Is a Jehovah Witness a Christian?

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We have been studying comparative religion now for many weeks.
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We've looked at the video, The Marks of a Cult, which we finished a few weeks ago.
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Before that, we looked at Islam.
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Last week, we looked at the religion of Mormonism.
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And I told you that if you have things about Mormonism that you want to look into, I gave you some references for materials you can get, anything by Dr.
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Walter Martin, the website, carm.org, Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry.
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There's a lot of good out there that you can find.
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Well, we're going to do something similar tonight as we did last week.
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Last week, we looked at the history of Mormonism.
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We looked at their teachings and we looked at some of the things that we could use potentially when faced with a Mormon at our door or at our work or in school or any other situation where we might be faced with someone who is proclaiming the benefits or the virtues of Mormonism.
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Well, tonight we're going to do the same thing for Jehovah's Witnesses.
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As many of you are very familiar with, unless it is Girl Scout cookie season, a early knock on the door on a Saturday morning, you're liable to be it's going to be Jehovah Witnesses.
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Saturday morning, 8 a.m., they're there at your door ready to talk to you about all of the social ills.
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That's almost the universal way in which they begin their conversation.
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They come up to you and isn't the world such a bad place? Aren't there so many bad things happening? And they begin talking to you about this to try to get you to start agreeing with them, because it's easy when somebody says, aren't there so many bad things, wars and famines? And you say, yeah, you know, and when it's almost it's almost like a sales pitch, they get you agreeing with them and they begin their conversation in that way.
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And obviously it doesn't happen that way every time.
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But but I'm very familiar with the way that they seek to reach out.
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I'm familiar with Awake Magazine, which is their initial way of reaching out.
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It used to be that the Watchtower was their primary publication.
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It still is their primary publication.
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But Awake Magazine, you're liable to see on your dentist if you're at the dentist and there's the you know, you have Life Magazine, Time Magazine and you have Awake Magazine.
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And it looks just like any other magazine.
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It looks just like any other book that you might pick up and thumb through.
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But you realize very quickly that this isn't Time or Life or any of these other books.
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This is a religious publication.
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And that is the way in which the Jehovah's Witnesses make their initial inroads.
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I remember one time Jennifer and I were walking through the the flea market over off of Pecan Park Road.
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We're just walking through the flea market.
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And my wife is my wife is the is the she is the best at talking to people whom she's never met.
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She makes a friend immediately.
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She's really good at that.
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I'm not so great at that.
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I kind of standoffish until I get to know somebody and talk.
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I mean, I can talk, but she's much better at it than I am.
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She's a nicer person.
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And we were walking through.
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Oh, she is by far a nicer person than me.
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And we're walking through the flea market and she sees an Awake magazine sitting on a shelf.
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So she and she knows what it is.
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She's not ignorant of Jehovah's Witnesses or anything.
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So she walks up to the Awake magazine and she picks it up and starts coming to it.
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She's baiting them.
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It's not they've baited her.
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She wants them to come and she wants to get them.
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So she's got her book and she starts looking through it.
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And Lenny comes up and starts witnessing to her, apparently about Jehovah.
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No, that's funny.
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Anyway, starts talking to her and they begin this conversation.
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And I remember distinctly something that the lady said, because she said, Jennifer said, well, my husband is a Baptist preacher.
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Now, I know you all know that's not exactly the case.
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I'm not a Baptist preacher.
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But when you tell someone you're a preacher, nine times out of 10, they come up, they want to know what kind of preacher, da, da, da, da, da, da.
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And that years ago, that used to sort of be the generic way we would introduce because of being a Baptist seminary.
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It was a lot easier to just say a Baptist preacher than to have to go into what a reformed Baptist is and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
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It was just it was quick.
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Well, anyway, Jennifer says, well, my husband is a Baptist preacher.
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And the lady says, well, it's OK if you don't agree.
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I mean, she was bold, man.
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She was ready to grab my wife and run away from her.
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She knew she didn't have me because I was standing there, you know, I look like a police.
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I look like Adam giving a, you know, staring somebody down.
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You know, that's how you do it.
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Right.
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When you don't you don't you don't smile.
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Happy face.
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You know, you let them know this is not good for me.
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Well, she's yes, that face right there.
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And anyway, so she she I just remember distinctly because my wife was was engaging her, trying to talk to her.
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And she says, it doesn't matter if you and your husband don't agree.
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And I remember thinking, wow, how brazen, you know, that you're so committed to this ideology of witnessing.
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You're so committed to this evangelism that you're willing to divide family.
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You're willing to say it doesn't matter what your husband thinks.
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You come out and do what we do.
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And maybe she's the exception to the rule, but I really don't think so, because you have to think about in the Jehovah Witnesses religion, they're witnessing, they're doing this, they're winning of souls, as they would say that the purpose of that is that this is what encourages and builds up their own salvation.
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They're they're increasing their salvation by their works.
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If they don't do a certain amount of witnessing every month, then they are on a precarious perch.
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Their entire salvation system is based on a system of works.
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And understanding that helps us at the very beginning to understand that we're not dealing with anything that could even remotely be called Christian.
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It's not Christian in any way.
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And as we did last week, we asked the question, is a Mormon a Christian? And the answer is obviously no.
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The question this week, is a Jehovah Witness a Christian? And the answer is, again, no.
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Now, I want to read a history just like I did last week.
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I read a little history about the Mormons.
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I want to read a history of the Jehovah Witnesses for you.
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And we're going to read the history of three men.
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It's going to be very short, but it's three histories, because what we have in the Jehovah Witnesses group is they have a president of the Jehovah Witnesses and that president, his word is law.
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He's in charge.
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You have C.T.
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Russell, Judge Rutherford, his name was J.F., but it was Judge Rutherford was what he went by, Nathan Knorr.
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And I don't have the name.
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I think I didn't see the name of the one that's there now.
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I'll have to look that one up.
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But these three men were profoundly influential in producing what is the modern Jehovah Witness movement.
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So let's begin.
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And we'll read, we'll read.
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The Jehovah's Witness movement was founded by Charles T., Charles Taze Russell in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in the late 1800s.
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In the decade before Russell's birth, there had been intense interest in the return of Christ, predicted by William Miller, to occur in 1842.
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Now, the Millerites would eventually become the Adventist movement.
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OK, so you got to think of the Millerites and the Millerite movement and what they call the Great Millerite Disappointment, that was Miller had proclaimed that Jesus was going to return in 1842.
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And when he didn't, all the Millerites were disappointed.
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So they call it the Great Millerite Disappointment, obviously.
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When 1842 came and went without Christ returning to establish his millennial thousand year kingdom, Miller adjusted his prediction to 1844.
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That prediction was also inaccurate and Miller was discredited.
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But some of his followers went on to form the Advent Christian Church in 1860 and others formed the Seventh-day Adventist in 1863.
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As a child, Russell grew up believing in the traditional notions of Christianity.
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As a young man, however, he became skeptical of the existence of a literal hell.
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In 1872, when he was 20 years old and employed as a clerk at a men's clothing store and at that time he encountered members of the Seventh-day Adventist group and was intrigued by the notion of an imminent return of Christ to establish the millennial era.
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He established the International Bible Students Association and predicted that the millennial age would begin in 1914.
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You get an idea that a lot of these guys really, they all had an idea.
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Jesus is going to come back and they all started setting dates and they all failed with their dates, yet the movement continued.
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An amazing thing.
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By 1881, his organization was known as Zion's Watchtower Track Society and he printed the first edition of the magazine, which was called The Watchtowers, 1881.
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In 1888, 50 people were involved in full time in his upstart religious movement.
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Russell's skills as a communicator helped stimulate much of the interest.
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In addition to his published sermons, he penned a seven volume series, Studies of the Scriptures, that became the foundational foundation, the doctrinal foundation, foundational foundation, I almost said it again, the doctrinal foundation for his followers, as he said that it would be better to read his writings than the Bible itself.
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Russell's predictions for 1914 didn't happen.
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Like he had predicted, although tumultuous events occurred at the outbreak of World War One in 1914.
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And here's something you need to remember about the witnesses.
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If you bring up the 1914 prediction of Russell, if you say, listen, Russell predicted that Jesus is going to return in 1914.
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Jesus didn't return in 1914.
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They will say, yes, but World War One began in 1914.
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And that was the sign.
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And that's the sign.
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Russell was later forced to adjust his prediction.
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How did he adjust it? Well, it wasn't Jesus's return.
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It was the starting of the World War.
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Subsequent predictions were not fulfilled either.
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Present day Jehovah's Witnesses readily admit this, but they attach great significance to the fact that the World War One or World War One began in 1914 and it changed the course of history.
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So they use that in their trying to back up the claims of Russell.
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All right.
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So there we have Russell.
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Russell was a person who would proclaim he was proclaiming the end.
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He was proclaiming the Millennial Kingdom.
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He was proclaiming a certain time which Jesus would return.
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And he failed in his proclamations.
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He failed in what he proclaimed would happen.
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So along comes his successor.
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He dies in 1916.
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A president is president until his death.
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So when he dies in 1916, a successor is established.
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And this is Joseph Rutherford.
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As the new oracle of God's messenger for this age, Rutherford expanded the written literature by writing an average of one book each year.
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Rutherford's writings became the new standard for doctrinal and scriptural reinterpretation to the extent that where they were contrary, contradictory, Russell's writings and interpretations were dismissed as not consistent with the current progressive life.
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So here's what happened.
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This guy came along and he taught things that were different than this guy.
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And he said, well, this is the current revelation.
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This is current life that we have.
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So if what I say doesn't agree with him, he was just wrong.
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That's that.
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Well, hey, who's going to argue? He dead.
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So he can say, hey, I'm right.
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The current revelation is this and I'm correct.
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Rutherford instituted many significant changes affecting evangelistic efforts.
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Number one, he introduced the magazine called The Golden Age, which would later become Awake magazine, which we talked about earlier.
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That was originally called The Golden Age.
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He reinforced the emphasis on door to door witnessing.
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Thank him for that.
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Radio broadcasts were used extensively in the 1920s and 30s.
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Under the auspices of the renamed Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, 403 radio stations were broadcasting Bible lectures in 1933.
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You think that's a pretty big number for 1933, 403 radio stations.
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Later, radio broadcasts were phased out as a witness, as witnesses were equipped with a portable phonograph and recorded Bible talks to use on their door to door visits.
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So they quit doing radio shows, they started carrying around machines to play on their door to door visits.
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Imagine it wasn't anything like a iPod, it was probably like a backpack in 1931 to distinguish themselves from Christian denominations.
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The group changed its name to officially the Jehovah's Witnesses.
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So it didn't start out to be called the Jehovah's Witnesses.
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And C.T.
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Russell would have never called themselves Jehovah's Witnesses.
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This was a name that was formally adopted under Judge Rutherford.
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In fact, not that I would support C.T.
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Russell in any way, I think he was false prophet as well.
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But the majority of what we see happening in modern Jehovah Witnesses happens under Rutherford and then under Knorr.
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C.T.
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Russell was just sort of the instigator that got everything, got the ball rolling, if you will.
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Let's see, Nathan Knorr, finally, number three.
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When Joseph Rutherford died in 1942, Nathan Knorr assumed the position of president of the Witnesses.
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This occurred during a time when many witnesses were being arrested in connection with their religious opposition to political requirements.
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Now, we're going to talk about that in a little while.
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They refused to serve in the military and other things.
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The Witnesses were involved in many court cases to preserve their freedom of speech, press, assembly and worship.
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Between the 1930s and 1940s, they won 43 cases before the Supreme Court of the United States.
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Now, that is pretty significant in that we may not like what the Jehovah Witnesses are as a religion.
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We may not like what they teach.
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And obviously we don't because it's unscriptural, it's unbiblical.
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But they went to bat on a lot of issues for free speech, religious free speech and the ability to do with their family according to the dictates of their religion.
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Now, we don't like some of it.
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We don't necessarily like the issue of blood transfusion.
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We'll talk about that in a little while on these things.
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But we're going to talk also about which would you rather have, the ability to make the choice according to the dictates of your conscience and your religion, or would you rather have the government tell you, you have to do it this way? They took a lot of the lumps on that.
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So for that, again, you got to give credit where it's due, even if we don't agree with what they're teaching.
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In this book, these also believe, Professor C.S.
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Braden said of the Witnesses, they have performed a single or a single service to democracy by their fight to preserve their civil rights.
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For in their struggle, they have done much to secure those rights for every minority group in America.
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I think that's something, again, we don't often consider, but they did fight a battle on that.
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During Norris administration, a special training school for missionaries was established to facilitate worldwide missionary efforts.
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And under his leadership, the Witnesses grew from a total of one hundred fifteen thousand in nineteen forty two to over two million in nineteen seventy seven.
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So you have to think to go from one hundred fifteen thousand to two million, this was the guy.
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This was the guy who really impressed the idea of missionary thinking among the Jehovah Witnesses.
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So each step down the line of the presidents, each one added his own heresies and his own problems, but that also added his his his his vision for what it could be.
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And it grew and it did grow to, like I said, to the point of being in the millions rather than the thousands or hundred thousands as it began.
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All right, so let's begin.
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Let's talk a little bit about a few things.
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Let's talk about Jehovah Witnesses.
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We know where they came from.
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We know they started out on on on unsecure ground at the beginning because they started out concerning themselves with prophecies about Jesus's return.
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That was sort of what founded the ministry.
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It's what founded the entire movement.
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But let's talk about a few other things.
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Let's talk about specifically their name.
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They call themselves the Jehovah Witnesses, and the purpose of that is because they believe it has been taught down through the ages, down through their their their presidencies and the different teachers, that that name Jehovah is very special and very specific and that we are required to refer to God, not as God generally, but as Jehovah specifically.
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Now, if you think about it there, if you think about like the Islamic religion, they call God Allah and they use that name as a specific title, even though that is simply Arabic for God.
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In the same way, we would use the word God.
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They always call God Allah.
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Well, the Jehovah's Witnesses always call God Jehovah.
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And the Jehovah Witnesses have their own Bible.
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If you've ever seen the New World Translation, how many of you have ever seen the New World Translation? OK.
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All right.
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Well, the reason I ask is because you're not going to see it if you go to like Likeway.
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If you go to Likeway, you'll see the New International Version, the New American Standard Version, the New English Translation.
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You will not see the New World Translation.
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And the reason why is because it is very well understood that the New World Translation is specific to the Jehovah's Witness.
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It was translated by them and it includes additions and subtractions that were purposely placed there to fit in accord with their doctrines.
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For instance, you will find the name Jehovah in the New Testament in the New World Translation.
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Why? Because Jehovah is the name of God, right? They believe Jehovah is the proper name of God.
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So any place where you would see the word Lord in the New Testament, theirs would likely translate it as Jehovah.
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Now, why is that a problem? Does anybody know why that would be a major translational mistake? Yeah, because Jehovah is a translation of a Hebrew word, the Greek never, ever uses that word, even in a transliteration, because we do see words that are transliterated and we see there are times where the New Testament will quote Jesus or someone else directly in the language they spoke.
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We all know and you might know that Jesus didn't speak on the regular.
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He didn't speak Greek, even though the Bible is written in Greek.
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The New Testament is written in Greek.
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What language would Jesus have spoken? Aramaic, it was the language of the day.
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So when we read that he went into the little girl's room who had died and he was there with her father, Jairus, and he said, Talitha Kumi.
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Why do we read Talitha Kumi? Because the writer who's writing it in Greek is actually quoting the Aramaic.
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He's quoting what Jesus actually said.
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OK, we don't have any reference to anybody quoting using the name Jehovah in the New Testament.
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Nowhere in Jehovah, I'm sorry, in the New Testament, the word that is used for God is the word Theos, which would be God or Kurios, Kurios is the word Lord, which is why we'll see the term Yeshua Kurios, Yeshua Kurios, or no, it's Yeshua Kurios, Jesus is Lord.
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That's the term, Kurios is Lord, you will not see the word Jehovah in the New Testament.
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However, they insert it because they say this is the proper name of God.
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Moreover, you won't find the name Jehovah in the Old Testament either.
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Now I've confused you, perhaps you won't find the word Jehovah in the Old Testament.
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Now you might say, I got my trusty King James and my King James has the word Jehovah in the Old Testament.
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The word Jehovah is taken from a four letter Hebrew word and the word is Yod-Heh-Vod-Heh or Yod, that's the four letters, Yod-Heh-Vod-Heh, that's the it's called the Tetragrammaton, OK, the Tetragrammaton is the four letter sacred name of God and the Tetra being four and Tetragrammaton is four letters or four to make up one name.
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That four letter name cannot be pronounced Jehovah because there is no Je sound in the Hebrew alphabet.
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There also isn't any Je sound in the Greek alphabet, you guys have been studying Greek with me, where's the Je, you don't have one.
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What is the name Jesus start with? Yoda, Yoda is a Yod-Heh-Vod-Heh, when it's at the beginning, it's a Eh-Eh sound when it's in the middle, but if it's at the beginning, it's a Yeh sound, it's a Yeshu or Yesus, that's the Yah-Yah sound.
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So the word Jehovah isn't even in the Old Testament, technically, it can't be.
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It is the word which we would pronounce, we would in an attempt to pronounce it, we would say Yahweh, or if you want to put the heart Yahweh, but it depends on if you're really trying to be specific with your pronunciation, but it would just be Yahweh, would not be Yehovah or Jehovah, you say, well, how do you get Yahweh and Yah-Ho-Vah, because Hebrew people would not write the four letter name of God.
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They would not write that sacred name.
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Even today, if you get on the Internet and you converse with Jewish people, a lot of times this is how they'll write the name of God.
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They'll leave out, they won't even write God.
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They'll just leave out the O, because of the third commandment, thou shalt not take the Lord's name in vain.
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They're very careful not to take the Lord's name in vain.
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And it has been conceived by some that Yehovah was actually a connection between Yahweh and Adonai, that they were superimposed because Adonai has the hard O in the beginning, Yehovah has the O in the middle, and that the two being superimposed on top of each other gave an entirely new and different name, which didn't have any sacred meaning.
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Thus, it could be used without fear.
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Yehovah wouldn't have any fear.
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Where then do we get Jehovah? Well, when it gets translated into German and German has all those German, German is where we get Jehovah, German is where we also get Jesus and Joseph and Joshua, that hard J sound.
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So if you really want to mess with a Jehovah's Witness the next time they come to your door, say you're really you're using a dramatic perversion of the Tetragrammaton and let them look at you like you got three heads.
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That's what it is.
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It's a dramatic adulteration of the Tetragrammaton.
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It's not a right way to say the sacred name.
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So right there, they're they're off the they're they're off the and we haven't gotten to the heresies yet.
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They just can't even get their name right.
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Is that harsh? Am I being harsh? Perhaps.
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But let's go back now.
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Let's talk about the heresies.
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Main heresy in Jehovah's Witness, if you want to be real, just just throw it out there.
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The main heresy of Jehovah's Witnesses is they are Unitarian.
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They are Unitarian.
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They do not believe in the Trinity.
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As such, they have the same view of God as would say an Islamic person in the sense that they believe God is one in essence and one in person rather than as the Trinitarian would believe God is one in essence and three in person.
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So that Unitarian belief that there is no Trinity and their Bible actually adds words to help define this doctrine for them.
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Most of you know, the John 1 1 edition, right? John 1 1 in our Bible says in the beginning was the word.
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The word was with God.
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The word was God.
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We are all familiar with that.
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In the Jehovah Witnesses New World Translation, it says in the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was a God.
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And they add the indefinite Article A.
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Now, here's the problem with that.
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They claim to be strict monotheists.
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So that's another question you might be if you're so brazen as to ask, are you a strict monotheist? Yes, we are.
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We believe in one God.
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How then does your scripture say there is a God who is not the God that you must at least be a polytheist, if not a monotheist? Monotheism is the belief that there is one God who under him has created sub gods or that he is the ruler of his one.
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He is the ruler, but there are other gods under him.
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OK, it's still polytheism, but it's it's different.
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Monotheism is a hierarchical system that there's still one major God and then there's minor gods.
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So you could ask them, are you a monotheist? You can't be a monotheist.
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You've got a God who's not the God.
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So that's an issue.
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They also have a very, very interesting interpretation of Colossians.
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In Colossians, the Bible says that all things were made through Christ.
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Why does Colossians make that issue such it's so important? Because it's stressing the creative nature of Christ, that he is the creator.
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Right.
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This is all things are made through Christ in the New World translation.
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It says all other things.
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It adds the word other.
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Why? Because that's the point.
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They say Christ was made by Jehovah and then Christ made all other things.
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So they add the A, the indefinite article A at John 1, 1.
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They add the word other in the second chapter of Colossians.
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They have had to turn the Bible into Plato and add pieces where they needed to fit into their doctrine and take pieces out where they've had to take pieces out.
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And it ends up with not even a translation.
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It is an adulteration.
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Yes.
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No, it's still there.
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Yes, they would argue and say they would argue and say that the Colossians issue is, well, this should say other.
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This is just something that should be there, but it's not there.
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They make a huge deal about John 1, 1 and the necessary article and how theos is not an anarchist noun and all this stuff.
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And if you're not familiar with it, they'll just I don't even try to go John 1, 1 with them because and I know how to do it, but it's just they've been trained.
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It's like they've been tractor beam.
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You're not going to get them on John 1, 1.
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I would rather go to Hebrews 1 and see where it says.
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But of the sun, it says your throne, O God, is forever and ever.
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I might go there because Hebrews 1, 1 says that it says you're of the sun.
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It says your throne, O God, is forever and ever.
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Here it says the sun is God and his throne is forever and ever.
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It's going to do that.
30:56
Well, that one, I would imagine that they would sort of say something to the effect of it's talking about one in purpose and not one in essence.
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I mean, I don't know.
31:07
I've never had to deal with that.
31:09
I'm careful with that one because the Unitarian or rather the Pentecostal, what we call Jesus only Pentecostals, they like to use that one to disprove the Trinity to say Jesus and the father of the same person.
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And I'm real careful about that one because I don't think that that's what that's saying.
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I know it's not what it's saying.
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So I have to be careful if I'm I have to be familiar with the arguments which would oppose my position as well.
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And that's one of the verses that I was.
31:40
Yeah, absolutely.
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And before me, there was no God formed and there will be no God formed after me.
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How then can Christ be a God who was created by the God if there is no God formed after me? Absolutely.
31:50
And I think that's for Isaiah 43, 10.
31:52
So, yeah.
31:53
And so there's a lot in the old, a lot in the new that we can use to demonstrate that the doctrine of the Trinity, the doctrine of the Trinity is the only doctrine that fits the whole scripture.
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The doctrine of the Trinity is the only way you can have Christ being God and the father being God and being not the same person, but one in essence, there being one God and three persons.
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It's the only it's the only one that fits with the whole of scripture, what we call tota scriptura or the whole of scripture.
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It's the only one.
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But they deny the Trinity.
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That's one, you know, X mark.
32:24
They deny the Trinity.
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That's major heresy.
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I would say of all them, that's that's that's got to be the one that I think would absolutely separate them from orthodoxy.
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Number two, they do not believe in eternal hell.
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Neither do they believe in what is called the intermediate state.
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Now, I wanted to I want to say this Sunday and next Sunday, I am preaching on a theology of heaven.
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And that is first time I've ever preached on this subject.
32:57
And I've talked about heaven before.
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Generally, it's how to get there.
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We're actually going to talk about what there is.
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And I think some people think that when you die, you automatically go to heaven.
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But the Bible does clearly demonstrate that there is a time coming where we'll be resurrected in the resurrection.
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Is the entrance into the eternal state, but that our souls are alive in what's called an intermediate state, that we're alive with Christ when we die.
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Paul is clear about this in other places.
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But that's not our final state because our bodies are still corrupted.
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We have to put on incorruptible.
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The great thing about being alive when Jesus returns is that we will immediately put on the crop.
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We don't have to go through the whole death and dying thing.
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So it'd be wonderful to be here when he does return, because then we get to beat that whole intermediate state thing.
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Anyway, long and short of it, I'm going to talk about that Sunday.
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But the point of it is they would deny any intermediate state.
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This is what the Jehovah Witness will teach.
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And also this is taught by the Advent Christian Church and the Seventh-day Adventists.
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They believe that when you die, your spirit and your body are so interconnected that your spirit, along with your body, dies and goes into the ground.
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That there it lays until the time of the resurrection.
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At resurrection, both your spirit and body are regenerated to eternal life.
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That's the belief of the Jehovah Witnesses.
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Your soul is in the ground with your body and you're dead.
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Yes.
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Yep.
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Refuse to believe in eternal hell.
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And I know a lot of people who have turned to Jehovah Witness because of that.
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They cannot conceive of an eternal hell.
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Jehovah Witness provides them.
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The movement provides them with a belief system where there is no eternal hell, because here's the belief in the Jehovah Witness.
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If the Jehovah Witness believes this, if you're a believer and you die, your body and spirit go into the ground.
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You're there until resurrection.
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You resurrect.
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You go into the eternal state.
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They believe if you're an unbeliever, you're not a Jehovah Witness.
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You die.
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You go into the ground.
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You are annihilated.
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You are done.
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That's it.
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Now, there are some who believe that there will be a resurrection of the damned.
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Those will be judged and then annihilated again.
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But basically, talk about your yo-yo.
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You're up and you're down again.
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Yeah.
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You get raised just to be told.
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I was just kidding.
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I mean, you face the Lord in judgment and then you're destroyed again.
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Yes, I have heard.
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I have heard a Jehovah Witness say that to me, but I have not found that in their documentation.
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But that may just be because I didn't read it.
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I mean, I don't I haven't read all their writings.
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I had a Jehovah Witness who came to my door and I was talking to her about salvation as what the Bible teaches about salvation.
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And she says, well, don't you know, everyone's going to get a second chance? Yeah.
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They'll get a second chance.
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And I just said, well, show me in the Bible where you find that.
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Because the idea of a second chance, I mean, really, I mean, a lot of this stuff.
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I mean, obviously, I believe the Trinity is well-founded in Scripture.
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I believe hell is more than well-founded Scripture.
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It is Jesus.
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There is a hell.
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It is forever.
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And if you take away the word for forever, which Jesus uses for heaven or for hell, it's the same word in the same sentence he uses for heaven.
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He says there will be eternal blessing and then eternal torment.
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And it's the same eternal is the same word in both.
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So if you take away the eternality of hell, you've also stolen the eternality of heaven.
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It just has to.
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So, yeah, there are some who would believe a second opportunity of grace.
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Yeah, I'm telling you, don't count on it.
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The Bible doesn't say it now, you know, and I don't and I don't think God would do it because it would be an antithesis to his word if he chooses to do that.
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And, you know, that's his prerogative.
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But he doesn't say it in Scripture.
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I have no reason to trust that.
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I have no reason to believe that.
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And that's what's not in the Bible.
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Yeah, well, I've never heard a Jehovah witness address that text, but I do have in my office, I think I still have it.
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I have a book by a Christian pastor who went to great lengths to make the argument that there is no intermediate state.
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And his point was that entire story was just parabolic, that there was no there was nothing connecting that to real life.
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That was just an example Jesus used, just like if Jesus said, you know, a farmer went out to sow seed.
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However, why do we not believe that story is parabolic? He's talking about Luke 16, where the rich man and the poor man both die and their spirits go.
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One goes to be with Abraham and the other goes to the Hades.
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Why do we not? Why do we why would we not think that's a parable? Because it's the only place, you know, it's the only story Jesus ever told with a proper name.
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He said there was a man named Lazarus who died.
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When he talked about, you know, I tell people before it makes no matter, I don't think there was a good Samaritan.
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I think it was a story.
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I don't think necessarily that there had to have been a person who did what the good Samaritan did.
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I think it's a parable.
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And Jesus told a story.
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It's great.
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I don't have to believe that if it's true.
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Great.
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If it's not great.
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But that story about Lazarus, there was a person he's saying there was a person named Lazarus who died and the angels took him to Abraham's bosom.
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I tend to believe that this is an account.
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Only Christ would be able to see the intermediate state and know this.
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Only he could recount for us that truth.
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You know what I'm saying? So, yes, sir.
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I don't know.
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I don't know, but I will say this about that question.
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Whatever the intermediate state is, it is a spiritual state because our bodies are yet redeemed.
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But at the same time, that does not mean it's necessarily intangible.
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When we think of spirits, we always think about ghosts, intangible ghosts.
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What is the spirit, though? Is it necessarily intangible? Is it necessarily without any physical nature at all? We don't know because we can't see or touch it, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist in a dimensional plane that can have some form of physicality.
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Now, when I start talking about dimensional planes, people think I'm weird and some kind of geek, but let me tell you something.
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The Bible says when when Elijah was about to go into battle and his servant was with him and his servant said, hey, how are we going to fight this battle? We got this whole army in front of us.
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And it says God opened his eyes and what did he see? He saw a host of an army that was there the whole time.
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He just didn't see it with his human eyes.
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There was a army there that he couldn't perceive.
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And so God opened his eyes to see it.
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I think that realm is all around us.
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I think there are angels who worship with us in the sense of being a part of what we're doing.
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I think that we have an entire host that is interdimensionally connected to what we're doing that we cannot perceive.
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That's not, you know, I know, getting into kind of like the whole, well, that's that you can't see it.
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Beloved, you can't see God, but you believe he's real.
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You can't see him, but you know he's real.
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It's the same thing here.
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I think that there's a there's a there's this something outside of what we can perceive.
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And I think that the what we would call the intermediate state is that and it was some way if he can feel the pain and torture, I think he could also feel the pleasure of whatever when he asked for water.
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I think he knew what he needed and couldn't have it.
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I don't know how, but I know he wanted it and couldn't have it.
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All right, we're I'm running low.
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Where am I at on time? I got five minutes to get to a whole lot more.
42:17
OK, all right.
42:18
So they have no Trinity.
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They have no hell.
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They also have no intermediate state.
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But I don't want to write that up there, but, you know, they don't believe in any.
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They believe what is called psychopenia or soul sleep.
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The big name for.
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They also believe in salvation by works.
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Part of their salvation mandate is their witnessing, they're going out, they're passing out the tracks, the magazines, all of this is part of what they do.
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Listen to this carefully, because Jesus, who is really Michael, the archangel.
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Is not considered to be God.
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He doesn't play a very significant role in the salvation process.
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His death on the cross canceled out Adam's sin.
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Not you, Adam, the original.
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Since we well, actually, he really did cancel out yours because you're a believer.
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But.
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But in their theology, what? Since we don't have that sin nature hanging over our heads from the original ancestor, we have the chance to be righteous on our own.
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This happens to by being a witness and testifying for Jehovah.
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Consequently, salvation is not based on a relationship with Jesus Christ.
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Instead, it is based on faithfulness to the procedures and requirements of the institution of the Jehovah Witnesses.
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It's all about being a part of their group.
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That's what salvation is and allegiance to that group.
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So salvation is not in Christ alone.
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It is by work.
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Christ's death didn't pay the penalty for sin, but it brought back the possibility for perfection in this human life.
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The hundred and forty four thousand.
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I know you've heard that before.
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Jehovah Witnesses believe in one hundred forty four thousand.
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If you ever seen the movie Coneheads, you'll know that's there.
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One hundred forty four thousand faithful followers of Jehovah will be rewarded with heaven.
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The rest of the faithful witnesses will have everlasting life on a peaceful earth.
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So one hundred forty four thousand actually get to go be with Jehovah.
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The others do get to live forever on earth in a restored earth.
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But that so that's how they would understand the passage in Revelation, which does talk about 144,000.
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There's a passage in Revelation gives a very specific number.
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One hundred forty four thousand, twelve thousand from the twelve tribes of Israel.
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You know, you.
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But the question is, if you meet one and they're talking about being one hundred forty four thousand, which tribe are you a part of? Because you're not a Jew.
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Most of them are not Jewish people.
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You might catch one who isn't.
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But the hundred forty four thousand asked, which tribe are you from? You're not.
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I haven't heard that could be could be, but it says a hundred twelve out from each tribe.
45:20
So, yeah, I don't know.
45:22
All right, let's go to the final thing I wanted to look at, and that is the oddities.
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We've looked at the heresies and that's bad enough.
45:29
I want to look at the oddities.
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These are the things that if you are a Jehovah's Witness, you cannot do according to their rules and regulations.
45:43
Number one, you cannot participate in having a blood transfusion.
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They base this on the Old Testament text, which says that the life of the animal is in its blood.
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They talk of they use that to say that your blood is physical in nature and is for you alone.
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And if you if that blood is from is given from somebody else, that that has tainted you and is is bad.
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This is this and they're basing it on that text.
46:16
How would you answer that? I mean, really, it's really difficult because it's not like you can go to a Bible verse and say, well, here it says we can have blood transfusions.
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This becomes one of those issues of conscience because really there's there's nothing saying that you can or can't in Scripture.
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There's nothing saying you have to and nothing saying that you cannot.
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And you have to address this, I think, in such a way as you remember this.
46:44
We do things with our families as Christians that the world thinks is nuts.
46:54
Homeschooling.
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A lot of people in the world think that that's just crazy.
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Your kids need to go to school.
47:01
Your kids need a public education.
47:03
Your kids need government training.
47:04
You know, I'm serious.
47:07
You've heard that.
47:08
Those of you who are homeschooled parents, you've heard that.
47:13
So while I think not getting blood transfusions is not a good thing, I also say that they have the right to manage their family how they will.
47:27
Does that mean somebody is going to die? I hope not.
47:31
But it happens.
47:34
But you know what? We can't just say because we don't agree with that, they shouldn't have the right to do it.
47:43
Now we're getting to sort of a political issue, because as soon as that starts happening, the rights are going to go away faster than you imagine.
47:57
So even though I would disagree with them not doing blood transfusions, I also disagree with court-ordered blood transfusions.
48:04
But that's personal.
48:05
Maybe I shouldn't have said that because that's my personal opinion.
48:07
But I'm just telling you the danger when the court begins to mandate these things.
48:12
It is very slippery, because I can see mandated public school.
48:19
I can see that.
48:23
Huh? Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
48:29
It's dangerous when we begin to start having the government telling you have to do whatever.
48:34
And if you go against the dictates of the conscience, it's difficult.
48:37
And I mean, it is.
48:38
This is this is one of the ones I was sort of afraid to touch because this is difficult, man.
48:43
It's hard.
48:45
The other ones are not so not so maybe not so emotional.
48:49
They don't get to have birthday parties.
48:51
Boo hoo.
48:51
Who cares? I mean, they don't.
48:53
But listen to their reasoning for the for the birthday party.
48:56
Because I'm not here to support Jehovah's Witnesses, but I'm also going to be fair.
48:59
They don't believe in the exaltation of the individual.
49:05
OK.
49:07
I, you know, I like cake.
49:10
I like I like to both get and give presents.
49:15
As such, we celebrate birthdays at my house.
49:18
But, you know, the Apostle Paul commanded us, you know, if your brother, if somebody does something that's different than you and they're in the faith, if one of you told me you weren't going to celebrate a birthday because you didn't want to be self-exalted, that's great.
49:32
I'm not going to say you're wrong about that.
49:34
So I'm just saying don't use these as the things that we necessarily beat up the Jehovah Witnesses about.
49:38
We got plenty over here.
49:40
People focus on these things and these are the minors don't major in the minors.
49:46
Focus on what's most important.
49:48
If this is what you're talking about when they come to your door, you've already lost.
49:55
All right.
49:55
Birthday celebration is not important.
49:57
Christmas celebration.
49:58
There's a whole lot we can talk about with Christmas that shouldn't be practiced anyway.
50:01
A lot of what happens at Christmas is pagan anyway.
50:05
And it's getting worse.
50:07
People killing themselves to get a robot toy, beating each other to death to get inside of a Toys R Us at 4 a.m.
50:15
Really? Anyway, that's a whole other situation.
50:18
But they don't celebrate birthdays.
50:19
They don't celebrate Christmas celebrations because of the pagan influence has been on Christmas.
50:24
You know, a lot of things.
50:28
They don't have any parties or festivals.
50:30
Man, that's getting kind of rough now.
50:34
And do nothing part patriotic customs will not serve in the military, will not salute the flag.
50:46
That was a major issue.
50:48
Like I said, back in 30s and 40s, this major issue because, you know, people if you didn't fight, man, you call me, you know, this is bad stuff, you know.
50:58
So, yes.
51:00
No, they don't.
51:02
I forgot to mention that.
51:03
No, nothing.
51:04
No patriotic customs at all.
51:05
Nothing to demonstrate allegiance to America or any other country.
51:10
Their allegiance is to the kingdom of Jehovah, according to them.
51:13
Yes, I imagine conscientious objection.
51:40
But I don't know.
51:41
I guess they're saying that.
51:42
So it sounds three or three or three agree.
51:44
So correct.
51:48
I assume that's the only way I had the opportunity to opt out of social security.
52:00
You know that as a as a Christian minister, I could have opted out and not paid social security because they gave me that option when I first got ordained.
52:09
They said, if you anything you make from ministry, if you if you object to what they would consider social, you know, protection, social, you know, social security.
52:23
If you object to that, you can object and not be a part of it.
52:26
I didn't because, you know, hoping it's still there when I get 65.
52:36
Absolutely.
52:36
I didn't want to make that error.
52:40
So they don't celebrate patriotic customs.
52:43
Finally, military service, military service.
52:46
They will not participate in military service.
52:47
And that goes back to the patriotic thing, the issue of they believe that all all armies are are effectively at war with Jehovah's army and thus they're not allowed to participate.
52:59
So there's a lot that can be said about their oddities.
53:03
But again, I want to encourage you don't focus on the oddities, focus on the heresies.
53:07
If you have to speak with them, remember.
53:10
If you're if you're concerned about evangelization of a Jehovah witness.
53:19
Grace is the foundation of the gospel.
53:24
And when you're talking to them, they are so focused on works, they don't even understand the Christian concept of grace.
53:32
Share grace, explain grace, understand with them or help them understand it's not cheap grace, but it's grace, grace that was bought with the most precious price of all, the blood of Christ and that his Christ pays off.
53:46
Yes.
53:47
And going back to the blood as the Holy Spirit is called a person.
54:59
And of course, it's always good to go somewhere other than John one.
55:54
John one one is a wonderful passage.
55:57
It's and one thing I didn't mention very quickly as I and they do not believe the Holy Spirit is a person.
56:04
They don't believe he is personal.
56:06
They believe the Holy Spirit is like an electrical force.
56:09
It's a force.
56:10
It's not electrical.
56:11
They believe he is a force that God emanates, that the spirit is is God's impersonal force.
56:17
And I would the only way to give an example would be electricity.
56:21
That's why I call electrical force.
56:22
That's that's the way they.
56:24
And so when you talk about acts five and you can't lie to a force.
56:28
You can only lie to a person, and that's in reference to what Richard was talking about.
56:36
All right, beloved, let's pray and we'll close up.
56:39
Father God, thank you for this time that we've had together.
56:43
Thank you for giving us your word to look at and for us to be able to deal with these things that come up in our lives, having to deal with other religions.
56:52
We thank you again for these classes that we've been having.
56:55
We pray, Lord, as we move into the future, that you'll continue to bless those help us to do all things to bring glory to your name.
57:02
In Jesus name we pray.
57:04
Amen.