Apologetics Session 43 - Jehovah’s Witnesses

Witnesses. So we have a lot to discuss tonight. We are going to be going through a lot of stuff.

We're going to be reading a lot of the Jehovah's Witnesses materials to get straight from the horse's mouth what has been said over the years and what they believe.

So that's good that we'll be able to do that. One of the things that I was thinking about as we're going through this is we've gone through quite a lot of other religions now, comparing them to the

Bible, comparing them to Christianity, comparing them to what did they say about Jesus Christ. And when

I started to get into it, I was like, oh, you know, this is a little bit of a different flavor and it's not quite what we talked about with Mormonism, right?

But what it comes down to is there's the same four basic things that go astray with any sort of cultic religion, which is basically the sacred texts they are going to say they have their own version of.

Whether they were inspired by, you know, some vision that came upon them or some new revelation that someone got in their minds and, you know, the church had been wrong for 1 ,800 years.

You know, all of a sudden they figured the whole thing out. And what we painstakingly did months and months ago was we talked about this book, which is the scriptures translated from Hebrew or American Greek.

Why we trust this book. Why we trust that this book is authentic. Why we trust this book is from the

Lord. Because of the historical accuracy of it, because of the prophetic fulfillments that only

God himself could have authorized. From the manuscript evidence that we spoke about in painstaking length and from even logical evidence and external evidence of the scriptures themselves.

So this book has the testimony of the prophets and the apostles who were given by the

Lord, who were inspired by the Spirit to write all these things down. The other books that we're going to talk about today is basically some folks got together and decided something.

But we're going to hold those things, those books, up to the same scrutiny that we would the scriptures.

Are they accurate? Do they fulfill prophecies?

Are there predictions made? And are there fulfillments that we can put our finger on and say, oh, okay, only the

Lord could have known that. So we're going to do that today. And that's been kind of throughout as we've studied all these different religions, what we do.

All the religions we've talked about as well, they make statements about Jesus Christ, but they don't make the statements that the scriptures do about Jesus Christ.

They claim that he's somebody, and tonight the Jehovah's Witnesses will do that. They also have usually a prophet or a priest or a board, a ruling board, that the community of believers would submit to.

And in this case, this is also true, is the Watchtower Society has their ruling authorities in Brooklyn, New York.

And then all, all other religions in the world teach salvation is by your merits, what you do, what you accomplish, as opposed to what

Jesus Christ has done, and giving you the free gift of salvation through his shed blood and his call on your life.

So those are the four things, and it won't be any different tonight. So let's get into Jehovah's Witnesses.

First off, I know a lot of you guys know this, do you know who the founder of Jehovah's Witnesses is?

Charles Taze Russell. Charles Taze Russell. So he might not be the particular kind of person we would think of as a, as a religious leader guru kind of person who would build up this new religion.

He was basically a disgruntled teenager that did not like how his church was teaching the

Bible. So what he did is he latched himself onto a group of seven -day

Adventists, and he got into Adventism for a while, and he thought they might have a better direction.

But then he started developing his own doctrinal theories, and very early on, they were using the

King James Bible at the time. So he was, this, it was not Jehovah's Witnesses yet. It was just his ideas through these

Bible studies he was going to that started with seven -day Adventism. But they would reject the Trinity.

They would say the Trinity is not true. They would let, they rejected the fact that Jesus Christ was

God, that he was Michael the Archangel. So that was very early on they did that.

The belief that the Holy Spirit was not a person, but some sort of a force that emanates from God, but he's a force.

They reject the idea of an eternal punishment or an eternal hell. They believe in annihilation.

Now all these things that I've mentioned so far, we've already covered these things in this class, in this apologetic series, that the

Holy Spirit is certainly a person, that the Trinity is very true, and that Jesus Christ is God Almighty.

And that we've also covered the doctrine of eternal punishment. Another thing they said was that the bodily resurrection of Jesus is false, that he was not bodily raised, but he was raised in spirit form only.

Which is incredibly interesting. I find that an extremely interesting claim that they would deny that Jesus was bodily resurrected, which is a key to understanding that our sins were forgiven and that, you know, that his work was vindicated by God the

Father, that he was raised in the same body that he died in. And he proves so, obviously, we know, by, you know, showing the hands and the wrists and coming before his disciples and saying, you know,

I am not a spirit, this flesh and bone, you know, because I have flesh and bone before you. So it's amazing to me that they would say that.

And then the other thing that's interesting about the Jehovah's Witnesses is they have an intense interest, even an obsession, with the return of Christ.

They're constantly talking about the kingdom on earth. When's the kingdom on earth going to be established?

And that was very early on that they really got into that. But we're going to get into a lot of the nuances of that.

And Joe's with us tonight. Joe is somewhat of an expert on Jehovah's Witnesses.

He's got a whole pile of books there. I have a whole pile of books here, or some books at least anyway, from the

Jehovah's Witnesses. And we're going to bang it around a little bit tonight. Now Charles Taze Russell started the

Watchtower Track Society, but it was not called the Jehovah's Witnesses yet.

Charles Taze Russell died in 1912, I think it was. Let me see the back of my notes here.

I think he died in 1912, or 1916. But a man who was one of his disciples, one of his followers, was named

Joseph Franklin Rutherford. And he gave himself the self -imposed title of Judge.

So he called himself Judge Rutherford, if you've heard that before. And he kept on developing the doctrines of the

Watchtower, and he was the one that really started really getting organized, and making it kind of a machine, and getting kind of the printing presses going,

I'll say. He really started producing a lot of literature. And he was the one that started calling it

Jehovah's Witnesses later on. I have the date in here somewhere.

I think it's, it looks like 1935 or 1931.

He introduced the name Jehovah's Witnesses in 31, and the term of Kingdom Hall, where they would go, you know, in 1935.

But, we'll get into this in a minute. There's a lot of predictions that happened over the years with Jehovah's Witnesses, and we will talk about those in a little bit.

I have them here in my early notes, but we don't have to get into those right now. So, right now what I want to do is this.

We're going to go over several of the statements that Jehovah's Witnesses say about who God is, who Jesus Christ is, and what about things about creation, things about coming judgment.

And I'm going to read to you from some of the Jehovah's Witnesses' literature and books. When you hear what

I say, you're going to say, we could easily turn to Philippians chapter 2, or Revelation chapter 1, and that's so clearly wrong what you just said.

But, we have these, which is the

New World Translation. And I know that many of you know that there's always been a controversy over John 1, where the

Scriptures say that in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the

Word was God. And they introduced an article was a God.

They introduced an article that's not there in the manuscripts, the Greek manuscripts. So, we know about that, but the changes in their translation is much more heavy and deep than that.

And we are going to look at a lot of this. So, what I'd like you to do is, if you if you think you have a verse that contradicts what

I'm saying, we'll read the verse from the Bible, and then we'll read the verse from here.

And if I know, I also have a Greek, two Greek interlinear texts with me tonight, so we have some of the

Greek words as well. And we'll just see what we can find out tonight. I have some specific things we want to look at, but I know in your minds, when we read some of these things, you're going to be like, oh my goodness, you know, all we have to do is read

Colossians chapter 1. It's not that big of a deal. Okay, so, from their book called

Make Sure of All Things, written in 1956, they say only Jehovah is from everlasting to everlasting.

Now, we wouldn't deny that Jehovah's from everlasting, but we would also say that Jesus Christ is from everlasting to everlasting as well.

And there are scriptures about that. Jesus is not one God with the

Father. He is not one God with the Father. This is also from Make Sure of All Things.

You want to stop me? Go ahead. But it's perfectly fine if we just keep going, because we're gonna have a lot of stuff to read tonight.

Okay, next thing. There was a time when Jehovah was alone in universal space.

All life and energy and thought were contained in him alone. Now, does that sound like an accurate statement?

No, it was always the Trinity, the

Father, Son, and Spirit always existed eternally, co -eternally. That is from Let God Be True, written in 1952.

Okay, now, in a book called Let God Be True, they say this, the obvious conclusion is that Satan is the originator of the

Trinity doctrine. So they attribute the Trinity concept to Satan.

Now, obviously, that's going to contradict all of the early church creeds, all the early church fathers, and it's going to contradict what we've studied in the scriptures.

So, you know, we've gone through so many verses that prove that the

Bible says that Jesus is God, and that he is co -equal with the Spirit and the Father. They rewrite many of those verses, but they can't get them all.

They just can't get them all. So we're going to look at some from their version that absolutely proves that Jesus Christ is

God Almighty as well, even though they would like to say their Bible doesn't, but it does. As I said, they didn't even have a

New World Translation until like 1940. The reason that they said they translated it at that time was because they said the

King James language was out of date, so they needed a new fresh translation. Wait till we start reading it, you'll be very interested.

So they have a problem with the word Elohim, right? We talked about the word

Elohim in the Old Testament. Elohim is plural for what? It's a plural form of El, like El Shaddai, El Elyon, and clearly it says

Elohim created the world, and then when the Lord said, we shall make man in our image, or man has become like us, no one could...

Those words, that word Elohim, is plural in the

Old Testament. It's like, well how can God say he's one God, but yet plural? And even in the

Great Shema, we have the word Elohim embedded in the Great Shema. So how can we say then that Elohim doesn't mean that there's a plurality of the

Godhead, that there's a plurality of God? Well, they say that Elohim is plural for the majesty of God, meaning he's majestic in many ways.

It does not mean that he is a mysterious trinity. So that comes from a book called

The New Heavens and the New Earth. So they just conveniently, you know, they didn't deny that the word means plural, but they denied that it actually stands for plural of a noun of the object that it's modifying, that it's referring to his majesty, not to his person itself.

So that's what the kind of stuff we're going to run into as we go forward. Now what does the

Jehovah's Witnesses say about Jesus Christ? We already said that they believe he's Michael the

Archangel. They believe that Jehovah made the universe through him.

On earth he was a man who lived a perfect life after dying on a stake and not a cross.

And I'm not sure why they really drive that point home, but they say he died on a stake.

And the pictures that they would show in like this book here of Jesus, it would not be with his arms spread out, as we know the

Romans did, and as we know the scriptures say many, many, many times. They have him like upright on one stake like this.

I don't understand why they did that. I did not look hard into that, but for some reason that is what they believe.

I don't know, Joe, if you know why they say that. I think they're just looking for other differences, but what

I read was the Persians actually invented crucifixion, and it was on a stake, and the

Romans added the crossbar. Oh, I have heard that too, yeah. And why they think that it wasn't...

But it's the same word, staros. Okay. Which means, it means the same thing with or without the crossbar.

Okay. Yeah, I don't know why they make such a big deal out of that. I don't know. Is that literally tree? Staros? Does that mean tree?

I don't know. We know in a couple places in the New Testament it says, you know, cursed is he who dies on a tree, right?

Yeah. And of course the cross is made out of, you know, a tree, but for some reason they do not like the idea of a cross.

It means, I think it means a stake with or without the crossbar. Okay. And it's just historical, it's the same word.

Yeah, so that's one of, that's one interesting thing. You know, I mean, that's not a, that's not a deal -breaker one way or another, but it's very interesting that they claim that.

They believe that his body, after dying, was destroyed.

That it was, it ceased to exist. That it was annihilated, and that his spirit was actually what he was raised as.

I'm not sure why they would say that, but you know, if you think about that, and as the words we read before.

So let's turn to Luke. I'm going to turn in the New World Translation and read from this.

If someone could read from, let's see.

So I think you could start, Mike, are you there? Luke chapter 24.

So Jesus is appearing to his disciples after he's been resurrected. If you could read 24 verses 37.

I'll say through 31, that should be good enough. Maybe through 40.

37 to 40. Yeah. But they were startled and frightened, and thought they saw a spirit.

And he said to them, why are you troubled, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? See my hands and my feet, that it is

I myself. Touch me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones, as you see that I have.

And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. And while they still disbelieved for joy, and were marveling, he said to them, have you anything here to eat?

They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and took it and ate it for them. Okay, so the key is here, that Jesus is proving to them, it is still the same person who died on the cross three days earlier.

And that he has a physical resurrected body. And he's physically before them, and he's also physically enjoying food with them.

So here's what the New World Translation says. But because they were terrified, and had become frightened, they were imagining that they beheld a spirit.

So he, that's right there, that's what it says. So he said to them, why are you troubled? And why is it that doubts come into your, into your hearts?

See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Feel me and see me, because a spirit does not have flesh and bones, just as you have behold that I have.

And as he said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. And it goes, so they did not change that section.

So why in the world they would say that Jesus did not raise in the physical form that he did, is beyond me.

I don't understand why they would, why they would press that point, or why they would go there, but it's clearly very easily proven false.

I didn't, I didn't read anything about that. I mean, I certainly could, you know, we could read the

New World Translation. That takes quite a few bodies that he raised up. Obviously Jairus's daughter, they were all physically raised from dead.

But they also, they do believe for some reason, that if you die yourself, and you're a good

Jehovah's Witnesses, your body, your soul is going to go to sleep. All the bad people are going to be annihilated, okay.

But those who are Jehovah's Witnesses are going to be, and there is a physical resurrection into the kingdom, and you are going to live forever on earth in the kingdom.

So they do believe in a physical resurrection, but for some reason they do not believe that Jesus was physically resurrected. And that's, that's a puzzle, that's puzzling to me.

And Michael, they believe, is again, that none other than the only begotten

Son of God, now Jesus Christ. In the Old Testament, he was Michael the Archangel. In the New Testament, he's

Jesus Christ. And that comes from a book called New Heavens and New Earth. So those are some of the things about, they say about God and about Jesus Christ.

Now, what do they say about the scriptures? What do they say about the documents that we hold dear, the

New and the Old Testament? What do they say about it? Well, I'm going to read from this right now.

They were corrupted. I'm going to read to you how highly they think of, supposedly, the

Word of God. Now, what I'm reading from you is called, From Paradise Lost to Paradise Regained.

Okay? And I said before,

I don't know if you guys were here when I was talking about it, but this is basically a simplistic summary of all the scriptures.

So at times they're going to quote the scriptures, but they're also going to interweave their own teachings within it.

Okay? So this is, it says this. It's supposed to be going out to about 55 other countries so that they can understand the

Bible. Really, it's understanding the indoctrination of the Jehovah's Witnesses. So it says this in the introduction.

Why do we ask you these questions? It is because the Bible has been put into more different languages than any other book in the world.

Likely, it has been put into the language that you speak. Many copies of the Bible have been written or printed.

Man has printed more copies of the Bible than any other book that man has ever written. Do you know why that is so?

It is because the Bible is God's book, and it tells us the good things that God wants us to know.

The Bible is the only book on earth that tells us how man's first paradise was lost, and how paradise will be brought back to this earth, and how you may live in it forever in happiness.

We want you to know the Bible tells us about God and about the good thing he wants to give us if we please him.

Then, when you read the Bible itself, you will understand more easily what it says. Do not feel ashamed if you have never seen a

Bible or ever read it. This is almost like an evangelical sort of thing, where they're trying to reach out to those who have never heard about the

Bible, and have never heard about God's plan of salvation or redemption, or how the world was created.

They're going to summarize all this, and they're trying to reach out to those who really don't know anything about the Bible. In that sense, it's like we should really be convicted of our heart that these folks put this much effort into trying to reach people with their message.

It's like, do we put as much effort in on our end? You know, they've written so much literature, and they put so much work in, going door -to -door, thinking they're earning things, thinking that they're working towards salvation.

And we have the free gift of God, but we know that all those who don't accept

Jesus Christ are going to have an end which is much more real and much more,

I'll say, sad than what they believe. They believe that the person dies without knowing about Jehovah God, that they're going to be annihilated.

We know that the Bible talks about eternal damnation, and that those who reject God and sin against his eternal holiness are going to be cast in the lake of fire.

So we should have more impetus. We should have more motivation. And because God has loved us so much, we should have more in our hearts to share with anyone.

So in some senses, this is very convicting. Yeah? You may be pointing toward this eventually, but Revelation 22, 18, and 19, a couple of the last verses of the

Bible, talk about changing the Word of God for your purposes.

Yeah. And that's what they're doing. Yeah. Yeah. And that's any warning for anybody who would monkey with the

Word of God, right? God takes his Word very seriously. So we're going to read now about how they came up with the

New World Translation. So they say the Bible is very important. Let's follow the

Bible. Well, the New World Translation was produced by the New World Translation Committee in 1947.

This committee is said to have been comprised by unnamed members of a multinational background.

So they didn't want to publicize who actually was on this committee. Some of the members were identified later, however.

Referring to the identified members, the evangelical minister Walter Ralston Martin said, the

New World Bible Translation Committee had no translators with recognized degrees in Greek, Hebrew, exegesis, or translation.

None of these men even had a university education, except for Franz, this is

Frederick Franz, who left school after two years, never completing an undergraduate degree.

Frederick Franz had stated that he was familiar not only with Hebrew, but with Greek, Latin, Spanish, Portuguese, German, and French for the purpose of biblical translation.

So what you have here in 1947 is a committee of people who wanted the

Bible to say what they wanted it to say. And they were not honest translators. They were not fluent in Greek and Hebrew and Aramaic.

So what they did is if they had verses that were troublesome to them, they would phrase it in a way that would make it more palatable for their doctrines.

And we're going to see a lot of examples of that. So here's the problem though.

Challenging mistranslations in the NWT, New World Translation, has its place, and we're going to talk about tonight, but often it's just going to lead to arguments that don't produce fruit, unfortunately.

We all know about John 1. We talked about that before, right? That John 1, they insert an article that's not there in the original text.

I don't think you'd ever be able to convince a Jehovah's Witness that they're in error on that.

I have a couple of things that I'd like to go through now as far as the translation and show you how biased their translation is.

We're going to look at the iambs of John first. We don't have to turn there right now, but I'm just going to read several of the iambs of the

Gospel of John. We know Jesus said, I am the bread of life. And their version would say the same thing.

I am the bread of life. John 8 .12 says, therefore Jesus spoke to them again saying,

I am the light of the world. Again, their version is going to say, I am the light of the world.

John 9 .5, as long as I am in the world, I am the world's light.

So I am, I am. John 10 .7, Jesus said to them, most truly

I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. Again, I am. John 10 .9,

I am the door. Whoever enters through me will be saved and he will go in and out in a fine fashion.

Now there's many, many other times where it says I am in John, but there's one verse in particular that they do not like that says,

I am. The Greek phrase translated, I am, every single time

I read it and many, many more times is ego ami in the

Greek. Well, the verse they don't like is this, John 8 .58.

Can someone turn there and read that? Well, you guys know which verse I'm talking about.

I'm gonna, well maybe Joe could read it in a New World Translation. Do you have a New World Translation there, Joe? I do have it open. Let's read you, have you read it second.

Okay. So John, are you getting there? Okay, we'll have

John read. 8 .58. Jesus said to them, truly, truly,

I say to you, before Abraham was, I am. So that's the pointing back to Exodus 3 .14,

the great I am, Jehovah, Yahweh. So Joe, what do you have there? In the 1986 edition,

Jesus said to them, most truly I say to you, before Abraham came into existence, I have been.

That's a little more palatable than saying I am, because I am points back to the great revelation of Jehovah, being the great

I am, the all -existent one, the eternally existent one. And if Jesus is saying in this verse that he is the eternally existent one, and by the way, he is because he says before Abraham was,

I am. And the whole problem is that Jesus is claiming, you know, deity and messiahship, and they do not like what he's talking about in John chapter 8.

What do they do, what do they say about Abraham rejoicing and seeing his day? Well, they're gonna read, they're gonna, they're not gonna cut out verse,

I have not seen like big chunks cut out or anything like that. And most of the time, because they think

Jesus is a special being, they will allow a lot of things to be said about him, and they won't have a lot of trouble with that, because they'll say, well, that's because he's special, he's

Michael the archangel. And all things were created through him, except him, because he was created by God the

Father. So we're gonna read verses about that in a second. But, you know, if you are talking to a

Jehovah's Witness, you could ask them, okay, all of these other times in the book of John, we have ego me translated,

I am. Why is this verse translated different? You know, that might be interesting, you know, you can see where you go with that.

There's other, there's two other verses that are very interesting, but there's a lot of stuff that's extremely interesting. It's all interesting, right?

Let's turn to Titus chapter 2, verse 13. And if somebody could also turn, so Jim, could you turn to Titus chapter 2, verse 13?

And Ryan, do you have the scriptures in front of you, too? Could you turn to 2 Peter chapter 1, verse 1?

So, okay. Waiting for, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great

God and Savior, Jesus Christ. Could you read that slower again, just a little bit?

Yep, rewind. Waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great

God and Savior, Jesus Christ. It says our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ.

So the subject of that sentence is Jesus Christ and great God and Savior modify his name.

They don't like that. They don't like that even a little bit. So what the New World Translation says is this, we wait for the happy hope and glorious manifestation of the great

God and of the Savior of us, Jesus Christ. So they insert, again, an article that's not there.

But we're going to have a little bit of trouble with this because, okay, wait a second.

It's interesting in both these cases. So the context in Titus chapter 2 indicates that only one person is in view, and that's

Jesus Christ. They're looking for the great coming and the appearing of Jesus Christ. The sentence continues in the verse 14 with only one person,

Jesus Christ. He gave him self to purify for himself a people. So this language is reminiscent of the redemptive work of Jehovah, turning back to Isaiah in the

Psalms and whatnot. But here it's speaking of Jesus Christ, and the context of him before and after that sentence is

Jesus Christ. There's no reason to insert a gratuitous, unnatural reference to the

Father in the middle of this passage. And as a matter of fact, the word isn't there. So why do they do it?

They do it because they do not want that verse to say, our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Well, 2 Peter 1 .1 is even more interesting, I think. So Ryan, could you read 2

Peter 1 .1, and then Joe, I'll have you read 2 Peter 1 .1 out of the New World Translation.

Very similar.

Our God and Savior, Jesus Christ. So, Joe, could you read 2 Peter 1 .1

out of the New World Translation? Yes. Simon Peter, a slave and apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who have obtained a faith, held in equal privilege with ours by the righteousness of our

God and the, in brackets, Savior, Jesus Christ. So he's trying, again, to separate

God and Savior, the God and Savior. But here's an interesting twist on this.

Joe, could you read verse 11 of 2 Peter? So 2 Peter 1 .11.

In fact, thus there will be richly supplied to you the entrance into the everlasting kingdom of our

Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Oh, so that verse says,

Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. The verse is identical.

The Greek is identical except for one change, kurios and theos. In verse 1, it says theos.

So, to our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ. But they insert a bonus word.

The Greek is identical except kurios is used in verse 11. But in that one, they do not insert, as you heard

Joe read, they say Lord and Savior, not Lord and the Savior. So why do they insert that special word into one verse and not into another verse, which is the exact same translation?

So you get the concept that there's many biases and many sneaky little things that they've done, but it's so dishonest.

Yeah. And it is so incredibly biased and not according to good translational practices.

Now, let's point to a couple more, but we're going to get to a lot of stuff here. Acts 20 .28.

Cameron, do you have that? Could you turn to that? Acts 20 .28. We're going to give Joe a workout here because he's got the

New World Translations. Let Joe read this. Yes, Acts 20 .28.

Yes. Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God which he obtained with his own blood.

Okay. Now, what you don't see in that verse is the name

Jesus Christ. You also will not see the name Jesus Christ before or after that.

The context of Acts 20 .28 is God Almighty, but it says

God Almighty purchased the church with his own blood. Well, we know whose blood was shed, and if it's own blood, and that verse is saying it was

God Almighty who shed his own blood, the Jehovah's Witnesses have a problem. So, let's see how they get around it.

Joe, could you read the same thing? Sure. Verse 28. Pay attention to yourselves and to all the flock among which the

Holy Spirit has appointed you overseers, to shepherd the congregation of God which he purchased with the blood of his own

Son. And Holy Spirit is not in caps. Right.

But Son is not in the text. Son is an inserted word again, just as they are prone to do.

And they actually have a little note. It was in both my versions of the New Testament. It says, well, this is just like Luke chapter 13, verse 2 and 4, where they say that there's also kind of a reason to insert this extra word.

Oh, I'm sorry. I'm thinking of something else. But in this particular case, they point to some obscure translations of the

Bible, the Lexham English Bible and the complete Jewish Bible, that actually do insert this word as well in their translations.

I don't know why those two translations do, but it's not in the text. They insert it because they have a bias, because they cannot accept that if they left that verse alone as it was, it would testify that God Almighty purchased the church.

And these brackets disappear in later editions. Oh, it does? You have a pretty new version though, right?

No, this is an older one. It was, well, 86. Yeah, and these two versions I have, but these are older than yours even, so.

Well, I got 90s, I got 2011. So you're saying in the older version, or the newer versions, they remove the brackets to give a semblance that it's really real and it's really there, but it's not.

It's a word again that they inserted. Now, yeah, so we'll go through a couple more of these.

The Holy Spirit is interesting. Let's not focus on the Holy Spirit so much, but they say he's a force, right?

I'm just going to have Joe read John chapter 14 verses 16 and 17.

You guys can read along with your version. It won't take long before you figure out where the problems are.

We're not going to go into the problems, but I just want you to know what they say John 14 through 16, 16 and 17 reads like.

So John 14, 16 and 17. It says, And I will request the

Father, and he will give you another Helper to be with you forever, the Spirit of the truth, which the world cannot receive, because it neither beholds it nor knows it.

You know it because it remains with you and is in you. Okay, what's the key difference there?

It's just him, not it. The Bible says him, and the reason the Bible says him, and I did look up the

Greek on this. I guess we are going to get into it a little bit. The pronoun that's again modifying the subject back is a neuter pronoun.

What's a neuter pronoun? It's a reflexive pronoun that refers back to what it modified.

So what it modified was the Helper, the Comforter, which is a masculine word.

So if the translators were being honest about the text, the translation would not be it, it would be he, because this was a masculine word back earlier in the sentence, because this is what it's modifying.

This is what it's, you know, enforcing. So again, a very dishonest translation to get across what they want to say, as opposed to what the

Scriptures really say. Okay, some of the other things,

Colossians chapter 1, we know that's a very big chapter for, again, the deity of Christ.

Hebrews chapter 1, very big. There's changes abounding in all those things, but we are getting late on time, so I'm going to just bypass those for right now, and tell you that they have many, many, many, many other documents.

And even though they said that the Bible is so paramount and important to learn, they have written many, many documents like this.

And as a matter of fact, Joe said he has the volumes that Charles Taze Russell wrote early on, called

Studies in the Scriptures, which at one point, the Watchtower said, if you don't have these books, you can't understand the

Bible correctly. So that you have to read Charles Taze Russell's interpretations and views to get an accurate understanding of what the

Scriptures say. Thankfully, the Bible says you have the Holy Spirit within you who teaches you all things, so you don't need extra help from anybody else or any other books.

You have this, and you have the Holy Spirit within you. So it doesn't have to go that way.

But they had many other books. They had one book called You May Survive Armageddon, because that's their goal, is they want to get through earth to get to that kingdom.

And they have a view of being able to scrape and modify their way through, and then end up getting into the kingdom on the other side.

There's many other things. They have another book called What Does the Bible Really Teach? Many other things. What did they say about the rapture?

I didn't look at the rapture, but I'm going to read right now about what they say about creation. So, I really wanted to read from this a few different times.

So, here's what it says about creation. I hope my throat hangs out for this, but it says,

You may ask, How did it come to be? Who made it? Why did he make it? For truthful answers to these, there's only one place to go, and that is the

Bible. It is written in the Word of God, is therefore the book of truth. God is the

Almighty and Unseen Being who made all things. He is spirit, which means he is neither earthly nor human.

The Bible mentions his name Jehovah over 6 ,800 times. He said himself, I am

Jehovah, that is my name. It also tells us that the first paradise was made by Jehovah God for man.

Long before the paradise of Eden was made, even before the earth came to be, Jehovah decided to make man and give him a beautiful home.

So, he began to create, that is to make all things that had never been before. The very first words of the

Bible tell us this by saying, In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. And it goes on a little bit more, says this, but this is what

I want to get to. It says, Early on when the earth was being formed, it was a hot ball of gas, and no doubt it looked much like the sun does today.

Its glory, however, did not shine far, as there was something that shut it in like a big blanket.

It is thought that this big blanket of darkness was due to a great thick dust cloud, which kept the earth's glory to itself, and shut out all light from the sun and the other stars.

Now, you can see some interesting things already, but wait, he says, After a very long time the earth began to cool.

You know, I'm going to have to have you read this. Could you read, starting right here, and?

As it slowly cooled, it changed from a ball of fiery gas to a ball of hot boiling liquid.

Very slowly a crust formed over this liquid, which hardened as time passed.

We could compare the crust to the hard scab that forms over a cut in your flesh.

As the earth continued to cool, its crust became thicker and thicker. Today this crust forms the ground upon which we walk.

Continue? Yeah, go ahead. Oh, there's some more interesting things in there. Thank you. Okay. After the earth had cooled for a great length of time, thousands and thousands of years, its crust slowly became covered with water until there was nothing but one great ocean all over it.

This meant that the earth was no longer hot, and it therefore did not shine as it once did.

It was very dark. Even light from the sun could not fall upon it, because of the dust cloud of darkness in between.

That is why the Bible says, now the earth proved to be formless and waste, and there was darkness upon the surface of the earth.

Oh, sorry, surface of the surging waters. That's Genesis 1, 2.

The time has now come to start getting the earth ready for animals and humans that would live on it.

So a period began that the Bible calls the first day. This was not a day of 24 hours, but instead 7 ,000 years long.

During this first creative day, the cloud of darkness was taken away from between the earth and the sun.

At this time the earth received the bright light of the sun. Thus light came to shine on the vapor -enclosed earth as God commanded, and God proceeded to say, let light come to be, and there came to be light.

The sunlight did not yet fall upon the waters covering the earth's crust.

It was kept out by thick clouds of water vapor that had formed around the earth during the time it was cooling.

So all the dark here as it is on the sea on a cloudy, moonless night, the sunlight fell upon just the upper or outer surface of the watery clouds.

Jehovah God spoke of this water envelope when he asked, where did you happen to be when

I founded the earth? When I put the cloud as its garment and thick gloom as its swaddling

I guess that's okay. That's enough. Yeah, that's from Job. So what you're seeing in there is part of the creation story, but they're also mingling in a lot of interpretation and a lot of their own ideas.

Sounds like more like the evolutionary model. Well, the fact that, you know, old earth, young earth isn't the point.

The fact is, is they they've said that the the stars and and the heavenly bodies were created before the earth was.

They said that there's this period of 7 ,000 years which they came up with sometime. Yeah. It's like this is how long it take to cool the earth.

I don't know where they came up with that. But it's it's mingling in a lot of their own ideas with some of the scriptures.

But this is kind of what you what you get the idea of is this is what their teaching is. Whatever they come up with, they're going to use the

Bible, they're going to twist the Bible, and they're going to get it to say whatever they would like it to say.

All of their teachings are like this. Which have changed over the years. And it's changed many times.

How many times did they predict the second coming? 1914? 1925? Yeah, and unfortunately we're getting close to the end here, but I'm gonna read to you about what they say about salvation and sin.

So sin is falling short of God's mark of perfection, transgression of his righteous law. That's from make sure of all things.

At death, Adam was returned to the dust and returned to non -existence.

So again annihilation. Now I guess they're saying that Adam isn't going to be part of the kingdom.

No. Because if he just ceases to exist, he's not going to make it as one of the Jehovah's Witnesses I guess.

David, Moses, Samuel. Yeah, because 144 ,000.

Now some of the things they say is right. They say no descendant of Adam is free from sin. All inherit sin from the first man.

Well that's right. That's from one of their books. Adam brought death not only upon himself, but also upon the race descended from him.

So in those senses that you know they would be correct about that.

But redemption and salvation now. Adam is not included in those who are ransomed.

He had a perfect life and he forfeited that life. Tough luck for Adam. So even though the

Lord, you know, apparently shed the animal skins, and we know that he had fellowship with the

Lord even after his sin, Jehovah's Witnesses say he's not going to make it. So Jesus, his perfect human life with all of its rights and prospects was laid down unto death.

But not for sin and punishment. Jesus was raised a divine spirit. And that comes from their book,

Let God Be True. The value of Jesus's perfect human life is now available for us on behalf of faithful men.

So those who are faithful to God, those who follow God, those who do what the

Jehovah's Witnesses say they should do, meaning you need to earn your way by following Jehovah and his commandments.

If you earn your way then the value that Jesus purchased with his perfect life can now be attributed to you and you will make it into the kingdom.

But the problem with that is like all other works religions, what do you have to do to do enough? What constitutes somebody who's in good standing as Jehovah's Witness?

Well that's very hard to answer. Some of the videos I have at the end here are

Ray Comfort and and some other evangelistic teams asking Jehovah's Witnesses, how much do you have to do?

Well they'll say, well you have to be a good person. You have to do acts for Jehovah, like going door -to -door.

And we say, well how many doors do I have to knock on? Is three doors enough? Is a hundred doors enough?

Do you know if you've done enough? And the people who they're talking to can never answer the question, because they don't know.

They're put in a state of limbo because they're imprisoned with this belief system that you have to be good, but they don't know how good.

And they don't know about the grace of God that's freed them from the sins they've committed, and that they can have salvation through Jesus alone, not through this works prospect that has been put before them.

So even though they say Jesus' perfect human life can be attributed to them, they still have to work for it.

And a matter of fact, in one of their books it says, his life makes it possible for general resurrection of mankind, with the opportunity for eternal life.

This is another book. It says, the Bible plainly shows us that 144 ,000 will share in heavenly glory, which the others will enjoy the blessings of life down here on earth.

Meaning that 144 ,000 get to go to heaven, but everyone else just gets a good life on earth.

You don't get to heaven. So that whole deal with 144 ,000 has been a real sticking point for a long time, because if you're a

Jehovah's Witness, and you know that eight million people in the world follow Jehovah's Witnesses, are you saying,

I'm not going to go to heaven? It's only for 144 ,000. The bus is full. Yeah, the bus is full.

But in recent years what they've said, and this goes back to changing things all the time, they say, well there's really 8 ,000 more spots to kind of like throw a carrot out there to hope, so people can hope, well maybe

I'll get there. Well the problem is, if we read about the 144 ,000, it was of the 12 tribes of Israel.

It had nothing to do with Jehovah's Witnesses at all. It was those from, you know,

Asher, and Gad, and Naphtali, and you know. Yeah, nothing to do with that.

But they call this group that's going to be supposedly entering into the kingdom, they call them the

Great Unnumbered Crowd, and they are going to gain everlasting life, because they've proved their faithfulness on earth, by faith in Jehovah's baptism, provided that they abide in him, keeping their good conscience through faith and loyal service.

And that comes from the book, New Heavens and the New Earth. So yeah, Jesus has done this wonderful thing, but it's incomplete.

You got to work your way there. Yes, only for a select few. Now they don't clip, as I said, they don't clip a lot of the scriptures.

They keep adding words and things like that, as we've looked at many times, right? Well, one of their books says, it is a gross twisting of the scriptures to throw

Jesus's words of John 3 -3, to make them embrace all mankind.

Meaning this, this great crowd of people are not born again, nor do they need to be born again, because they gain everlasting life on earth.

So they're making a distinction between, I think, the 144 ,000, and maybe they'll say they would be born again, but this great crowd that's going to enter the kingdom is not born again.

And, you know, John 3 -3 is not the only place where it talks about being born from above, or born again.

Peter does, first Peter does, and there are other places in the scripture, but the concept that the

Holy Spirit indwells the believer, if the Holy Spirit doesn't indwell the believer, he is not his.

That concept is kind of just thrown out the window. There's no reason for you to be born again, even though Jesus said, unless you were born again, you cannot see the kingdom of God.

You cannot enter the kingdom of God. But they view that as just not a correct belief.

They really don't explain that one, that I've seen, except that it's a gross twisting of the scriptures, even though the scriptures plainly say that.

So those are some of the things it says about salvation. I'm not going to read the ones about judgment.

Go ahead, Joe. I was just going to say, I think their inconsistency comes partially from the fact that they teach that you shouldn't make arguments, and they quote the things that are about quarrels, right?

And they inflate quarrels and good arguments for truth. And it's so inconsistent, in fact, that Charles Taze Russell in his book, his original writings, he said that you didn't earn salvation here at all.

Here you earned a second chance. And on the new earth, that's where you had to lead a perfect life to go to heaven, which is not consistent with anything modern.

So they changed that as well. Completely. We're not going to go into the military or holidays or blood transfusions or any of that, because we just don't have time to.

And I think those are secondary issues anyway. But let's talk about some problems with predictions, okay?

If you are a prophet of God, your word should come true, because God has spoken to you and through you.

Well, what's the key date, folks? Does anybody know what the key date is? 1914?

Yeah, that's one of them. That's the big one now. I'm going to read to you what it says in this book, which was written in 1958 about that.

When will Armageddon be fought? Jehovah, the great timekeeper, has scheduled

Armageddon to come at the close of the time of the end. That time is near. How near?

No man knows the day or the hour. Concerning that day and hour, nobody knows, said Jesus, but only the

Father. God has set the date for this world to come to an end.

No man knows that date. But what do we know is that it will be very soon.

How do we know it will be soon? Because the time left for the devil, now that Christ has hurled the devil down to earth, is called a short period of time.

The time left for the devil's world is now very short. So this is written in 58, remember. We know that Armageddon is near for another reason.

Jesus said that this generation of people, when the end time shall come, the time of the end, these generation would not pass away before Armageddon breaks out.

When did Jesus say this? When he told us about many parts of a sign and the times of the end.

The sign is made up of different happenings. All these happenings must come upon one generation to make up the sign.

Now originally they said the end of the world was going to be 1914, and that that was going to be the end of the time.

But what they said in 1914 was, well, Jesus came back spiritually then. So this is how they modified it.

They said since 1914, these signs have come. What does that mean?

Jesus answered, when you see all these things, you know that he is near at the door.

Truly I say to you that this generation will by no means pass away until all these things occur. Many are the people alive since 1914 who will still be living at the time of Armageddon to begin.

And then it goes on to say about what Armageddon will be like. So it says many people alive in 1914 will be alive when

Armageddon begins. Okay, do the math. How did they make out with that prophecy?

If you're 110 years old, and maybe there's one or two people like that left, you could say that they're correct.

But they've changed their prophecy about when Jesus has returned and when the time of the end. And what they keep doing every time that their predictions fail is they modify it and they say, well,

Jesus really came back in the spirit. And what it means is this now. So I think it was 1914.

I think it was 1918. And then 1925 was another one. And then they jumped forward quite a bit.

I don't have all the dates written down. It's in all these videos that I have. 72, I think, was another one.

And I believe there was one in the 80s too. And it just keeps going and going and going.

And that's what happens when you create a false religion based on man's ideas, and it gets proven wrong.

You have to keep changing your mind and changing your ideas. A lot of people thought it was the 80s.

Yeah, a lot of Christians thought it was the 80s too. Howard Camp, yeah.

Thank God that there's one in heaven who has all the answers. And until that time, we're called to be faithful.

We are called to be faithful. Yeah, really, I'm glad it wasn't. I was saved in 1991.

So I'm glad you didn't come back in the 80s, right? Yeah. So I want to say in summary, though, we haven't talked a lot about how you talk to a

Jehovah's Witness. I want to hang out here for a minute and do this. Is Jesus God Almighty? Yes.

We've seen many times in the scriptures where they've twisted things and turned things around. But let's talk about what their

New World Translation does say. Okay, in Luke chapter 15, it says

Jesus heals a paralytic man, and he says, friend, be of good cheer.

Your sins are forgiven. The Pharisees say, who is this blasphemer?

No one can forgive sins but God alone. And Jesus, knowing their thoughts, said, why are your hearts troubled within you?

So not only did Jesus read their mind, he forgave the man's sins. The religious leaders understood that he was claiming to be

God. Well, that version is not altered in the

New World Translation. They clearly just state that. So who is Jesus claiming to be?

Matthew 11, 28 -30. We know this very well. It says, all you who are weary and heavy laden, come to me and I'll give you rest.

Who could say that but God alone? Now, if you think about it, you know,

Jesus is making a claim that if you come to me, I can give you rest. This is not an angel speaking. This is not

Michael the Archangel. This is God Almighty, who has the wonder power to save and to give comfort and to hold someone.

So there's many statements like that in the scriptures that they do not alter. But if they really thought about what the words were saying,

Jesus is claiming deity through this. John 5, 17 and 18.

Jesus healed a man on the Sabbath. And they didn't like that. It was a man by the pool of Bethesda.

It says, he says there that my father is working and I am working.

And they didn't, the religious leaders didn't like the whole working thing because he did it on the Sabbath. But they also didn't like the fact that he equated himself with a father saying the father's working and I am also working.

And they took up stones to stone him because he was he was equating himself with God. Jehovah's Witnesses have those verses in the

Bible. The religious leaders knew very well that Jesus was claiming deity. And it even says that he equated himself with God.

They do not scratch those verses. Isaiah 43, 11. And this is one that would really bother them.

I, even I, am the Lord Jehovah and there is no savior besides me.

Well, how many times have we read already tonight and the New Testament says Jesus Christ is the savior of the world.

There's really no way around that. They don't scratch those verses that say Jesus is the savior.

But if they read back Isaiah 43, 11, it says there is no other savior but Jehovah God.

They have to deal with that. So these are, these are some quick interesting ones. So what could we ask a

Jehovah's Witness? Oh, go ahead Brian. John 10, 30. I and the father are one.

They doctored that one. The monks in the Greek. Oh, in the Greek it would be right.

But that's like all those other verses we went through. They doctored that one. So they would add it. So you'd have to get into the

Greek and the translation and all that. And that's where they'll muddle you up some. So even though we went through a lot of the

Greek and how they doctored this, it's probably safer to go through some of the verses that they have in theirs that still point that Jesus is

God Almighty. So what can we do to talk to our friends who are

Jehovah's Witnesses? I do like the Ray Comfort approach where basically they ask the people who are in this cult, how can

I have eternal life? How can I enter the kingdom? If I was to die in three minutes like somebody poisoned me,

I'm coming to you right now. How can I enter the kingdom? Because I can't go door -to -door.

I can't go to Kingdom Hall and be a good Jehovah's Witness for years and years and years. I only have five minutes.

How can I enter the kingdom? And they're dumbfounded. They do not know how to answer that question.

And basically it points out the fact that Jesus' sacrifice isn't sufficient.

But also, they have no concept of how good is good enough. And if you point to the thief on the cross who was guaranteed to enter paradise with Christ, who is a thief and a blasphemer, how can that man enter paradise when he was not a good

Jehovah's Witness? No. If those kinds of things are questions we can ask our Jehovah's Witness friends, and not snobbery, right?

Because we care about everyone. We want everyone to know the free grace that is given by Jesus and to be set free from false religion and false beliefs.

And Jesus said, know the truth and have the truth set you free. I felt so badly about those who would be trapped in this system.

And just knowing that if we do run into folks that we know that are

Jehovah's Witnesses, that we have good news to share with them. We have good news to set them free.

And there's a lot more, you know, in here and you can watch the videos. I'll send this out. But does anyone have anything else before we close up?

I feel like we kind of went through fast. Did you ever see John Ankerberg? And John Ankerberg at times would have

Walter Martin on, and he would, you know, confront Jehovah's Witness leaders and show them their errors from their own work.

Well, what's very poignant, I think, is some of the videos that I have and links in this document are

Jehovah's Witnesses leaders that departed and came to faith in Jesus Christ.

And they have a lot to say about how things were done, and how things were organized, and how things were, you know.

Definitely want to see that. Yeah, it's quite interesting. And there's a lot of secrets about Joseph Rutherford and the time of the

Depression, which tells you what kind of person he was. Because apparently at the time of the

Depression, Jehovah's Witness empire had started to grown up, and he had accumulated a lot of wealth.

And he basically took it on the lamb over to Europe, and just lived high on the hog in Europe while the people in this country were suffering.

And, you know, his Jehovah's Witness people were, you know, were barely making it, you know, during the

Great Depression. But he was living high on the hog in mansions and great, you know, beautiful big luxury cars and all this stuff over in Europe.

Yeah, the wolf doesn't care for the sheep. No, the wolf doesn't care for the sheep at all. But that's just one more black eye that they would have.

But you wouldn't go into that if you were speaking to a Jehovah's Witness, probably. But just one more bit of information.

Anybody else have any thoughts on how the Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses view each other?

Gosh, I don't know. I mean, I assume they both think what they teach is false. It's totally different.

We went through Mormonism a little while ago. But, you know, Brian, the same kind of thing happened.

It's like, they'll say the Bible is so important, but then they'll have this, and they'll have this, and they'll have that, and they'll have all kinds of things that were added on afterwards.

Even though what Rick mentioned earlier is, you know, it says, you know, if you add to this book, you know, you're not speaking for God, all the plagues of this book will be added onto you.

So they basically do the same thing, but they wouldn't see each other as equivalent, or they would see each other as probably, you know, both false.

Yeah, so I was a little upset, because like I said,

I'm sad about folks who are trapped in this, but we're encouraged as well, because we have the message of truth, and that can break through any defenses, and the

Lord can save anyone who is trapped in any sort of, you know, in a system that would teach them error.

So let's close up in prayer. Phil, could you close the prayer? Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for the truth of your

Word, Lord God. We thank you that you've called us, Lord, and you've drawn us to you,

Lord. Lord, we pray that you would use us to bring light to a dark world,

Lord. And Lord, we thank you for Drew and his preparation for this evening, Lord God, and just the eye -opening of what these cults believe,

Lord. And God, we pray that you would use us again, just in this dark world, that you would use us to bring light and your truth to many,