Cultish: Leaving the Jehovah's Witnesses

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Welcome ladies and gentlemen back to cultish entering the kingdom of the cults. My name is

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Jeremiah Roberts I'm one of the co -hosts here and Pastor Jeff is not with us today, but I have someone with me and he's actually here the first time one of our recorded episodes

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I'm here with Andrew soup the super sleuth of the show Andrew super sleuth cut song

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Kran. How are you doing, man? I'm doing well coming out of the dark to be on this episode today. It's it's great So in case you're wondering who that red bearded guy is on the cultures and bettas episodes

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This is Andrew here and he's just done an incredible job if you've seen any of the Previous episodes that we've done with all the research that's gone on.

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It's really really blessing to have you on here, man I'm excited for this. So we are here with clay fry and We're excited and we want to jump right into this because we you've got a whole bunch of notes there and you're excited

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So you were in the Watchtower Bible and tract Society and you were

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Jehovah's Witness for 32 years. Yeah, I was born into it both my parents actually my dad was

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On my dad's side. We're four generations deep Wow, so my grandparents my great -grandparents and before that parent we had pictures of them evangelizing on horseback and My grandma

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I had a picture of her with they wear a sandwich boards and they would protest in front of churches Wow, and she had a sandwich board on that said religion is a snare and a racket

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Wow That's like so it goes back almost at the beginning. Yeah, I mean well not quite. Yeah, but it's 1800s

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But yeah, it does go back 70 or so years and then why family on my dad's side and then my mom was brought into the religion by a missionary in Taiwan and Then she moved to the

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States and her and my dad got together and and in the womb, they told me that they would read to me from the great teacher book, which is a

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Watchtower puppy publication about Jesus and So they were really wanting me to be a super Jehovah's Witness Wow Yeah, I was groomed to be become an elder now.

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You're talking to us. Yeah Yeah Definitely it's it's been a long journey to get to this point where I found

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Christ and yeah That only means something to someone who's found Christ Yeah, and it's

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I think it's really good for people understand because there's a lot of talk about Jehovah's Witness and the Watchtower Bible and track society.

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And I mean that's one of the when people hear the word Cult a lot of times that's like one of the first I think that when

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I we were doing this episode Making we were launching cultish We just asked what's the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the word cult?

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And the word was like Jehovah's Witnesses Watchtower Bible track society. That was a prominent answer

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And so people have a lot of misconceptions, you know People have a lot of preconceptions about what it's like and what they do and they typically it's equated with people knocking on the door

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You know at 7 a .m. And even to Leah Remini's show We had a whole episode on that talking about the special that they did and that got a lot of buzz, too

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But I want to just kind of start. Let's start at the beginning from your from your story

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I mean obviously you mentioned about when you were in your mother's womb when they're reading these Watchtower literature to you

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But talk about like your earliest memories of like just your childhood and what it's like Because I think this is a unique perspective that a lot of people don't know about and I want to know about us, too

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So just give me like your earliest recollections of what it was like and let's go from there Well, my parents were very devout and they cared a lot about what

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God, you know about God in their life and so they like I said, we're pretty strong in the way that they raised us and the religion and we we never missed meetings, but there was a period of time in California where we were raised where they were missing meetings and they were feeling not very close to the religion and They felt like California was just this cesspool

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Sodom and Mora type, you know thing going on and they wanted to get us out of there So we ended up moving to Wyoming when

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I was eight years old Very conservative there and Jehovah's Witnesses differ depending on where you go in the country, you know, even though they say they're unified

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I mean Jehovah's Witnesses on the West Coast are more liberal than Jehovah's Witnesses in the Midwest It really depends on the surrounding culture is kind of how they adapt

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Okay, so they really felt a lot more safe in that environment of conservative, you know

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Wyoming it was a town of 3 ,500 people. There's only about 40 Active Jehovah's Witnesses in the town.

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So we weren't allowed to be friends with anybody. That wasn't a Jehovah's Witness and So that was our family.

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That was the people that we hung out with Wow. Yeah, how old were you at that time? eight years old when we moved to Wyoming and Going to school was a challenge

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Because you'd have to go in and tell them that you couldn't partake in most anything that was happening in the yeah Literally, it was nothing we could do.

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I mean you couldn't celebrate birthdays. You couldn't pledge allegiance to the flag You couldn't sing any

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Christmas songs. You couldn't sing any Halloween songs. You couldn't engage in any extracurricular activities

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You couldn't do any pep rallies So he ended up just being isolated most the time and not partaking in anything and he became very aloof

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Yeah to someone who wasn't a Jehovah's Witness because they were just the walking dead as far as we were concerned Wow, you know, so Armageddon was coming any moment and anybody who wasn't a

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Jehovah's Witness wasn't gonna make it So I get taught so let's talk about We have an episode sometime.

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We want to do about like the Jehovah's Witnesses in the end of the world But just from you like your experience in perspective,

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I mean as a kid, you know Was there times where? Was that something that the way they would talk about the end of the world happening and anyone outside of Jehovah's Kingdom was going to perish

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And it's gonna be hell on earth and Armageddon. Was that something that was fearful for you as a kid? Oh, definitely.

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I mean if you've ever seen any of the publications from yes 70s Oh, yeah, he's when I was a kid.

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There's pictures that would you know, scare you to death of people Getting buildings falling on them catching on fire

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Horrible looks on their faces dogs eating dead people I mean there was like really morbid pictures and you know years later

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I mean you can see a lot of things on YouTube right now where there's actually hidden Pictures in the publications there's hidden you put a mirror on it and you'd have to look at it on YouTube Okay, really scary looking.

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That's interesting. Yeah, really? Okay so Talk about Sometimes the weird like you say you're growing up in the

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Watchtower and you mentioned so you're there 30 You said you're in the Watchtower for 32 years. So we're talking about like your childhood

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So I'm trying to find I'm trying to work along like a timeline So you grew up in the truth? I mean a lot of times people will grow up Being part of something like we a lot of times we do ministry to the

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Mormon Church and the church He's Christ the latter -day saints or now that I think they're just calling themselves now the Church of Jesus Christ They changed their name.

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They're trying to get away from the name Mormon, but they can't escape it So it's just interesting to see how that whole situation is changing

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But a lot of times people will kind of grow up in the church And they'll just kind of go through the motions, but there's like a moment where they decide this is really something

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They're gonna own for themselves Was there a moment like growing up on the Watchtower where it was just where you're just kind of doing it

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I mean you're obviously your parent you have to do what your parents do and that's how I was like growing up on a Christian home were there moments where Excuse me you wanted to Like you want to just go ahead and just do your do your own thing

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Well, you maybe you want to do your own thing or what was the time where you wanted to just yeah You took ownership as this is what you like really believe.

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Yeah, I really I did believe it in my own heart there was a story my parents would always tell when I was a little kid in a diaper after one of our

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District conventions and I think a Los Angeles, California were eating at McDonald's and I was eating a cheeseburger

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And I just stood up in my chair and said mom and dad I sure do love Jesus in McDonald's and everybody heard me in the

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Restaurant and everybody thought it was really cute and I just I think back at that time because I really did have a love of God in my heart that a whole time and I was rambunctious and always into stuff, you know a

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Young boy like that and I was in trouble a lot. And so the whole Getting in trouble and being disciplined for me was a huge thing growing up I was in trouble a lot and I didn't really fall in line with the religion that much but I know that I loved

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God because I would see a sunset or I would see something beautiful and I would just spontaneously want to pray to God as a little kid and I knew

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I loved him very much. And so yeah, there came a time 13 years old was when I got baptized and My parents definitely pushed me into it.

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I remember telling my dad I was afraid of getting disfellowshipped I was like, I don't know if I want to get baptized because I don't want to get disfellowshipped

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And he said well, why would you you know break God's law and get kicked out of the religion, you know? So I was like, well, yeah, why would

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I do that? You know little did I know that once you get disfellowshipped, there's no legitimate way. You can ever leave the religion.

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Hmm You can never I mean legitimately leave. Yeah, you can leave in dishonor, but you can't leave for any other reason

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So I made that decision to 13 mostly though. That was a decision to serve God. Yeah, it wasn't the religion so much

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Well, let me ask you this too. Like what was your you mentioned? You just have this like genuine like Child like faith they're like love for like God But was there was that I'll just say this too because like I my first exposure honestly to the

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Jehovah's Witnesses Was as a young child We had had a house fire where our house had burned down and there's a bunch of people just gave and that we were we

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Lived up in Prescott, Arizona. And so like it was we're out in the second also seven So they a whole story of this family of like, you know having their house burned down and essentially like living in someone else's house

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You know, it just we became like a whole story. Our story was in the newspaper, basically But um people just gave us a ton of different books because you know, there's like it's like all seven kids

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Let's give them something to do and back then we didn't have our phones and you know all that different stuff So we had a bunch of different kids what they gave us and so we so there's a

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Bible book That I picked up that someone gave us and it was interesting because I'm going through it

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And this is just interesting because I didn't really I don't believe I came to genuine faith until I was around 17

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But as a child, I am going through this book and all of a sudden is going through the whole story of Jesus I'm identifying it because I grew up in a

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Christian household and I get to the moment of the cross When Jesus was crucified.

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I'm like, wait a minute. Jesus isn't on a cross He's on a he's on he's on a stake and I just I just felt this

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Inclination as a child and my stomach turned into knots I just I put the book down and I think

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I may even thrown it away and I even know where it's from And in hindsight, obviously,

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I now know I just found that being interesting But the cross is actually something that's taught as a pagan some symbol

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Yeah, yak in that religion and so it's looked as part of false religion

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They were really wearing a cross. There's all kinds of stories. Remember my Thinking stories about crosses being demonized and possessed and actually people, you know coming into the

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Jehovah's Witness Witness religion had to get rid of crosses Yeah, and they had supernatural experiences of burning in them and throwing them and they came back and okay stupid stories like that But I I mean maybe that stuff happened.

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I don't know but it just it's sensationalized a lot There's a lot of sensational a talk that went on when

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I was about demons and possession and you know, Siri spooky Yeah like that. Okay, so you so you're you have a point within where you call it you take ownership of this becomes like you and this becomes like what you believe and so You're going to different the different meetings and stuff

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How do you say we went to five different meetings a week? Well, there was around that there's actually Tuesday was a book study that was an hour long

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Thursday was two meetings in one which was the theocratic ministry school and That was like a where you would give talks and practice to be an evangelizer and then another one hours

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That was a two -hour meeting on Thursday. And then Sunday it was a two -hour meeting. I watched our study on the public talk.

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Mm -hmm. And then Saturday we were usually knocking on doors So we're pretty active all week You know and that way you're accountable to the brothers and sisters and they can call you on and of course

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It was very workspace So yeah if you could look at the numbers whether somebody was up to snuff and you know the hours and the meetings that they were attending so And if your ideas and you also are very discouraged from ever

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Studying the Bible as a group outside of those meetings Mm -hmm ever like the brothers and sisters weren't supposed to study the

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Bible together on their own Wow So is almost it was like not by itself, but either there was no understanding of the

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Bible Without the faithful and discreet slave which they say is the governing body, right? Right, so you couldn't really understand it without them with their media mediating.

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Yeah. Yeah In fact when we did our last We did the episode on Leah Remini and the

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Jehovah's Witnesses when we talked about the policy of blood transfusion we open up with a clip of Walter Martin when he was on the

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John Ankerberg show and He talked about their belief about you can't give blood and we obviously might be able to talk

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We can probably talk about that sometime during this discussion. But he the thing he said is that it's not

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They don't believe you can do it It's not because the Bible forbids it because the Watchtower says the

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Bible forbids it and that's really how they operate So it's not just like that. You don't we don't as Christians like we go to the

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Bible. We want to look Specifically at what it says and even like when our pastor pastor

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Jeff when he preaches something He says, you know, if there's something that I'm saying that's outside of this like don't listen to me, right?

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But with a governing body the way that it works is that they say this is the way that it is This is what it says.

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Like if you look at like the prologue in John 1 1 like in the beginning was the word Yeah, it's that way because they say it's a god because that's ultimately what's the what the

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Watchtower says? Yeah, and then the danger of that is of course is because they can change it as they go Because back in the day no blood at all nothing.

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It's wrong You'll get disfellowshipped anybody that got a just blood transfusion during that time got disfellowshipped.

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Yeah and lost everything Then all of a sudden later they said, oh well we can use blood fractions, right?

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We can use parts of it Yeah, which is like saying I can have the ham or the pickles or the mayonnaise of a ham sandwich

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But I can't have a ham sandwich I didn't did you say Andrew in your research about there they change them in regards like the plasma and stuff like that Like are there some of the things that you remembered off of that?

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Yeah, they can use pieces of the blood platelets specific Yeah, they'll break it down break it down and use it's just not the full blood in itself

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So what about all those people that got kicked out and lost God's favor for using it at all and then people later?

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But they don't ever address that. It's just well, we're continually getting brighter and brighter light from God, right?

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Were there like moments in hindsight I mean, I've had those times where you're you're going like so there's some sort of circumstance that all of a sudden it becomes a

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You view something in hindsight like oh, okay, that makes sense why this was that way So being in hindsight, we just talked about you mentioned like disfellowshipping like growing up in the watchtower

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Were there times where you saw that or maybe you saw something going on where you maybe you sensed that there's something that's off Like all of a sudden someone's in the watchtower, but all of a sudden why is that person gone?

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Yeah, like what happened? Did you experience that and it's like experience it with my own family My my sister had a crisis of faith at 19 years old and left abruptly from our family and the religion to another town and she went to a party and got raped and It's what she older than you know, she was younger than okay and she didn't tell us any of this until like after it happened and and it had a disaffect on her and she went to the elders and they disfellowshipped her

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Out of the congregation for that because I don't know the exact reasons why

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But she was disfellowshipped and then she had to earn her way back After being raped after being there's no there wasn't any

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There was no because she has I think part of it was because she had grown up in that little tiny congregation

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And those guys knew her They were really disappointed with her For doing that and ending up because my mom said that the rape was something she deserved because she broke

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God's law Wow So so there's no justice. No, really. It's just let's give her more shame Yeah, so then we can just make her y 'all even yes and stronger on her crushed her

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She started, you know cutting herself hurting herself and I went to help her and then all of a sudden

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I was on the chopping block and they called me into the back room and said you're gonna get disfellowshipped if we see your sister's car over at your house anymore and I was just like and you're just like your little sister's been yeah been raped.

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Yes, and Trying to help her. You're just trying to be a big brother. Yeah, and they're saying like no like stay away likes.

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Yeah Wow, so yeah, there wasn't a lot of comfort there and you know the the information that I was learning since I was a little kid in the religion was the same information over and over and Over again, and I just started seeing it

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Like, you know, I made the decision to stay I mean I got baptized at 13 went through high school and I I definitely was thinking about leaving the religion then

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So I engaged in some stuff that Wasn't Christian and so I confessed that stuff and I got disfellowshipped and I had to earn my way back

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My parents immediately disowned me kicked me out of the house and I was homeless I moved to Denver and I was homeless in Denver Then my

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I finally got reinstated there going to meetings on my own and getting myself back there Once I was reinstated then my parents came down and helped me get an apartment and helped me get on my feet

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Wow, and yeah that happened and then I got married Wait real quickly when you got disfellowshipped

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We talked about this and I'm curious about this They one of the things that they wanted the in the

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Leah Remini episode They when they are interviewing people who had left the watchtower And you talked about their policy where like they say don't even look into their eyes.

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Yeah That was the case in your experience. Oh, yeah You know, you have to go to these meetings for them to see that you are repentant that you're coming back and you know

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You're way back, but you're not allowed to talk to anybody. So you're required to come late and leave early

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Okay, so you don't talk to anybody and of course everybody ignores you Wow But when I started first going to Denver nobody knew me so I would show up and everybody try to talk

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Yeah, and I'd have to be like I'm disfellowshipped. You know, you can't talk to me. So it's basically like unclean unclean

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Yeah, yeah, like I'm a leper. Yeah What I find extremely terrifying in that situation is that you know

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If we were to talk about our church or if or if there's ever a moment where some members salvation wasn't questioned

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What what do we go to we go to the gospel? The gospel is what you need instead

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It sounds like what they do with this disfellowshipping. It's like it's not the gospel like your your poor sister was raped

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Let's not give her the gospel and the freedom and the comfort right in Christ, but instead let's just give her works Yeah, let's give her works.

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Let's take the gospel away and let's give them works Like you didn't appreciate it you took it for granted so now you need to earn it back through these works

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Where's the gospel which is so depressing? And so yeah that happened and that really was a wake -up call

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I couldn't stand that and you know after I got reinstated I earned my way back and then that's when that stuff with my sister

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Happened. Yeah And I was married at the time had my own, you know situation and yeah after that happened with my sister.

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I was really Disillusioned and this whole time I guess being in the religion

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I didn't have that hope the works You know, you are never gonna be up to snuff with God and you feel that yeah, so every witness that I knew was pretty depressed and addicted to alcohol and You know, you don't really talk about it alcohol is allowed because of course

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Jesus turned water into wine So it's not restricted, but of course, you're not supposed to be a drunkard but you just get really good at hiding it, you know, because there's really wasn't a lot of relief for any of us in that situation and I didn't even know at the time that I had an alcohol problem

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So when I realized I had a problem with alcohol I go to the elders for help and they absolutely had nothing for me

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I just remember feeling so let down. They didn't have any answers. They didn't even know like what the definition of an alcoholic was

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Like I had to go and that was when the internet was fairly new I was going on the internet and scouring it like what is going on?

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Why can't I stop drinking like what's wrong with me? Well, and I'm going to the elders. They're just like der what's a what's

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How much is too much, you know, and I'm like, okay So I had to go down and break down how much is too much an ounce and a half is a shot

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And I'm like, this is how much I'm drinking, right? And they're like, wow, that's a lot.

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How do you even drink that much? And I'm like, I don't know You know help me out. They had nothing Wow. So I ended up checking myself into rehab.

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Mm -hmm and very, you know, just unhappy in rehab I Remember sitting there in rehab and I was getting close to these people.

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I was I was feeling you know I was like talking about stuff. I'd never been able to talk about And there's no witnesses around my parents came for family day and they're just like, oh my god

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We just hate seeing you hanging out with all these worldly losers, you know, and I'm like, well, I'm one of them right now

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You know, so that really opened my eyes to The religion having no power.

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Yeah Wow at all and I'm like sitting there going why am I even doing this? This is nothing for me.

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I mean, I has no help whatsoever I'm getting more help from a worldly secular You know rehab place and of course they had us go to AA then and in AA they tell you that you have a spiritual disease

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Yeah, when you're addicted to something and that made no sense to me either. I'm like look at all my works I'm going to have all these meetings.

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I'm Evangelizing I am trying, you know more than anybody else. Yeah, no And so how come

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I how would I have a spiritual disease, you know, so it made no sense to me and yet my pet

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You know the religion let me down all these people You know weren't happy. I didn't see anybody they were saying

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Oh, we're the happiest group and all and I was looking around going Well, we know how to put on a happy face and we know how to you know, take a bath shave put on nice clothes

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Yeah You know and that's pretty much enough for most people but underneath it was like we're all very unhappy and didn't really have a

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Hope you were just waiting you were yeah In fact I had somebody tell me alcoholics were a bunch of our Jehovah's Witnesses were a bunch of alcoholics waiting for the end of the world

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I Got a question man

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When you're talking about how everyone's just their workspace and they're having to do all this performance stuff

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And it's a matter just like keeping busy and you never know you really know if you're enough Maybe we could talk about this

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I mean, I know there's the doctrine where they take the interpretation revelation about the hundred forty four thousand being saved

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Yeah, and they've had to like re Describe and like reinterpret that but we can talk about in a second.

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But what I'm thinking about is just There's the culture of people depressed and sad

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But was there a culture where it's like ever like you everyone knows like if I'm with you like I'm sad

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I'm depressed. I know that you're depressed and I know that you know that I'm depressed but I Can't I'm too afraid to talk about it because I don't know we're not supposed we're supposed to be the happiest

23:42

We're not yeah and I don't and I don't know if I if I don't know who I can confide in who I can't because if I Talk about what

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I'm actually feeling and actually doing then. I'm gonna be in trouble. Yeah, you will and That's why

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I think a lot of times a lot of you I think Andrew you talked about the amount of like mental health

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Remember the statistics you gave about people who are in the watchtower Very high higher than any other religion.

24:08

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, because I mean one of the aspects of like the whole therapeutic process Is that people need to talk through?

24:14

yeah, their stuff and doesn't and it doesn't matter to like is it's interesting too is that we came out of a like this cultish

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We're part of apology of studios, which is the part of apology of church We planted out of a drug and alcohol like Recovery Center.

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So like our church was like 90 % addict so, you know, everyone has the Regardless, I mean everyone has their issues and the one you want and people have to be able to talk and sort through that stuff

24:40

Mm -hmm. I think when you have a culture environment where you can't do that. It just it just creates a worse when the religion stops working

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You're not allowed to say it stops working. Mm -hmm, you know, I'd be like, well that's not working for me

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Well, there's something's wrong with you. Mm -hmm, right, you know, and that's really in the end I mean,

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I realize that's not how it works at all. You know, God is very kind and loving and he does give you relief

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Mm -hmm, but it takes the right kind of understanding of God to have that true relief Yeah, so, you know that isn't really present with the witnesses in fact they every year have the memorial of Christ's death with the communion and everybody passes it up and they just let the bread and wine go right by and it's actually a sin to partake of The bread and the wine if you're not of the hundred forty -four thousand if you go to grab it and feel like you are

25:32

I've seen attendants pull it back from people and be like, what are you doing? You know because it's just unheard of there's a few

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I mean there was probably I think there was three people Growing up in all my years that I that had professed to be of the anointed

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And they were usually very older, you know I mean that was kind of the prerequisite is they had to be older They had to be had been in the religion a long time.

25:53

Mm -hmm, you know their works, of course had to be Sparkling yeah, you know all of the boxes checked

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So so really I'll let you to Ben Andrews. So basically the hundred forty -four thousand It was kind of like this elite group within yeah, but it's more like how there wasn't a defendant

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There's no way to truly know right like that. You're part of it I mean, I think I've I think I've done enough and I think

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I'm I have I have more credentials than you because I've I'm Older or I've done I've put in more hours going door -to -door

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But kind of like in the same way when we talk to like Mormons whether they know they could they've they can make it like to the celestial kingdom or if they're worthy or if they're going to Achieve exaltation they've truly have done everything.

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I don't I've never met a person who's been able to get a definitive Yes, I think I've done enough so I can definitely say that similarity

26:43

Andrew. What did you want to jump on real quickly? Yeah, yeah My question is because it's so works based it's is are there performance reviews who's doing these these reviews on you

26:54

What does it look like take us through, you know going door -to -door evangelizing and sitting down I'm thinking with your elders may be like, what are they telling you about your works?

27:01

How are they analyzing you? well every month you turn in a service report how many hours you put in evangelizing and How many return visits you made on people how many books you placed how many

27:12

Bibles how many magazines? That's all kept track of and then the theocratic ministry school I mentioned is the evangelizing school that everybody partakes in the women are not allowed to Preach from the pulpit, but they do like, you know

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Bible study skits like they do little skits Yeah, like acting like hey, how's it going?

27:31

You know acting like we're having a conversation out in the field. Yeah, and then You get critiqued on that from the stage

27:38

And there's records kept of that, you know to show your progress and so yeah, it's all very very kept track of very organized and Documented Wow Yeah, you know exactly where you stand okay

27:56

Real quickly. I'm just curious. So the 144 ,000 there are obviously more members

28:04

In the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society than a hundred forty four thousand How did do you know how did this originate?

28:10

How did that interpretation originate and then talk about because I know it got redefined But I don't really know too much except of Them saying the hundred forty four thousand is little that's about all

28:21

I know But talk about just talk about that if you can well the layman Jehovah's Witnesses is part of what they call the great crowd

28:27

Yeah multitude and the hundred forty four thousand are the anointed remnant So the anointed remnant are going to rule with God You know up in heaven over the people who stay on earth because of course, you know

28:39

The Jehovah's Witnesses don't really have a heavenly hope they have an earthly hope of living forever in paradise on earth And I think that goes back

28:46

To Adam and Eve when God said be fruitful and become many and you know fill the earth There was no death at that point before they sinned so they say

28:56

God's original plan was for us to be on this planet and live forever because there was no Death until they sinned.

29:03

Mm -hmm so that's the hope that he still holds out for us is to live forever in a paradise on earth and Most Jehovah's Witnesses would tell you

29:11

I don't want to go to heaven. I don't want to be in a paradise on the you know On earth. Yeah Like heaven would be on earth as it is in heaven.

29:19

So what's the difference? Mm -hmm, you know so the anointed are just kind of like guys do you get to wear king hats up there and sit around in a circle with God and rule over all the people on the planet

29:30

Yeah, I remember just seeing a lot of the Like the literature and the way to describe it and he has a kid.

29:36

I'm like really Is that what it is and correct me if I'm wrong, too But there's no one that could possibly be of the anointed class anymore.

29:43

That's like right the generations gone So you can't it's not possible to work your way up to the anointed class anymore

29:48

There was a specific generation that has to do with the prophecy of the of the second coming of Christ Well, right and they and they kind of had a fun a phenomenon happening.

29:57

I don't know if it still is but a few years ago I was reading about how the anointed numbers were actually going up The closer they got to that cut off of people being too old from that generation in 1914

30:07

That the numbers were people more people were professing to be of the anointed right which is strange

30:14

That's very strange. The should number should be going down the closer. We get to Armageddon Yeah This is what

30:22

I'm curious about too is that you mentioned just a little bit and we always have to be careful like How much we talked before a podcast because then we want to save all the goodies for here, right?

30:31

so what was you said there's a significance in the date of 1914 like why is it

30:37

Charles T Russell who picked that specific date or why he bit the return of Christ explained to him like What was his reasoning for picking that date?

30:45

He took a special trip to Egypt and Counted the stones in the Pyramid of Giza the

30:51

Pyramid of Giza. He felt was God's Living Testament To mankind and so he went over there and did some math counted up some stones and came up with 1914 as the end

31:02

It would beginning of Christ's reign. That's when Jesus Christ was Was put on his throne as the king

31:08

Wow So them right that's that's fascinating because we had an episode recently when we talked about a different Mormonism and their connection to Egypt and Egypt ology

31:23

There's a whole book in the in their scriptures the Pearl of Great Price the book of Abraham Yeah in which he tried to translate the lost books of Abraham off this funeral papyrus, but it was actually funerary documents we went into detail of that, but I find it fascinating because we've talked a lot about God's law and his view of the occult and what

31:44

God calls it like an abomination and pretty much all of Egypt's spirituality was

31:51

Control well, yeah It was all completely pagan completely occult a complete under the category of what

31:57

God calls an abomination satanic demonic All of you know that all of the above That's where the cult principles the controlling the masses originated.

32:07

Yeah, but in chose Charles Tate Russell believes he has he wants to attain a special hidden knowledge and he goes to Egypt and he gets that's fascinating in fact

32:19

When we looking when we are doing research Andrew didn't we look at his his tombstone?

32:25

Charles a Russell's tombstone. It's got all 11 foot pyramid. Yeah, it has all my big

32:30

Mason symbols all over it and That's what they were into and I if you do research in to the

32:36

Masons dark occultism Yeah part of their ideal and it's scary that that was the roots of my religion

32:42

And I think that's the mistake most witnesses make is they don't research the roots Yeah, where it actually come from and I know that's happening with Mormonism right now

32:50

And you know if you go back into their early writings, it kind of eviscerates them right now.

32:55

Mm -hmm. It just exposes them for yeah Yeah, you go to their own teachings, right?

33:00

in fact We've mentioned before I mean Walter Martin in his talk the baptism of boldness you guys can listen to the entire sermon on our

33:06

Previous so one of our previous episodes, but Walter Martin does have the serrated edge incendiary way

33:12

He would talk but he talked about how he had to use his own the Colts when he had taught engaged them.

33:20

He had always just used their own materials and sources Yep, and he was like a walking library But he had this moment where he said the twitching corpse of Mormonism Will be its head will be cut off from its own archives like going to the like the original source materials

33:34

I find it incredibly ironic and I talked to you about this Andrew the fact that Charles Tate Russell's grave is basically a symbolic prediction of his

33:44

Prophecy in 1914 that the world was going to end which never happened. Mm -hmm. So I think the fact you have a now a man

33:51

Who's dead? well, then this whole gravestone is basically Around a time when the world was gonna end or Christ is gonna return which never took place

34:01

It's basically a symbol like gesture of a false prophecy. Yeah I mean talk about irony

34:07

Yeah and the more we get into the system of things and we realize the Symbology of masonry and all these secret societies and what they're really their agendas really are.

34:16

Mm -hmm You can see that that's what their agenda was the whole time in promoting these religions Yeah, and downplaying

34:22

Christ as a created being downplaying communion. No, let's not do that You know, even though God said to do it this religion tells you not to and every

34:30

I mean and how do they do that? That's what I was trying to get to the bottom of after I left was

34:36

You know, if I'm gonna leave this religion and be at peace with it. I have to debunk it to the core

34:42

Yeah of of it for myself. Yeah, and so one of the things I just find fasting with everything you're saying and you talk about people who are left the watchtower and just the feeling of like that doubt and going online and finding out things about like 1914 or like the hundred forty four thousand and all those different sorts of things and so a lot of time that just led to people being disgruntled or disenfranchised and just sort of Really vicariously like rebelling in their lifestyle with how they are

35:12

Just living their lives now with where they previously were the watchtowers So just talk real quickly just about where you were with getting back into you're back in a and talk about that Yeah, I went to rehab early on but it didn't stick.

35:24

I stayed over for close to a year and then Things just fell apart. I believe that God was tearing, you know hindsight 2020

35:32

God was just tearing my my life down to the to the end to the To the bare bare bones humbling you he was humbling me and every

35:42

Identity I had being a Jehovah's Witness being a construction carpenter, you know self -employed

35:49

Being married having a house having dogs having Family friends all of that was gone pretty quickly after I started drinking again

36:00

And and I wanted it to go. I really was so sick of it. I realized none of it my wife was

36:09

Not there for me. She didn't she had been cheating on me and I didn't know it Mm -hmm kind of one of those deals, you know

36:15

You're just blind you're blinding yourself to the reality of the situation and just a lot of things were wrong and so I let it all go and I was very angry and of course, you know when you grow up a

36:28

Jehovah's Witness they demonize Christendom Christianity all other Christianity is false religion

36:34

I mean look just you know, everybody uses a cross that right there is just gonna tell you they're off base You know from what you learn as a

36:40

Jehovah's Witness, so all Christianity was demonized to me The Jehovah's Witness Church wasn't something

36:45

I was ever gonna do again And so I still had a huge spiritual need and I remember praying to God and just saying please show me what to do

36:52

I don't know what to do. Yeah, I Had this huge craving for God and and something in my life, but there was nothing that I could do

37:01

There was no group that I wanted to be part of after that experience. Uh -huh Groups of any kind just made me kind of sick to my stomach and and Christianity It just seemed like the

37:10

Bible was something that you couldn't depend on. Mm -hmm. I mean after my experience That's what it would teach you works

37:15

You're never gonna do it God is a jerk who expects you to do all this stuff and you can't do it

37:21

You can't ever live up to it. So I was just resigned at that point that I was gonna die at Armageddon You know, which is kind of like hellfire, but you know,

37:29

Jehovah's Witnesses don't believe in hellfire So you're just gonna see I your cease to exist. I don't believe in the immortal soul, right?

37:36

So there was gonna be no existence for me after I died and I figured all I could do was make the best life

37:42

I could here. Mm -hmm, and so I Um Mostly from girlfriends that were spiritual into yoga and different things.

37:53

I started just getting into new age Mm -hmm. Thanks. I went to yoga teacher training.

37:58

I went I Did mushroom trips with shamans? I did you know all kinds of stuff that as a

38:05

Christian I shouldn't have done But it was like hey, man, there is no God the Bible isn't you know Anything it's just a messed up to me.

38:13

It felt like they had taken the Bible maybe once upon a time It was a sacred book But this world had just chopped it up and turned it into the evil that it was now

38:20

Right, like it says in God's Word that the gates of hell hell will never prevail against the church But if you're going and speaking to an organization who's saying no it has looked across itself as a pagan influence

38:30

Yes, we need to restore the church and only us as the organizing Yeah members of the body or the governing body can actually give you the truth

38:37

Yeah, you can't even read the Bible on your own without understanding it Where are you going to go and in a disfellowshipped state

38:44

I had no way to pray to God they said that there God would not listen to my prayers and There was no way

38:50

I could come back to God except coming back to the church and getting God that way So I simply condemn you.

38:56

Yeah, so there to me there was like the only spiritual connection I could have was Not God, whatever something else.

39:02

So I was like, okay. Well, that's fine Then I'm gonna just try everything else and God protected me through that time.

39:08

Luckily, you know, I didn't He protected me enough, you know He let me feel quite a bit of stuff that I went through and it taught me the way

39:16

I mean, I kept coming back to him and kept coming back to him. But Yeah, I did that for a lot of years just Ping -ponging off of this spirituality of that healing modality.

39:29

I spent a lot of money and a lot of time on different things Reiki eye light therapy

39:37

Like Just so many different things over the years I could go through all the weird modalities I would try anything because I wanted

39:43

God so much So would you say that a lot of like the occultism and the New Age practices that you're talking about getting into would you say?

39:52

there's just an appeal of People who have come out of the world of the cults to get into that because at least from my perspective

39:59

I would see I would see the appeal that you can kind of get The spirituality and the experiences and all those things they typically come with a lot of the

40:08

New Age spirituality We we had an episode with Steven Bancroft talking about the world of the New Age We kind of jumped in and did an introductory episode in regards to that but would you say that's something that was an appeal to both yourself and you think that's just an appeal to cultists coming out of a cult in general

40:26

Well a lot of I got really excited before 2012 I was listening to a guy like guys like David Wilcox.

40:33

I don't know if you ever heard him. Yeah, and He uses the law of one series, which

40:38

I think is channel material from raw Mm -hmm, and I was kind of into that for a long time book

40:43

Course in Miracles, but pre 2012 there was the whole concept of the Ascension happening and You know, that's kind of a

40:52

Christian concept really and the only person I've ever known to ascend was Jesus Yeah, but for some reason we were all thinking that our consciousness was gonna raise to the point

41:02

Where we would ascend to another dimension and in that dimension This world was gonna be made back into a paradise the way

41:09

God wanted it So in my mind, it was kind of like mixing Jehovah's Witnesses Oh, yeah, and it was all coming together for me into this like, you know

41:17

Then what kind of made sense to me? Yeah, it wasn't 2012. Wasn't that the mind that big my encounter?

41:23

They they made the movie off of it. Yeah, so terrible. Oh my gosh with my eschatology as a

41:28

Jehovah's Witness this made more sense to me than then the religion did at this point and So I was really excited for 2012 to come and I was doing everything

41:40

I was trying to eat, you know, get my body in alignment Do yoga and Wow, you know,

41:46

I and then 2012 came in what nothing happened It was very you know, and then things just started getting worse after that So would you say after?

41:55

2012 when it came and went was there a level of just Disappointment and burnout.

42:02

Um, I would just also before I would also think to just in regards to When you're in the watchtower and just your experience growing up there 1975 when the end of the world prediction came and went there are a lot of people who

42:16

Left because they are burnt out as well. Would you say in that context? And also when when 2012 came and went was that your experience as well, too

42:26

You just it made you maybe rethink stuff and maybe figure out where do I go from here? Yeah, I mean, it's just like but everything that's secular and doesn't really have

42:35

God's true power lets you down in the end Yeah, and that's what I feel like God was just showing me letting me you know

42:41

He's like knock yourself out trying to find something that has you know what I have so I did

42:46

I tried and every single One of them. I mean there was no healing I had CPT CPTSD, which is complex post -traumatic stress from everything that I had been through over all these years

42:57

Oh, yeah had culminated in me being I'm not really handle much at all. I was anxious mess

43:03

Angry fits of rage. I couldn't really control those and it was affecting all my relationships.

43:09

Mm -hmm and Yeah, I was it was really a really hard time Through all that and I was seeking healing

43:18

I mostly was just like I have got to get this in control I'm not gonna have a life, you know, so I that's why

43:23

I spent so much money and time like seeking my healing You know and nothing ever

43:30

Helped it seemed I would always get my hopes up like oh this cost 275 bucks. I bet you this one's gonna work Wow Yeah And I would get done and I would feel like that hopeful feeling and then weeks would go by and I'd be in the same

43:42

Boat, but you you know, you just kind of forget That I spent all this money and this is supposed to be taken care of but it's still here

43:48

So, what do I do now? All right. So this is a good segue just to wrap up the first part of this discussion slash interview