Evangelism of the Jehovah's Witness — Paul Washer

The Deity of Christ and Submission to Scripture

Oh, something that I feel is very good. One of the things in which it's very important to help the Jehovah Witness to understand anyone who would deny the deity of Christ, is when they ask me, why do you believe that?

And I said, well, because I believe the Bible. And I believe the Bible to such an extent that I have to accept everything it says, even if I cannot explain it. And then I go on the attack. Your problem is this, you believe that you can believe only what you can explain.

And if you can't explain it, then the scriptures must not be saying it. And so you throw out or twist or change some of the texts of scripture to make them fit your reasoning. You can't do that. I say I am and must be submitted as a slave to scripture.

I must submit my intellect to scripture. If scripture says that there is one God, but scripture. Attributes deity to three persons equally, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, I must accept that truth, even if I can't explain it.

You can't explain it, so you change the text. I can't do that. Also, another thing that's very, very good when you're dealing with a Jehovah Witness. I'll never forget this. I was I've been in the jungle for several days with a missionary by the name of Homer Crane.

A Personal Encounter With Jehovah's Witnesses

And we came out of there and we we were not doing good. We were supposed to be met by a group of other missionaries. We were not. We had to sleep out in the jungle without mosquito nets, without I mean, laying on the ground.

And it was no fun. Well, I came back in and I'll never forget I was carrying the diesel back up these big drums of diesel. I was a lot younger back then and I pulled them out of the back of the boat and I was carrying them up the dock and I got diesel all over me.

So not only was I muddy, I hadn't taken my boots off in about five days, hadn't bathed and now I had diesel all over me. Well, I finally got everything taken care of and I'm walking back and I'm walking through the Plaza of Iquitos, just trying to make it to a hotel.

Challenging a Religion Without the Presence of God

That's all I wanted to do. And and here the Jehovah Witnesses just converge on me and I'm like, oh, just not now, Lord. And I'm sitting there as they're talking, just wondering, Lord, do I enter into an argument?

What do you want me to do? And just all of a sudden it came into my mind what I ought to do. So I just looked at him and I said, you know, I love talking about God. I really do. And I really appreciate people like you who talk about God.

I said, but you know what I like to talk about the most? And I said, and you'll understand this because you're a people who love God. I love to talk about those times, you know, those times in prayer when you're praying and all of a sudden the presence of God just seems to fill the room and fill your heart and you break out in worship.

And it just goes on for hours and you literally almost have to cry out to God and ask him to take his hand off of you because it'll just kill you because he's so real and his presence is so powerful. And there's so much joy in your heart that you literally end up crying out, oh, God, take your hand off me lest I die.

Share with me some of the times you've had like that in prayer. And they just go because they can't. Because there is no presence. There is no power. There is no joy. And when you see the bewildered look on their face, just say you can't even talk about it, can you?

Because you don't even know what I'm talking about. Because you have a religion. You don't have God. You don't have God because you don't have Christ. Another thing to do that's very, very helpful is when a Jehovah witness comes up to me, I'll say something like this.

Testing the Content of the Gospel

Look, I don't want to talk about a lot of things that may be important, but are not the most important thing. Here's what I want to talk about. I want you to tell me your gospel. I'm going to give you three minutes, five minutes.

Tell me what the gospel is. And they'll begin to talk about the kingdom, the church, works, all you know, everything. All right. And so when they finish, I go now, that's your gospel. Yes. Would you repeat it again?

I want to make sure I understand you. They tell to me again, I go, OK, so that is the gospel. Yes. Now let me repeat it to you because I want to make sure I completely understand you and I repeat back to them exactly what they've told me.

Now, is that your gospel? And they say, yes, talking about the reign, the kingdom, all these different things. And then I go, OK, for First Corinthians 15, one through four. I read that this was Paul's gospel.

Paul’s Gospel of Christ’s Death and Resurrection

That Christ died for our sins, according to the scriptures, that he was raised on the third day, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day, according to the scriptures. You didn't talk about that.

Now, then before they can even answer Galatians chapter one, if anyone comes to you with any other gospel. Let him be accursed and they go, no, no, no, we mean that to us, no, sir, I gave you two chances.

You repeated yourself. I even said what you said to me and ask you. To verify if I really understood your gospel and not once did you mention these things, but you got to have them repeat it several times so that they can't say later on, you misunderstood me.

And it'll stop them dead in their tracks, because rarely have I ever had a Jehovah witness talk to me about the death of Christ.