WWUTT 1884 How to Witness to a Jehovah’s Witness (with Dr. James White)

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Both Jehovah's Witnesses and the Latter -day Saints, or Mormons, will claim to be Christians, but they believe in different Christs than the

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Christ of the Bible. So you have to be wise in the way that you share the gospel with them when we understand the text.

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Many of the Bible stories and verses we think we know, we don't. When We Understand the Text is an online ministry dedicated to teaching the

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Word of God in context, promoting sound doctrine while exposing the faulty. Here's your teacher,

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Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky, and greetings everyone. Ordinarily on Thursday, I would be doing

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Old Testament study, and the book that I'm in right now is the book of Isaiah. However, I'm a little behind this week since I posted yesterday's podcast a little bit late, and Becky and I are anticipating that we're not going to be able to do the

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Friday Q &A, or at least she won't be able to join me. Our youngest son is ill, and when one kid gets sick, the rest of them get sick.

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So we're just expecting that the Q &A with Becky is not going to happen this week anyway. So here's what

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I want to do. For today and tomorrow, I'm going to air a message from Dr.

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James White, who came to speak at our church this past Tuesday. We did not plan on having

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Dr. White with us, but by providence, he had to be rerouted due to weather.

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So that put him in Lyndale, Texas to stop by our church, First Baptist, and I found out about this.

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It was late Sunday night. Tom texted me and one of the other pastors and said, hey, we've got the opportunity to bring

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James in this week. What do you think we could do? I didn't want to put him on Wednesday night because we had already canceled one of our

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Wednesday night services earlier, and the class that I'm teaching, I have to stay on a certain schedule, or there's no way that I can finish the class.

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So because we had already missed one class, I wasn't going to be able to put it off again and be sure that I was going to finish up on time.

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So I said I'd prefer to not have it on Wednesday night. I'd love to have James White. Let's do whatever we can to have him teach us, but can we do it on another night other than Wednesday?

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And so Tom got with Dr. White about it, and he said that Tuesday night would work.

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So we decided that we wanted to have him share with us a little bit about Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormonism.

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How do you witness to a person who's a Jehovah's Witness? How do you share the gospel with them? And how do you share with a

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Mormon? Because both of them are going to believe that they're Christians, but we know they're not.

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They're heretics. They believe in a different Jesus. The Jehovah's Witnesses believe even in a completely different Jesus than the

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Mormons believe in. But these are different Christ. They're false Christ. They're not the Christ of the Bible.

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But when you talk to them, they're going to say that they're Christians. So how do you communicate to them that what they believe is wrong so that you may introduce them to the true

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Christ, that they may believe in the Christ of the Bible and be forgiven their sins and have everlasting life?

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So Dr. White shared with us in the first half of this teaching, so this was this past Tuesday night, in the first half, he taught us about Jehovah's Witnesses, what they believe, and how you can minister to a

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Jehovah's Witness with the gospel. Then in the last half of his talk, this was another 45 minutes, so it was broken into two 45 -minute segments, the last half of his talk was how to witness to a

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Mormon. So what I'm going to do is for today's lesson, we're going to hear

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Dr. James White talk about ministering to Jehovah's Witnesses, and then tomorrow will be part two of this talk as he takes us through how to witness to a

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Mormon or the Latter -day Saints. So putting this study in Isaiah on hold, although you are going to hear some

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Isaiah today, in fact, let me go ahead and open up by reading from Isaiah 43, verses 8 through 13.

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Bring out the people who are blind, even though they have eyes, and the deaf, even though they have ears.

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All the nations have gathered together, so that the peoples may be assembled. Who among them can declare this, and make us hear the former things?

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Let them present their witnesses, that they may be justified, or let them hear and say, it is true.

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You are my witnesses, declares Yahweh, and my servant whom I have chosen, so that you may know and believe me and understand that I am

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He. Before me there was no God formed, and there will be none after me.

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I, even I, am Yahweh, and there is no Savior besides me. It is

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I who have declared and saved and caused it to be heard, and there was no strange God among you, so you are my witnesses, declares

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Yahweh, and I am God. Even from eternity, I am

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He, and there is none who can deliver out of my hand. I act, and who can reverse it?

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On how to share the gospel with a Jehovah's Witness, here is Dr. James White.

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Well it is good to be with you, and of course these two topics, Alpha and Omega Ministries was founded 40 years ago this coming summer, and when it was founded, our sole focus at that point was

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Mormonism, that's all we thought we'd ever be dealing with. And it didn't take long until Jehovah's Witnesses got added to that list, and so these are things that we've been doing for years and years and years.

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So many trips up to Salt Lake City, out to the Easter pageant in Mesa, and then young men showing up out at the

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Easter pageant, young kid named Jeff Durbin, who showed up out there, and Jeff and I love talking about the fact, for those who don't know,

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Jeff's my fellow pastor at Apologia Church, and former world karate champion, and he's still fast as lightning, and I remember him showing up one night out in Mesa, and he was literally wearing what could only be described as pajama pants, they were these red plaid pajama pants, and he comes running up, and he says,

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I don't totally remember this, but I just went and turned away.

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He went home and changed. One of our earlier memories together.

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So I have spent many, many, many, many, many, many hours in conversation with LDS missionaries, with Jehovah's Witnesses, and so I want to share some of that with you for this reason.

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I do not want to do this to arm you to go into Facebook rooms and beat people up.

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That's not what this is about. Some of you are going, oh, man. I remember in 1985,

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I went to the District Convention of Jehovah's Witnesses in Tucson. They were going to be releasing a new service ministry manual called

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Reasoning from the Scriptures, and I sat through the morning sessions, and I'll never forget how

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I was struck with the fact that here were thousands and thousands of wonderfully, nicely dressed individuals, and I just knew that these people were miserable.

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When they would sing, there was no joy. They had no reason to be joyful.

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I mean, their entire theology is so depressing. If we can argue about a doctrine of eternal security, they have a doctrine of eternal insecurity.

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All but a very small percentage of them are not a part of what's called the anointed class. We'll look at it in just a moment.

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So they're of the great crowd. They're not truly born again. They're not truly justified.

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It's just, it's so sad. And I just want to try to communicate to you the fact that these are individuals who, they need to encounter

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Christians who love them enough and know enough about their faith to plant seeds in their minds.

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That's all they need. There's a guy named David Reed, he's written a number of books on Jehovah's Witnesses. You know what got him going?

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He was sitting in a district convention and they happened to have windows in the building they were in.

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And he looked out and there was a lone guy standing outside with a sign.

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And the sign said, read the Bible, not the watchtower. That's all it said.

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And he's sitting there and he's probably bored to death because man, these talks are boring. And he started thinking, you know, we do have a reading schedule and he started thinking about it.

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He said, you know, we read far more of the watchtower than we do read the Bible. And that's what started it.

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And so many of the people, the vast majority of people who leave either the watchtower society or Mormonism do not become

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Christians. They are the religiously abused, they're the religiously burned out. Most of them become atheists.

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When the watchtower had its failed 1975 prophecy over the next 10 years, a million people left the watchtower society.

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99 .9 % of them never joined any other religion. That's a tragedy. It really is.

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And so when you hear that knock on the door on a Saturday morning at inconvenient time, please think about the fact that these are people who need to have well -informed

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Christians who can plant seeds and will love them enough to do so.

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That's the only reason to learn this stuff. Well yeah, and keep your kids out of it or something like that, yeah, there's other reasons.

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But I want us to really, I want you to pray to have the opportunity to talk to these folks.

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They're going door to door again, the witnesses are. They started going door to door again just recently. They had stopped for COVID. But they knocked on my door last month.

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They must have lost their maps because they hadn't come by my place in a long time,

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I can assure you. Had a great opportunity of talking with them. So they're coming back again. We have a ministry opportunity on our doorsteps.

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We need to be prepared. So let me, now obviously in 40 some odd minutes with each group, that's almost just enough time to make you dangerous and get you in trouble.

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And especially when it comes to the witnesses. These folks spend about five hours a week preparing to talk to you.

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How much time do we spend preparing to talk with them? Not much. So in my opinion, and this is an honest opinion, this is a few years ago.

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Well, maybe things have changed a little bit in the Watchtower Society, but I doubt it.

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But I said about 10 years ago, I said I would put the average, what's called pioneer minister.

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They have pioneer ministers that go door to door for 30 hours minimally per week. I said

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I would put your average pioneer minister up against almost any seminary graduate as far as ability to argue about the doctrines of Trinity from Scripture and figure it would be a pretty fair fight at that point, really.

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So don't get in over your head. Don't grab your Bible and run out of here tonight going,

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I'm going to go save the Jehovah's Witnesses and find the local kingdom hall. You got a kingdom hall around here someplace? Okay.

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And go running in there if you don't have a good solid foundation. What I'm doing this evening is just giving you sort of a bird's eye view of some of the key issues, but hopefully you'll see from that that what you'd want to be doing then is looking at these topics and going, all right, what verses do

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I need to memorize to be prepared to deal with these topics? Because when you're in a conversation, you don't have time to be looking to the 28th book of the

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New Testament called Concordance to find the verse that you're thinking of. I know when

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I first started witnessing to Mormon missionaries, when

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I met with them for the first time, it was just a few weeks after I got married, when I met with them, I remember I had 186 verses memorized.

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I was doing a memorization system. I had 186 verses memorized. I remember that. And within six months,

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I had 654 verses memorized. And the reason was I had come to realize when you're in a conversation with Mormon missionaries, you don't have time to be looking up references.

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You need to have the word in your heart. So take that as a challenge, especially young folks.

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Trust me, young folks, you can memorize far more easily than us old codgers.

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Okay. It's just amazing the difference of what happens in your mind.

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So learn it now. Don't put it out. Don't go, I'll do that when I get older. Don't. Memorize now as a young person.

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It's time to do it. So real quickly, what are the primary issues with Jehovah's Witnesses? Now, let me just say something.

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Both of these groups are changing. The Witnesses are changing because they have to.

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As I'll explain here in a moment, so much of their theology was originally based upon the 1914 prophecy.

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And 1914 was a long time ago now. And so they're having to try to find more space and more room.

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And in both of these groups, one of the biggest changes that has taken place since 2000 is this.

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See, for the Witnesses, up until the internet, they could control what information an individual

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Jehovah's Witness would see. The Witnesses are really struggling with the fact that the entire history of their religion is now available to any of their people who want to search for it online.

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And that has lessened their ability to control their people. And Mormonism is a different reason.

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Mormonism is changing from the inside out and top down, as we'll talk about in a moment. So the

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Witnesses are still much more united theologically than the Mormons. When I first started saying

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Mormonism in the 1980s, the vast majority of Mormons all believed the same thing. Not so much anymore.

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Their expression of belief has gotten much, much wider. The Witnesses are still very, very much on the same page, though there has been a little bit of a widening, even with them.

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But this will give you a good idea of the Orthodox position amongst the Witnesses. You might encounter some differences with them.

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But the main thing to remember is, first of all, Jehovah is the only true God. The Witnesses are

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Unitarians. Now, what is a Unitarian? Well, we are Trinitarians. We are monotheists.

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We believe there's only one true God. They are monotheists. They believe there's only one true God. We are Trinitarians.

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We believe there are three divine persons that share the one being that is God. They are Unitarians. They believe there's only one divine person that has access to the being of God.

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So Jehovah is the only true God. They are Unitarians. Number two,

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Michael the Archangel is Jehovah's first and only direct creation.

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So Jehovah only directly creates one thing, and that is

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Michael the Archangel. And then it is through Michael that all other things are then created.

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So Michael is a very, very important figure in Watchtower theology.

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Number three, all other things are created through Michael, sorry.

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And number four, Michael became Jesus. If you look at the lines that are on the screen, you'll see that the first Michael has a beginning and an end on the line, see?

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And then straight down from that, you have Jesus with a beginning and an end on the line. And then the second

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Michael has the beginning on the line, but then the arrow on the other side. This is to try to explain to you that in Watchtower theology,

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Michael, the first and greatest of Jehovah's, the only direct creation, and the greatest of Jehovah's creations, the one through whom all other things are made.

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Michael is created. Through him, everything else is made. He exists for a certain time spiritually in heaven.

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And then at the time of what we would call the incarnation, which is not really terminology that they would use,

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Michael ceases to exist and Jesus comes into existence on earth.

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Now, the Watchtower Society does not believe that we have spirits or souls.

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We are a living soul, but we do not have a spiritual nature. And so it's not that there was a spirit that ceased to exist.

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And then Jesus began to exist. And this spirit, there's no transfer of a spirit from heaven down to earth, as if Jesus is a man who is indwelt by a spirit from heaven.

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No, there really isn't a connection. It's that Michael becomes

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Jesus, but not by transfer of any type of spiritual energy, I think.

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And this is consistent for Jehovah's Witnesses, because Witnesses also believe that when you die, you cease to exist.

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And at the resurrection, the person that is resurrected with your name,

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Jehovah has simply remembered that person and recreated that person.

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But there really isn't a connection. There's no continuation of the personality.

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It's a recreation based upon God's memory. You see how depressing this theology is when you really think about it?

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It's really bad. So they sort of do the same thing here. Michael ceases to exist.

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Jesus lives for 33 years on earth. When he dies, he is not resurrected. There is no physical resurrection of Jesus from the grave.

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Instead, Michael is recreated in the spiritual realm and continues in the presence of God to this day.

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And in fact, Michael is one of the 144 ,000, which is called the anointed class.

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What's the word anointed mean? Christ, Messiah. So he's part of the 144 ,000. So Michael became

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Jesus. So obviously, as you can tell, Jehovah's Witnesses do not believe in the deity of Christ, nor in the doctrine of the

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Trinity. So number five, the Holy Spirit is a force, not a person.

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And they had come up with this long before Star Wars, so there can be no issues about lawsuits or anything like that.

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But the Holy Spirit is an impersonal active force. They very frequently will liken the

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Holy Spirit to the electricity in the lights above our heads, or to rushing water that turns the turbines to generate electricity.

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It's a force, but it's not a person. And so, for example, in the main thing that will cause you, your most difficulty in talking to one of Jehovah's Witnesses, the

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New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures. They have their own Bible. It is a horrific mistranslation of the

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Bible. It was not done by anyone who had any meaningful knowledge of the biblical languages.

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And of course, the vast majority of the mistranslations happen to be on the very subjects where the Watchtower Society disagrees with biblical

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Christianity. And it is hard to get over it because they will trust it more than something like my

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Legacy Standard Bible here, because Trinitarians were involved in translating this, so therefore it's

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Babylon mystery religion, and it's all bad and all wrong, and they'll trust whatever the New World Translation says. So the

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NWT is a serious challenge. But notice in Matthew 3 .11,

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that one will baptize you people with Holy Spirit. Not with the Holy Spirit, and not even capitalized

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H or S, but with Holy Spirit, like with running water, like with electricity, or something along those lines.

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That one will baptize you, and by the way, U is capitalized because in the NWT, that's how they indicate plural pronouns.

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That one will baptize you people with Holy Spirit, and he will be filled with Holy Spirit right from his mother's womb,

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Luke 1 .15. And she was found to be pregnant by Holy Spirit before they were united,

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Matthew 1 .18. So obviously, if you believe that God the

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Father is Jehovah, Jesus is Michael the Archangel, and the Holy Spirit's an impersonal active force, you don't believe in the doctrine of the

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Trinity. And for Jehovah's Witnesses, they know that most

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Christians struggle greatly to express the doctrine of the

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Trinity against opposition. And so they'll come to your door, and they'll have some other topic.

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And when the Witnesses came to my door last month, there was a learning disabled man who first started talking, and he's just sort of very haltingly reading from a little script that he had.

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And so I opened the door, and I had a feeling I knew who it was, but they hadn't been doing it for so long,

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I wasn't certain. And so finally, I just asked her, you know, what religion are you with?

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Well, we're Jehovah's Witnesses. Oh, okay. And the other fellow that was with him, he and I ended up having a pretty good conversation once.

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What I do with the Witnesses is I just tell them what I do. That's dangerous, because many Witnesses just turn around and walk away.

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They are not allowed to talk to former Jehovah's Witnesses. I'm not a former Jehovah's Witness. But they also frequently will not talk to what are called active opposers.

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And I am an active opposer. But if you accurately represent what they believe, and then

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I say, well, look, you know, I teach apologetics for Grace Bible Theological Seminary in Conway, Arkansas.

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I frequently lecture on what you all believe, as well as what

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Mormons believe and other things like that. I teach Greek, Hebrew. Most of them are really interested at that point.

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And I can sort of, but like I said, it can be dangerous because some of them just turn around and walk away at that particular point in time.

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And when I started talking to them, I knew I only had enough time to just one point out to them really quickly.

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What I did, and you know, I didn't set up to do this, but let me see if I can do it real quick.

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We will use Accordance Bible Software, which I am not paid to promote at all, but it's awesome.

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If any of you are looking for the best Bible software out there, I know there's that other big group, but they don't pay me anything.

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So I'm not going to do anything with that. So what I did is

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I went to a text that they would know. Isaiah 43 .10.

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Now what's interesting here, Isaiah 43 .10, every Jehovah's Witness will know it.

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And every Christian witnessing to Mormons knows it. Why?

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Well, look at the last line. Before me, there was no God formed, and there will be none after me.

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Now, as we're going to see with Mormonism, that cuts what's called the eternal law of progression right down the middle. It's extremely important verse to have memorized.

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But every Jehovah's Witness knows it. Why? Because they've run into Mormons? No. Isaiah 43 .10 is where they get their name.

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It's where they get their name. You are my witnesses, declares Yahweh. Now I informed them of the

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LSB, the fact that it has Yahweh all through the Old Testament, and they were stunned. Because Jehovah's Witnesses think they're the only ones that know about the divine name,

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Jehovah. And they just couldn't believe that Christians would have an entire Bible translation that translates to Tetragrammaton, Yod -Heh -Wah -Heh, as Yahweh all the way through the

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Old Testament. They thought they were the only ones that had that. But this is where they get their name.

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But here is a tremendous irony.

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I just love how this works. You are my witnesses, declares Yahweh, and my servant whom

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I have chosen, that you may know and believe me and understand that I am he. Before me there was no

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God formed, and there will be none after me. I said, now this is where you get your name, right?

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Yeah, that's where we get our name, right? I said, have you ever noticed that in this text,

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God is prophesying about what he's going to do with Israel with Cyrus and bring the people into captivity and the

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Hawaiian Yards. So in the context of prophesying future events,

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God says, so that you may know and believe me and understand that I am he.

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I said, now the underlying Hebrew text says, Anahu, I am he. It's an emphatic form.

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I said, but the Greek Septuagint, and every Jehovah's Witness will know what the Greek Septuagint is. At least they're educated on that.

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The Greek translation, that's what's over here on this side, they will know what it's saying.

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And you'll notice right here, this phrase right here, Ego Aimi, Ego Aimi, I am,

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I am. Now you've heard that someplace before. You might go, yeah, Exodus 3 .14,

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I am that I am. Yes, that's true. But in Exodus 3 .14,

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it's Ego Aimi Ha 'on, I am the one being. It's in Isaiah that the phrase

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I am is used as a name for God. And what's fascinating,

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I remember the night when I discovered this, nobody showed it to me, but I just, I said, I've seen this someplace before.

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I've seen this someplace before. And then I found it. And I pointed them over to the

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Gospel of John, chapter 13, verse 19. And if you remember what is in the

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Gospel of John, chapter 13, it's the establishment of the Lord's Supper, John's version of it. And it's the discussion of Judas.

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And Jesus is saying, one of you is going to betray me. So he's prophesying a future event.

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And notice what he says, from now on, I am telling you before it occurs. So when it does occur, you may believe that I am.

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And if you look back, you'll find Pestuce etai, genetai, hati ego aimi.

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Pestuce etai, and understand, hati ego aimi. Jesus is quoting from Isaiah 43 .10,

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which is about Yahweh, and applying it to himself. In the very verse that Jehovah's Witnesses use to get their own name, the deity of Christ is taught.

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And they don't know it. They don't know it. But oh, if they would just keep running into all sorts of ready

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Christians at the door to show them these things, then they would know it. And they'd start thinking about it.

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And it might have a real impact. So that's what I shared with them at the door. Did you ever notice that Jesus quoted

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Isaiah 43 .10 of himself as Yahweh? That's why I'm a Trinitarian.

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I know what you believe. And I know what your arguments are against Trinity. But here is a clear reference to Jesus being identified as Yahweh.

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Because think about it. One thing you don't want to do is go to John 1 .1. It's not that John 1 .1

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doesn't teach the deity of Christ. It does. But every Jehovah's Witness could argue John 1 .1 even in a comatose state.

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Okay, they would not have to be conscious to argue with you about John 1 .1. I remember so clearly.

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I was a second year Greek student. And I was meeting with some Jehovah's Witnesses. And this lady, she gave me about a four minute pre -memorized speech about the significance of the lack of the definite article in the third clause of John 1 .1.

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It sounded great. Until I took my Greek New Testament, which was just a

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Greek New Testament without English in it, and handed it to her. And I asked her to show me a Greek article. She didn't even know which way to hold the book.

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She had simply memorized it because she trusted whatever she was taught by the Watchtower Society.

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But my point is, that's not where you want to go. They can argue with you about every reference to Jesus as God.

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Titus 2 .13, 2 Peter 1 .1, Romans 9 .5, Acts 20 .21. All of them, they will have an argument about.

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But think about it. If Jesus, they'll say he's a

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God, a mighty creature. But if Jesus is Yahweh, the argument's over.

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You can talk about God or a God all you want. But if Jesus is Yahweh. And by the way, when you're talking to Witnesses, you don't have to argue with them about the pronunciation of the divine name.

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Who cares? Yahweh is the correct pronunciation. Jehovah's not even possible. But get to that later on.

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Don't even bother with that argument. But if Jesus is Jehovah, it's done.

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The Witnesses are wrong. So that's the most effective direction you can possibly go.

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And so I'm sitting here thinking probably the best thing to do for you is to run through clearly, but taking notes with the presentation

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I normally make when I have more than just a few minutes with Jehovah's Witnesses on this issue.

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Because I've had so many people learn this and then use it and then get back to me saying, man, that was so incredibly effective.

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The more of us that are ready to do it, the better. So you ready? Got a deep seat in the saddle? Because we've got some university football players at the back door and you will not be able to leave the room until you're able to do this as well as I did it, okay?

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I hate to tell you that, but I didn't tell Tom about that. But hey, you know, what can I say? Sort of arranged it while you weren't looking.

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They're all former Dallas Cowboys players. How's that? Would that be good? He's good. Oh, oh,

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Judas. My goodness. Oh, oh,

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I'm going to remember that next year. When you start talking about it, it looks like this is going to be the year.

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I'm going to go, yep, they can't tackle anybody. Okay, so I'll put this into context.

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It actually helps people to remember it. I was asked to come to a Christian's home on a

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Saturday morning to talk to Jehovah's Witnesses and in walk three elders. Now, one elder is normally interesting enough.

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Three elders is pretty interesting. And so I did what I just told you

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I did. I told them what I do. And I lecture about what you all believe. And then in fact, I said, in fact, could

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I give you, could I summarize, just provide a summary of what you all believe? And I gave them the best, most accurate in their own language summary of what they believe that I could possibly give them.

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And they were amazed. And they go, wow, and yet you're a

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Trinitarian? And I'm like, yes, and I'd like to explain why.

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And since I had accurately represented them, I had sort of bought the time. I had earned the time to tell them.

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I said, well, let me put it this way. I said, I believe that the New Testament identifies

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Jesus as Jehovah. And I'd like to show you where. Okay, so I asked them to open their

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Bible. And I said, go ahead and use their New World Translation.

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This is a place where you can jump over the mistranslations. And I said, let's look at Psalm 102.

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And so they turned with me to Psalm 102. And at the end of the chapter, verses 25 through 27.

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And before they started reading, I said, now, by the way, who are we talking about here? Look at verse 21.

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To recount the name of Yahweh in Zion. So we're talking about Yahweh. We're talking about Jehovah. So beginning of verse 25, of old you founded the earth and the heavens are the work of your hands.

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Even they will perish, but you will remain. And all of them will wear out like a garment. Like clothing, you will change them and they will be changed.

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But you are the same and your years will not come to an end. I said, now, this is about Jehovah.

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And this is about how Jehovah does not change. He is eternal. He is immutable, which means he doesn't change.

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And then you have to ask them this question. Can that be said of anyone but Jehovah?

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And they agreed, no, it can only be said of Jehovah. Jehovah is the only one who is eternal and unchangeable.

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Everything else ages, but he stays the same. Okay. I said, now, keeping your finger there, turn with me to Hebrews chapter one.

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And Hebrews chapter one. Now be careful here. You need to start at verse eight.

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But of the son, he says, your throne, O God, is forever and ever.

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Now, little footnote, the New World Translation mistranslates this. It says, but of the son, he says,

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God is your throne. Don't worry about it. Come back to it another time. It doesn't matter.

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The point is you're establishing that the person being discussed is the son. But of the son, he says, your throne,

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O God, is forever and ever. And the scepter of uprightness is the scepter of your kingdom. You have loved righteousness and hated lawlessness.

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As for God, your God has anointed you with the oil of gladness above your companions. Verse 10. And, comma, quotation, you,

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Lord, in the beginning founded the earth and the heavens are the works of your hands. They will perish, but you remain. They will all wear out like a garment, like a mandrel you roll them up.

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Like a garment, they will also be changed. But you are the same and your years will not come to an end. Sounds somewhat familiar?

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Now, thankfully, the New World Translation, even the current edition of the New World Translation, has a reference note for verse 10.

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And the reference is to Psalm 102, 25. So their own reference in the center or the column will direct them back to Psalm 102.

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They've already confessed this can only be about Jehovah. And now, they see that the

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New Testament writer to the Hebrews applied the same text to Jesus, the

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Son. Now, you with me? Here's where you have to make a decision.

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If you're only doing this to pull out your theological sword and run the

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Jehovah's Witness right through the chest to get some good theological blood on your sword, what you're going to do is you're going to force them to come up with an answer for what you just showed them because they've never seen it before.

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And here's what's going to happen. They'll come up with an answer. It may be the dumbest thing they've ever said in their entire life.

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But by forcing them to come up with it, they'll go to the grave believing it. So if that's the only reason you're doing it, now's the time to strike because this conversation is about to come to an end.

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But if your purpose in doing this is to be used as an instrument of helping this person to come out of the watchtower, here's what you've got to do.

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As soon as you present this, as soon as they see this, you've got to give them space.

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You've got to give them room. And so here's what I said. I said, now, if you've not looked at that before, it would be totally unfair for me to ask you to explain how exactly that works.

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But could I show you another one? Now, you see what I just did? They're going to be thinking about it now.

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And because I gave them the space to think about it, they're going to give me the time to give them another one to think about.

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You see how that works? You've got to recognize these people are stunned when they encounter a

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Christian who knows their Bible. It's sad. It is so sad. They are so used to writing into people who just, going door to door, they just don't know the word.

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They just don't know the word. And so you've got to give them the space, take that time.

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And I said, can I show you another one? They said, yes. I said, okay. Turn with me to the gospel of John chapter 12.

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John chapter 12. And I have found that providing some context that demonstrates that you're just not going with some pre -memorized program, but that you actually study the word of God really helps people to listen to what you're saying from scripture.

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So what I'll say is, now, John chapter 12, as you know, is the end of Jesus's public ministry. Chapter 13 is going to begin his private ministry to the disciples, chapters 13 through 17, and then betrayal in chapter 18, trial, so on and so forth.

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So chapter 12 is the end of Jesus's public ministry. And at the end, John gives commentary about why the

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Jews did not believe in Jesus. And in that context, in John chapter 12, we have in verse 40, a quotation from Isaiah, verse 39.

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For this reason, they could not believe. For Isaiah said again, he has blinded their eyes and he hardened their heart, lest they see with their eyes and understand with their heart and return and I heal them.

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Verse 41. These things Isaiah said because he saw his glory and he spoke about him.

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Now, footnote warning. You can't use the NIV for this.

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Why? Anybody have an NIV? No one has an NIV? Did you ban it or something?

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Why wouldn't you? Okay. All right. Okay. I didn't know. Well, now people know where the

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LSV only cult started. Well, the

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LSV, what can I say? This, did you all see my Jeffrey Rice rebind LSV I just got?

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Oh, it's beautiful. I'm going to tell you something. Anyway, the

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NIV had a translational principle they followed. Where when you have a pronoun that has been removed a certain number of words from its referent, they would repeat the proper noun.

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So the NIV says these things Isaiah said because he saw Jesus's glory and he spoke about him.

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It doesn't say Jesus's glory. And the NWT doesn't say Jesus's glory. And the Greek doesn't say

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Jesus's glory. And so the NIV will mess you up there if you use it. Just a warning. Okay. So back to the issue.

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These things Isaiah said because he saw his glory and he spoke about him. Where was the quotation from Isaiah?

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Isaiah chapter six. What's in Isaiah chapter six? The vision of God upon his throne when

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Isaiah is made a prophet. And the year the king Uzziah died, I saw the Lord lofty and lifted up.

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And the train of his robe was filling the temple. Now I'm going to give you, I didn't need to get into this with these guys.

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But I'm going to share it with you just to encourage your faith. When I was writing a book,

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I saw there's a copy of it sitting right there. Want to hold that up for everybody there, brother? Called the

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Forgotten Trinity. That's the older version. There's a newer version. I prefer that cover. But anyway, when

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I was writing that book and I was writing the section on the places where Jesus identified as Jehovah, I was reading a

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Jehovah's Witness by the name of Greg Stafford. The only Jehovah's Witness I've ever debated formally. Real sharp guy.

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And I was wanting to make my presentation as strong as it could be in light of objections.

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And so I was looking at this text. And let me show you something here.

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We go to Isaiah chapter 6. So in the year King Uzziah's death,

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I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up. And the train of his robe was filling the temple. And then

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I looked over here. This is the Greek Septuagint. And let me read you the last phrase in the

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Greek Septuagint. Kai pleires ha oikas teis doxes autu.

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Which means, and the house was filled with his glory.

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It doesn't say the train of his robe was filling the temple. It's a textual variant. And the

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Greek, look right here. Teis doxes. You've heard of the doxology?

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That's where it comes from. The glory, his glory filled the temple. What was it that John said in John 12, 41?

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Actually, I can just, should be able to scroll back to it right here. There it is. John 12, 41.

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These things Isaiah said because he saw, what's this? Tein doxon autu.

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Well, that said doxes. That's just a difference in one is the genitive, the other one's the accusative.

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No, same, exact same word. John, writing in Greek, writing to people who would only have the

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Old Testament in Greek, makes reference to when Isaiah saw the glory of the

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Lord in Isaiah 6, 1. So that his readers would have certainty and understanding.

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What he was saying is, if you ask Isaiah, Isaiah, whose glory did you see? What would Isaiah's answer be?

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Jehovah. If you ask John, whose glory did Isaiah see?

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John's answer is Jesus. Who is Jesus? He's Jehovah.

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And so I said to those elders, I said, so there are numerous places in the New Testament where Jesus is identified as Jehovah.

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Your translation hides them purposely, and I can prove that. But the point is this.

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The fathers identified as Jehovah. Isaiah 53, Jehovah laid our sins upon the

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Messiah. That's the father. The fathers identify as Jehovah. The sons identify as Jehovah.

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And the spirit of the Lord, as you know, is the spirit of Jehovah. So you have three persons.

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The father is not the son. The son is not the spirit. The spirit is not the father. They're not confused with one another. And yet they're all identified by one name.

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And what is the doctrine of the Trinity? There is one true being of God shared by three persons, the father, the son, and the

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Holy Spirit. There it is in the Bible. And they had never heard anything like that in their lives. And you learn those passages and how to share that that way.

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And you very well might be used of the Lord to be one of those people that helps bring these people out of the

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Watchtower Society into his truth. So I challenge you, take good notes. Memorize those texts.

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Be ready. Okay? You're all looking at me like, are there really football players outside the door?

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I'm not really sure if I believe you or not. But let's just pretend there are.

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Okay? Let's make a commitment. And that concludes part one.

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I hope you enjoyed this presentation of James White talking about how to witness to a

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Jehovah's Witness. Now, some have asked me if there's video of this talk. There's not. You can find video of Dr.

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White doing this. As a matter of fact, I've heard him do this before. So it's on YouTube. You have to poke around. I wouldn't be able to tell you exactly which video.

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I just know that I've seen him do this before. This is the first time I've ever heard him do it in the same talk, though, where he covers

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Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormonism back to back. So this is just audio.

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But you've heard the audio of his presentation on how to witness to a Jehovah's Witness. Tomorrow, come back for part two of this special edition of the

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Q &A, when we will hear Dr. White take us through how to witness to a

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Mormon. Let me conclude here with prayer. Heavenly Father, we thank you so much for the gospel that has come to us.

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Somebody shared with us that we are sinners in need of a Savior. And Jesus Christ is that Savior.

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He who died on the cross, rose again from the grave, ascended into heaven, is seated at the right hand of God, is coming back again to judge the living and the dead.

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But all who believe in him will not perish under the judgment of God. We will have eternal life.

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Whoever believes in Jesus will be saved. The Christ of the Bible. We thank you that you have taught us this.

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And may we know how to communicate the gospel of Christ to others. May we be that vessel that brings the gospel to somebody else so that through the message of the gospel, they may turn from sin to Christ and be saved.

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Give us wisdom in how to answer each person, even in these confusing days.

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We rely upon Christ for all things. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. This has been

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When We Understand the Text with Pastor Gabriel Hughes. For all of our podcasts, episodes, videos, books, and more, visit our website at www .utt

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.com. If you'd like to submit a question to this broadcast, or just send us a comment, email whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com.

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And let your friends know about our ministry. Join us again tomorrow as we grow together in the study of God's Word, When We Understand the