a good, a good couple of passages to use.

01:47:05

But for those who saw her comment, it's revelation 22, 13, not 15.

01:47:12

Just so you know. And you can also go back to Isaiah 44, 6, that says, thus says the

01:47:18

Lord, the King of Israel, the Redeemer. I am the first and the last. Besides me, there's no other God. Yeah, and I think if he's omniscient, he would know if there's another

01:47:27

God. All right. So Justin, and you got to love this with Justin Pierce. Pastor Justin, when someone has to say serious question to start their question, you kind of know the level of questions he usually asks.

01:47:43

But he's a good friend of us here in the ministries. But he says, don't they usually translate

01:47:49

Jehovah where Yahweh is clearly the Old Testament translation, i .e.

01:47:55

I am Yahweh and there is no other. Yes, I believe that's true, right?

01:48:02

Yeah, so they latched on to the name Jehovah. I believe Rutherford was the one that coined and named them

01:48:11

Jehovah's Witnesses and started to use the name prominently. You have to realize, and I want to get into this earlier real quick, but you have to realize that if you give

01:48:23

God the name Jehovah, then it's very difficult for them to comprehend anything else taking the place of Jehovah.

01:48:34

So when you start to use these passages like we've been going over, where these things are written of Jesus that were attributed to God in the

01:48:47

Old Testament, there's a disconnect between them because they're like, well,

01:48:52

Jesus is not Jehovah. Jehovah is Jehovah. And so it causes them a lot of issues because there's that disconnect.

01:49:03

They read the entire scriptures from a Unitarian type perspective, which is that God is one person and not

01:49:12

God is one being in three persons as the Bible teaches. And so it causes a lot of roadblocks for them in how they think whenever they're thinking about that God's name is

01:49:27

Jehovah. And so that's why they use it so much. But Jehovah, they say that that's the

01:49:34

English translation of the Tetragrammaton.

01:49:40

And so that's kind of why they use that one. And they latched onto it because it sets them apart from anyone else.

01:49:48

But Yahweh is a perfectly fine English translation. In fact, I think that Jehovah is kind of a little bit of a mangled and slaughtered translation.

01:49:56

It comes from a Germanic pronunciation. Yahweh is what

01:50:02

I would personally use. Well, I'll let you in on a little secret of a new translation coming out.

01:50:12

So for folks who don't know that the New American Standard is 1995 translation, and they're going to be redoing a translation.

01:50:24

I think it's going to be the 20 or the 20 or 21 version, but there's another.

01:50:30

So it seems, as the rumor mill would have it, that somebody bought the rights to the

01:50:38

New American Standard, 95 edition, and it would be none other than Master's Seminary.

01:50:47

And so John MacArthur and the staff at Master's Seminary are working on a translation.

01:50:52

They're going to call, I think right now, it's I think going to be, they think what they're going with is the

01:50:58

Legacy Standard Bible, which

01:51:04

I'm encouraging them to do the Legacy Standard version because LSD, LSB, I could,

01:51:11

I just, I'm just saying I could see the jokes coming. LSV doesn't help much more, but they're working on translation.

01:51:22

And one of the things that is going to be unique with this translation is that everywhere where they see

01:51:27

Yahweh, they're going to transliterate it as that. And so that's something with that.

01:51:33

I am showing on the screen because John McKinnon said he was like, I didn't know you guys were on YouTube.

01:51:39

Cool. If you want to find us on YouTube, if you're watching on Facebook or listening to the podcast, just go to youtube .com

01:51:46

slash C, just the letter C slash striving for eternity. That's where we're at.

01:51:52

There's actually two. We still have our old page up. That's the one with thousands of subscribers. This one just has 900 that we're trying to move everything over to.

01:52:01

So your friend Anthony is saying one more thing here, Nathan.

01:52:06

Let's see. He says, Andrew, I'd love to go out and witness with you guys. I'm from the Northeast myself.

01:52:12

I think we'd have a lot of fun. Well, Anthony, let me make it easy for you. If you'd like to come with Anthony and I into one of the probably my favorite, and I'm not the one that runs this.

01:52:26

Maybe that's why I enjoy this one because I have no responsibilities, but we go to repent and witness.

01:52:33

I think it's Jennifer, you're in here. So shoot me the website, but I think it's repentandwitness .com.

01:52:42

But, or Anthony's going to look it up. But we go to New York for four days with the

01:52:49

Christian Collegian Network, and we enjoy that thoroughly.

01:52:56

It's four days in the city. We have a lot of fun. It is probably my favorite evangelism outreach because we're just, it's a blast.

01:53:07

So if you can make it to that, that is definitely worth it. Repentandwitness .com,

01:53:13

she said. There we go. Let's put it up there. I knew she'd be lickety -split with that.

01:53:19

And she's in her tie -dye shirt there in that picture. Look at that. Jennifer goes out in a tie -dye shirt to evangelize.

01:53:26

You can always figure out, if you ever get lost, you just look for her because it stands out. Actually, if you hear her laugh from a further distance, then you can see her tie -dye shirt.

01:53:36

You had to go there. People in the chat were calling her giggles. This is a true story.

01:53:42

This is not a joke. We had a bunch of people who were meeting up to do some evangelism in New York, and we were meeting at Madison Square Garden.

01:53:53

And I was with a couple of people, and we went, what do you think? Madison Square Garden, folks, if you don't know, it's like the whole block.

01:54:02

And we said Madison Square Garden, but we never said where, like what corner or anything. And I literally, no joke, to the person

01:54:11

I was with, I said, wait, stop. Just listen. He's like, what are we listening for? You'll know.

01:54:17

And I listened. And sure enough, I heard it. And as Jennifer's saying, we found her in Madison Square Garden.

01:54:24

She was around the corner, but we found her. Now, not only that, but within minutes, probably like two or three minutes, came some other people who were also looking for us and decided the easiest way to find us was to stop and listen to the giggle.

01:54:42

Because once you heard the giggle, you were able to find her. It is that loud of a giggle.

01:54:48

And you could be a half a mile away and hear it. You could. I believe that that is true.

01:54:54

And I think I may even have that giggle. Let me see.

01:55:01

If I look on my phone. Well, while you're finding that, Repentant Witness is my favorite conference to go to every year.

01:55:08

Favorite witnessing. New York City is just awesome to witness that. And you actually get yours truly this year, teaching at it.

01:55:15

So like it or not, you'll get a chance to sleep longer in the morning.

01:55:21

This is what that means. Because you speak longer and Jennifer's laughing at you.

01:55:28

What I think. Hold on. Let's see if we can get this to work. Where is it? There we go. That's that's her laugh.

01:55:39

She tells me I morphed it, but that actually is her laugh. So. All right.

01:55:48

So Cody is asking, and this may be the last question. What do they do?

01:55:54

What do they say when talking about John 1 1 when you ask how many gods there are?

01:56:01

Have you guys had any? Have you done that with them? Because I just get lately, at least all

01:56:07

I get is shut down. I don't know if you get anything else. As Nathan mentioned before,

01:56:15

Jehovah's Witnesses are kenotheists. So they believe, you know, basically that there's one great almighty

01:56:24

God. And then to some extent, you can call like angels, lesser gods.

01:56:30

And, you know, Michael, the archangel, the eight God of John 1 1. So if they're kind of backed into a corner and had to explain it, there he no theism would come up, they would say, well, in a certain sense, you know, we call

01:56:45

Jehovah the only true God, because that, you know, basically, that means he's the highest

01:56:52

God. It means a certain thing that doesn't mean something else can't be called a

01:56:58

God, but there's no God greater than Jehovah God. And since Jesus is the image of the invisible

01:57:06

God, he can be called God in a secondary sense, or he can be, you know, he can be given the name of Jehovah as a representative or agent or, you know, like, you know, they might even go to John 10,

01:57:25

I think, is it John 10 30, where Jesus says, you know, I said, you know, it is written in your law.

01:57:31

I said, you are gods to show that even humans can be called gods in the sense that's less than the one true

01:57:39

God Jehovah. Yeah, and we'll wrap up on this,

01:57:44

Cody says, but then there's the scripture that Jehovah says, I know of no other gods in Isaiah. And that's, that's what we're bringing up.

01:57:51

And so with that, you know, I thank you guys for coming in. I think that, folks, you know, let me start with Daniel.

01:58:01

How can folks get ahold of you? If they wanted to reach out to you, maybe when this book of yours finally comes out in what, 2028?

01:58:12

You're worse than me. I mean, I've been working on a book on the deity of Christ for like five years now. So, but you,

01:58:18

I think you might be worse than me, but. Yeah, I kind of stole the, went to other things and I was like, throwing lines out for like, endorsements from different people.

01:58:30

And then I was like, well, while I'm waiting for that, I'll get to other things. And then kind of the podcast took over.

01:58:37

And then it's almost like when this came up and you mentioned in the invite, the book, like, oh, wait, that's still hanging out there.

01:58:46

Yeah. Yeah. I'm starting to look at, like, I'm actually starting to look at covers and trying to finish the cover for it.

01:58:55

So I'm hoping, cause I committed, I want to get that and possibly like some other books out this year.

01:59:06

So, but to contact me, you know, like my podcast is at truthspresso .com

01:59:13

to listen to the podcast. And then my, my website is truthhub .org.

01:59:21

Don't forget that there would be two H's there. So truthhub .org, and you can post comments and I need to make sure, cause

01:59:30

I haven't updated, like haven't blogged on the site recently. I need to make sure that as I have changed email addresses there, that I have some valid contact information on truthhub .org.

01:59:43

And Nathan, how can folks get ahold of you? If they have more questions about true witnesses and other things?

01:59:49

You can contact me on Facebook. Nathan Todd Fisher is my

01:59:54

Facebook name. You can look me up on there. Friend request me, message me. It is easier to see the messages when someone has already friend requested cause they kind of are hidden if, if not, but I'll try to respond back with you guys.

02:00:10

And Anthony, you can get ahold of it. Heretics are us. Your website.

02:00:25

No, you could get ahold of Anthony and I at strivingforeturning .org. We're, we're there.

02:00:30

You could just email us, just email info at strivingforeturning .org. That's a good way to get ahold of us.

02:00:38

Oh, Jennifer is letting us know some dates here. Repentant Witness, July 30th to August 2nd.

02:00:44

July 30th to August 2nd. Maybe, maybe I will make an appearance.

02:00:49

I was not going to be able to make it because of travel, but all the travel has been canceled this year.

02:00:56

My, I was talking with Justin Peters like two weeks ago. He called me up and said, so how's your travel schedule look?

02:01:03

And I said, it's all clear. He said, mine too. And so with that, what we came up with is we said, well, what are we going to do?

02:01:11

Well, May 30th, we have a plan. We don't have a website for you to register yet, but save the date for May 30th.

02:01:18

That's a Saturday all day from 10 in the morning, Eastern time till six at night.

02:01:25

Justin and I, if you remember, we went to the Philippines and did the Snatch Them by the Flames conference or seminar.

02:01:32

We're doing that, the home version. So it's Snatch Them from the Flames home edition is May 30th,

02:01:38

Saturday, May 30th. Justin will start off the morning on talking about the sufficiency of scripture and all these people that want to hear from God.

02:01:48

I will then talk about, so he's going to talk about sufficiency of scripture. I'm going to teach you how to interpret scripture. After lunch, we're going to take a lunch break.

02:01:55

After that, Justin is going to be talking about discerning false teachers. And then I'm going to talk about how to identify false teachers.

02:02:03

And then we're going to do a Q &A. So you'll be able to ask questions throughout the day and we're going to answer them.

02:02:08

And so we'll have a link for you to find where to register at strivingforattorney .org.

02:02:14

So just go there, hit us up there also as a last minute thing. As we close out,

02:02:20

I'll just put out the shout out. If I could figure out where the thing is.

02:02:26

I thought I had a thing for the Israel trip. Okay. While you're at EquipJersey this year, we have scheduled on the 24th and 25th of July, Friday night,

02:02:37

Saturday. So we are planning on EquipJersey and that'll be

02:02:42

Pastor Andrew, myself, and possibly a third speaker at that conference. And we'll be going out and evangelizing at the

02:02:49

New Jersey boardwalk on that Saturday night. I'll be at the same church. And so we're doing that unless for some reason this coronavirus thing to go away in New Jersey.

02:03:02

Yeah. So 2021israeltrip .com. If you want to go and join us, you can also find this on the striving for attorney page.

02:03:10

Go to strivingforattorney .org. Right at the top is the Israel trip. The trip is sold out. However, they told us that they are expecting to have many people cancel just because of everything going on.

02:03:25

And so John is asking the cost of that trip. I think the trip from New York where you're at,

02:03:32

John, is I think almost $5 ,000. It includes hotels, food, all that.

02:03:38

I think all the meals except lunches. One lunch is covered, but it's breakfast, dinner, and one lunch, hotels, flight, all that.

02:03:49

But if you go to 2021israeltrip .com, it has all the information. Now, if you go there, you cannot register, which means right now you don't have to put up the $500 deposit.

02:04:00

It means that when people do cancel, the sooner you sign up for that, the first you're on the list of who they go to once people cancel.

02:04:11

And so if you're thinking about that, that would be good to go to now. There's no money you have to lay out right now because it's sold out, but they do anticipate that some will cancel.

02:04:22

Anthony, you were talking about EquipJersey, and Jennifer said that EquipJersey is her favorite event, probably because she doesn't have to organize anything for it.

02:04:30

And so with that, I think that's all the announcements that we have.

02:04:36

I appreciate you guys coming. I appreciate Nathan, Daniel, you guys coming on, giving some of your expertise in the area with Jehovah Witnesses, and I think this was helpful.

02:04:48

We're not sure for next week, Anthony and I are kind of working on a couple of, actually a series of things, of podcasts that we may do a couple of on a topic.

02:05:00

So I don't know if we're going to do that, but we are planning, and the tentative date is May 28th, to have another debate.

02:05:08

If you guys remember, we had Ken Cook, who debated a Lutheran on the topic of does baptism save?

02:05:15

There was a gentleman who felt that the Lutheran, another Lutheran professor felt that the

02:05:21

Lutheran that he debated, I guess, wasn't good enough of a debate, and he challenged

02:05:26

Ken. So they have done that debate, and they want to come on to this program and debate the topic of baptism as far as the modes and things like that, infant baptism.

02:05:38

So with that, we're going to probably do that. The tentative date is May 28th, but like I said, we're going to see, we're working on that.

02:05:46

We're working on some things that Anthony wants to do on the show. So just remember to check it out every

02:05:52

Thursday night if you guys have questions. I know we get people that like to type in the questions. We'd like to see you come in and ask those questions.

02:05:58

It's a lot better. We get to hear your voice. So unless, of course, you're

02:06:04

Pastor Justin Pierce, because if we had him start the question at the beginning of the show, he'd still be asking it.

02:06:13

It'd really be a sermon, but he is a pastor after all, but he's a friend of the ministry.

02:06:22

We're just joking, folks. All right. Thank you, guys. I hope this was helpful to you.

02:06:27

I hope you guys learned a lot about Jehovah's Witnesses, how to evangelize to them. And so we'll be back next week to answer your tough questions.