So I'm going to be reading, starting from Psalm 138, verse 2, and the topic that I want
to address this evening, this morning, I want to address the topic of Jehovah Witnesses.
That's what we're going to talk about this morning.
This is an important one.
I think Jehovah Witnesses, they have a pretty strong influence down here in Tucson.
It's something that we need to be aware of.
I don't think we have anybody in here that is a closet JW or anything like that, but
sometimes it's kind of good to know a little bit about false ways that are out there.
Make no mistake about it, by the end of this sermon you'll know that the Jehovah Witnesses
are a false way.
We're living in an age right now where everyone wants to say, all paths lead to God, we all
worship the same God, and that nobody wants to offend anybody else.
The Bible says, you know, I hate every false way, and of course we never want to hate people
that are involved in a false way.
It's not anything we have personally against people who are claiming to be Jehovah Witnesses.
We care about those people, we want those people to come to a saving knowledge of Christ.
But the Jehovah Witnesses, as an organization, I believe is very wicked.
It's very demonic.
And the reason I believe that is because they're teaching things that are contrary to the Bible,
and not only that, but because of their false gospel and their false Christ, they're damning
many souls to hell, and it's a very unfortunate thing.
But before we begin to talk about any of the doctrine of the Jehovah Witnesses, and we're
only going to look at a few of their doctrines, we have to establish an authoritative source.
It's kind of like, I've heard it alluded to, before you start any game of Scrabble, you
got to get the dictionary out and say, this is our authority, right?
And say, we can't go on the internet, we can't go on Google and look up some weird word and
see if it's used.
You got to have an established source that you're going to use as your authority.
And of course, here at Faithful Word, we use the King James Bible.
We believe that this is the final authority in all faith and practice, all matters of
faith and practice.
Anything that we do or teach should find its roots here in the Word of God.
And if it doesn't, you know, it needs to change.
And if it's something that's contrary to the Word of God, it needs to change.
So that's something that we should all be willing to do in our own hearts and in our
own lives.
You know, but especially when it comes to doctrine, we should allow the Bible to always
correct us and always let our doctrine line up with it and not try to make it line up
with us.
And the reason why I had to turn to Psalm 138 is I want you to see how much the emphasis
that God puts on His Word, the premium that God puts on His Word.
If you look there at verse 2, it says, I will worship toward thy holy temple and praise
thy name for thy loving kindness and for thy truth.
Now get this, for thou has magnified thy word above all thy name.
So God here in this verse, when this was written, you know, the Psalm of David, the Holy Ghost,
you know, working through him, writing through him under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost,
he said that God's Word was exalted above God's name.
And you know, one of the first things we'll see about Jehovah Witnesses is they're all
about the name Jehovah.
That is their, that is their bread and butter.
That's what they go after.
If you ever run into a Jehovah Witness, if they ever come to your door, a lot of times
one of the first things they want to talk to you about is what's God's name?
You know, like God has one name, but God's name is Jehovah, over and over and over.
They'll criticize the King James Bible and say, you know, why have you taken out the
word Jehovah out of your Bible?
And we're going to talk a little bit about why we have those words, the word Lord in
all caps versus Jehovah in our Bible.
Well, first thing I want us to understand is that when we're going to talk about doctrine,
especially when it comes to this doctrine about what God's name is, that God is saying
his word is even more exalted than that.
So if you're going to run into somebody who says, oh, God's name is the most important
thing.
Well, God said in his word that his word was even exalted above that.
So we ought to take the Bible very seriously and let it be the authoritative source when
we're going to talk anything about doctrine or spiritual matters.
Of course, Jehovah Witnesses, they get this completely backwards, right?
They do not use the King James Bible.
In fact, they use, somebody actually got this, so when you guys got it, someone came in handy.
They use the New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures, and that is the 2013, I believe
that's the most recent edition of it.
It's been revised several times, but this is what they use.
They don't use the King James Bible.
I've read several articles off their website.
We're going to look at some of them this morning.
Sometimes they'll quote the NIV every now and then.
I think I might've noticed where they quoted the King James, but this is their go-to source.
It's not the King James Bible.
And let me just say this right now.
This is not God's word.
This is a very poor translation.
I can't, I don't even know what you'd call it back.
It's like they just made up whatever they wanted when they wrote this.
And I really don't want to go into it, because I've already established the fact that God's
word is his final source, and we know that the King James Bible is God's word, that God
has promised to preserve his word, that God has done that.
So one thing I want us to notice, if you would turn to Genesis chapter one, just to kind
of show you that what they are basing their doctrine on is shifting sand.
They are not founded upon the rock of God's word.
They are founded upon the shifting sand of the New World Order translation.
So if you want to go to Genesis chapter one, we're going to look at Genesis chapter one.
I'm going to show you an example from their own book where they get something, a very
grave error in my opinion.
You're there in Genesis chapter one.
Let me get over there with you real quick here.
What version was that?
This is the New World Order translation.
Yep, the NWT.
This will be referred to from going forward in the rest of the sermon as the NWT.
Just a little voyeurly there for you.
So it says there in Genesis chapter one, verse two, and the earth was without form and void,
and the arkness was upon the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God moved upon the face
of the waters.
So here we see the Spirit of God moving upon the face of the waters, and of course we here
believe in the Trinity, that God is three persons and one God, we believe in the Father,
the Son, and the Holy Ghost.
And when he's saying the Spirit of God here, you're actually referring to the Holy Ghost.
And the JWs, they get this way off, right out of the gate.
It says, I'm going to read to you, you can follow along in Genesis two and see how well
this lines up.
It says, now the earth was formless and desolate, and there was darkness upon the surface of
the watery deep, and God's active force was moving about the surface of the waters.
So here they're not calling it God's Holy Spirit.
They're calling what the King James Bible calls the Spirit of God, or the Holy Spirit.
They're actually calling it an active force, God's active force.
Now that's, quite frankly, that's blasphemous.
And I've gone, you know, I don't want people to think that I'm just making all this up,
so I have actually gone and gotten several articles right off the Jehovah Witness website.
Because a lot of times you'll confront somebody who's claiming to be a Jehovah Witness.
You say, did you know that Jehovah Witnesses teach X, Y, or Z?
And they'll say, no they don't, they don't teach that.
Well you know what, this is the JW.org little copyright right there.
I didn't take the time to Photoshop this and make something up.
You can go to JW.org, anybody who's in doubt about this, you can come see me after the
service and we can look it up on a smartphone and I can take you straight to this article
that I'm going to read from.
I'm going to read from several other articles that all have this nice little blue square
that says JW.org.
This is right off of their own website.
This particular article is called, What is the Holy Spirit?
Now right there, that should throw you off a little bit.
They're calling it a what, a thing, not a who.
They don't believe that the Holy Spirit is an actual person, they believe it is God's
active force.
It says here, what is the Holy Spirit?
The Bible's answer, the NWT's answer, it's not the Bible's answer.
The Holy Spirit is God's power and action, his active force.
He sends out his spirit by projecting his energy.
So they're saying that God's Holy Spirit is not a person, but it's actually God's active
force.
It's his spirit, it's him projecting his energy.
Now that sounds to me, I don't know anybody, when I read this, the first thing I thought
of was Street Fighter.
Remember Ryu?
He played Street Fighter II, come on, you know, 80's kids, 90's kids, and he was, you
know, Haruken!
That's exactly what I thought of, that's what they're linking God into, like he's just some
video game character, just like Haruken, throwing out his active force across the waters.
God is a person, the Holy Spirit is a person.
He's not just some active force, you know, it made me think about like Star Wars, you
know, the force, this impersonal, you know, intangible just thing, you know, and it's
a lot of, if you get into Eastern mysticism, you know, that's what this all goes back to.
I remember before I got saved, I read a little bit about Taoism, you know, that goes into,
you know, talking about how, you know, when you get to the source of all things, you know,
it's just this impersonal force, you know, it's not, it's not a person.
So they say here that God sends out his spirit by projecting his energy.
It goes on and says a lot of other things in this article, I only want to focus in on
a few things here, but it says here, it goes on and says, point blank, the Holy Spirit
is not a person, in case you didn't catch that from what their own translation says
and from the title of the article, and then they just come out and say it.
And what's amazing about the Jehovah's Witnesses doctrine is that they're very open about what
they believe.
They'll just put it out there.
It's not a mystery, they're not very cryptic about it.
They're not like the Mormons who don't want to tell you that they believe in another planet
called co-op and, you know, dark skinned people were actually bad spirit babies and that heaven
for women is just eternal, you know, being pregnant, you know, being pregnant, giving
birth, you know, there's all these weird doctrines and JW's are actually very forthcoming on
their webpage.
Sometimes you kind of have to look around a little bit, read some articles, but, you
know, it doesn't take much to really get to the crux of what they believe and mark it
down.
They don't believe the Holy Spirit is a person.
They believe it is a force.
It says by referring to God's spirit as his hands, his fingers or breath, the Bible shows
that he is not a person.
Well, and this is a huge, just let me just come out and say this is blasphemy with what
they're teaching.
They use a lot of bad reasoning and they're thinking through this.
One thing they address here, it says misconceptions about the Holy Spirit.
This is one of their supposed misconceptions.
The Holy Ghost or Holy Spirit is a person and is part of the Trinity as stated in First
John five, seven and eight in the King James Version of the Bible.
So here they are.
They're going to start to attack the Bible that claims that God, the one that God has
lived it up above all his name.
Now they're going after it.
They're making no bones about it.
That they're about to tell you that the King James Bible is an error and particularly about
this matter of the Holy Ghost is what they're going to start to attack the King James over.
That's the misconception.
They're saying that if you believe that the Holy Ghost is a person, if you believe that
the Holy Ghost is a part of the Trinity as stated in First John five, seven and eight
in the King James Bible, that you believe in a misconception that you have a misunderstanding
of God's word and you have a misunderstanding of who God is.
This is what they state as fact.
They state fact.
The King James Version of the Bible includes at First John five, seven and eight, the words
in heaven, the father, the word and the Holy Ghost and these three are one and there are
three that bear record, bear witness in here.
So they're quoting the Bible there and they go on and say, however, researchers have found
that the words were not written by the apostle John and do not belong in the Bible.
So they're saying that first John five, seven and eight don't belong in the Bible, that
they were added later, that the apostle John didn't write those things.
So you can see already they do not believe in the preservation of God's word.
They don't believe that God who created the heavens and the earth, who by whom all things
consist and have their being, is able to just write something as simple as a book.
I mean, anybody can write a book these days, don't you think God can write a book?
I mean, God could write a book and preserve it for all generations.
We believe that.
We believe that by faith.
And you know, that's not just a complete, complete blind faith.
You know, there's a lot of good reasons, a lot of evidence of why we believe that to
be true, that the Bible is inspired and preserved.
Now, I won't go into all of that, but, you know, they are attacking the King James Bible
here by saying that first John five, seven and eight do not belong there.
And then they quote Professor Bruce M. Metzger, who is a very scholastic, very, I believe,
a Presbyterian.
So this isn't even a Jehovah's Witness that they're quoting.
They're reaching outside of their own ranks to try to bring somebody in who has all these,
I looked this guy up, just very scholarly, lots of, you know, academia behind his name
and just a lot of works.
But a guy who attacked the King James, a guy who attacked the inspiration and preservation
of God's Word, he said that these words are spurious.
That's a big, fancy word, spurious, that you have to look up if you don't know it.
And what it means is fake or false.
So you don't want to just come out and say, these words are fake, these words are false.
Because that sounds a little harsh when you're starting to talk about the Bible, to say about
the Bible, if there's something in the Bible that is fake or false.
No, you want to use the word like, spurious, you know, to kind of soften the blow.
And have no right to stand in the New Testament is certain.
This guy was certain that these words do not belong in here.
And that's why, you know, the Jehovah Witnesses were glad to hang on to that guy, this statement,
and reach out and say, yeah, I know we got somebody to stand behind us.
They go on and say that the Bible personifies the Holy Spirit and this proves that He is
a person.
This is another misconception that they have.
They say, this is the misconception, okay?
The Bible personifies the Holy Spirit and this proves that it is a person.
Now we would say, amen to that.
We'd say, no, that's exactly right.
The Bible does personify the Holy Spirit because it speaks about Him as a singular person in
the male gender, as a He, exactly, thank you.
And it says, they're saying here that that is a misconception, that if you believe that,
that you are in error.
Now they go on and try to support this by saying this.
They say the scriptures do at times personify the Holy Spirit, so they're not denying that.
But this does not prove that the Holy Spirit is a person.
The Bible personifies wisdom, death, and sin.
And that's true.
The Bible does say in Proverbs 1 and Romans 5, it talks about death and it personifies
these things.
You think about in the book of Proverbs, you know, I wisdom, you know, cry out to the simple
ones that pass by, how long, he's simple, you know, he had these verses where it's wisdom
is speaking, right?
It's personified.
Well, this is bad logic to sit here and say, well, because wisdom is personified and the
Holy Spirit is personified, if so facto, neither are a person.
That's a false dichotomy.
That is a false dilemma that they have created.
That is bad reasoning.
That does not stand up.
Either way, you know, what they're saying, what they're presenting you with that option
is they're saying either they're all persons or none of them are.
Well, how about this?
How about, how about one speaking figuratively and one is speaking literally?
Is that not an option?
They're trying to present you with two options and say those are the only options.
Either wisdom is a person and the Holy Spirit is a person or neither of them are.
Well, you know, that's just bad reasoning.
That's bad logic.
Goes on and says later in this article, we'll move on here from this.
They say another misconception, Jesus apostles and other early disciples believe the Holy
Spirit was a person.
Yeah, they sure did.
That's a misconception.
You didn't know that, right?
The Jehovah's Witnesses would tell you you're wrong to believe that.
They say the Bible does not say that.
Well, you know, I would challenge them to go ahead and turn over to John 15, 26, John
16, 8 and John 16, 13.
And look at how they address the Holy Spirit as a he.
They give a name, the comforter.
When he has come, we'll guide you into all truth.
He's somebody who can guide you.
It's not an act of force.
It is a person that is coming.
It says, in fact, the Bible does not say that.
In fact, it does say that and they go on and says, nor does history.
So now they're going to appeal to the fact that, you know, and I didn't really look into
it.
What, you know, whether or not somebody in history has said that the Holy Spirit is a
person.
I'm sure there's somebody out there somewhere, you know, wrote a book and said, yeah, the
Holy Spirit is a person because we read the Bible and understand it.
They go on and quote the Encyclopedia Britannica, which reads, the definition that the Holy
Spirit was a distinct and divine person came at the Council of Constantinople in A.D. 381.
This was over 250 years after the last apostles died.
Well, what do you call this when they say, well, you know, they say, well, history doesn't
say that he's a person anywhere, you know, that's what's called an argument from silence.
And that's that's bad reasoning as well.
You can't argue from silence.
You can't base something based on a fact on what something doesn't say.
You know, you have to go look at what it says when you look at those passages of John makes
it very clear that the Holy Spirit is a person.
So why do you say it?
Why is this such a big deal to harp on them about the Holy Spirit?
Well, to personify the Holy Spirit, you know, or deep personify him and liken him on to
a new age concept.
That's what this force thing is.
This is a new age kind of mystic concept.
Anybody who's dealt with the new age or looked into those things, this new age religion,
you'll hear things like this, the force of God, this kind of talking, this kind of thinking
where they're just trying to liken God in this impersonal being, which has a force.
This is a new age concept, such as an active force.
This is nothing short of blasphemy of the Holy Ghost.
That's my opinion.
I believe that what you're reading there in this book, in Genesis chapter 1 verse 2, is
blasphemy of the Holy Ghost.
Because what are they doing?
Well, they're taking the works of God, the Spirit of God, moving upon the face of the
waters and attributing it unto this active force, this new age God.
They are attributing the works of the Holy Ghost to another.
And the Bible says, I'll read to you from, go ahead and turn over to Psalm chapter 12.
Psalm chapter 12.
May no one take about it, when a person begins to attribute the works of God, the Holy Spirit,
unto another, especially some false God or some false way, that is blasphemy of the Holy
Ghost.
It says in Matthew chapter 12, Jesus said in verse 31, Wherefore I say unto you, All
manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men, but the blasphemy against the whole
Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men.
And whosoever speaketh the word against the Son of Man, it shall be forgiven him.
But whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this
world nor neither in the world to come.
So this is another great text to prove that the Holy Spirit is a person because you can
blaspheme the Son of God, you can blaspheme the Son of Man, and you can also blaspheme
the Holy Ghost, which is exactly what they have done.
Now I'm not going to say, get up here and tell you that every Jehovah Witness you run
into has blasphemed the Holy Ghost, I'm not going to say that, but I am going to say that
the people that sat down and made up this translation and got to Genesis chapter 1 verse
2 and decided to call the Spirit of God an act of force had blasphemed the Holy Ghost.
That's my opinion, you can disagree with that, but that's, I, woe unto them that have produced
this wicked book right here, and you say, well, you know, how can you be so shored up
on saying that the King James Bible is the only accurate Bible that we have in the English
speaking world.
Well, you're there in Psalms chapter 12, I'll read from Psalms 119, the Bible says,
Forever, O Lord, Thy word is settled in heaven.
So God has settled His word, I mean, don't you think God has the ability to get His word
out to all people, I mean, God who wants all men to be saved, I mean, of course He's going
to tell us how it is that we're going to be saved, so of course He's going to give us
a way to understand who He is and what He wants us to do, and He does that through His
word, it's settled.
And it says there in Psalms chapter 12 verse 6, the words of the Lord are pure words, as
silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times, thou shalt keep them, O Lord,
thou shalt preserve them from this generation forever.
That's a promise of God, that God is going to preserve His word to every generation.
Where is it today?
Where is it today if it's not in the King James Bible, to the English speaking people?
Where is it?
Where has it gone?
Was it buried somewhere in some desert, in some pottery for thousands of years, and we
were just blindly following some false version to all these, until it came along and we just
stumbled upon it?
Do you think God's that, that God's, that He's that short-sighted and incapable of preserving
His word to give it to us?
You know, at the end of the day, we believe the King James Bible is the word of God by
faith.
You know, I make no bones about that, I'm not going to say, at the end of the day, we
say, well, why do you believe the King James Bible is the word of God?
Because it says it is.
That's why.
And because it has power.
You know, when you read the word of God, this book right here, the whole, God will speak,
if you were born again, saved, and you pick up this thing, this book, you know, the, the,
the witness, the God's spirit bears witness with your spirit, and you move by the things
that are in this book.
Go read this book and tell me if it ever moves you.
You know, maybe, maybe you might want to make it throw up, some of the stuff you read in
there.
That's about it.
Shake your head and say, who can, who's, who's writing this, who's believing this.
Now another one of the, of course, this is like their big go to doctrine for Jehovah
witnesses is, is that the name Jehovah, they'll ask you, you know, why does the King James
replace the name Jehovah?
And really this is, and we talked about when it was about the Holy Spirit, about the logical
fallacies that they use.
And this is one of the most effective logical fallacies that they use and what it is, it's
called an appeal to ignorance because the fact is a lot of people don't know why the
Bible uses Lord, why it took out the word Jehovah, and it's using the word Lord in the
Old Testament.
But here's the thing about that, when you, you can't just appeal to ignorance because
ignorance isn't proof of anything except that one doesn't know something, you know, just
because I don't know why doesn't prove that, that it's right or wrong.
It just proves that I don't know it.
So that's not any type of a, you know, any type of a winning argument.
Now I'm going to go over this very briefly and try to keep this as simple as I can and
not spend a lot of time on it.
There's other really good sermons that have been preached about this topic.
If you really want to know more about it, I would go listen to Pastor Anderson's sermon.
The name of God was one, or he did the names of God, he did a two part series.
So there's three excellent sermons right there.
You can go on the website and search those, you know, there's other things that I want
to get into in the sermon.
So for the sake of time, I'm going to move a little quickly through this one.
But it does, why does the King James replace the name Jehovah?
Well the word Lord there in all caps is what they call the tetragametron, which just means
a four letter word, you know, just tetra, four, right, grametron, or grammar, right,
four letters.
That's all it means.
It's just, and basically what it comes down to is there are four consonants in the Hebrew
language that if you were to go back in the Hebrew and when you see that word Lord, you
would see these four consonants in the Hebrew language.
Now you have to understand that when they, the Jews back then, they had this tradition,
they had this, you know, this man-made tradition that they would never pronounce.
Every time they came to that word, Jehovah, they would never pronounce it.
They would, and you couldn't even write it down.
If you ever wrote it down, you could never erase it because they would say, thou shall
not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.
You know, but that's a misunderstanding of taking the name of the Lord thy God in vain.
What it means when you should take the name of the Lord thy God in vain is you should
just use God's word, you know, flippantly, you know, O-M-G, you know, you're going on
Facebook and saying, O-M-G, that's taking God's name flippantly.
That's taking the name of the Lord in vain.
That's just using it as some expletive, right?
We see that a lot.
That's what the Bible's talking about when it says you should not take the name of the
Lord thy God in vain.
You should use the name of God as a cuss word to express your disdain or frustration.
You shouldn't take God's holy name and bring it down on that level.
But they, they, they got this wrong, so they wouldn't even pronounce that word.
And as a result of that, no one today knows how to pronounce that word.
No one knows.
They not so had to speak to me.
Is it Yahweh?
Is it Yeshua?
Is it this or that?
And you know, I believe from what I've learned and, and, and, and heard preached and looked
into that the name Jehovah is the closest thing, you know, and if we were to go to somebody
else in another age, they might say it a little different, like Yehova or Yehova.
You know, I think it's how they say it in Spanish.
Now what they did is they replaced it, translators, they replaced that, that, that word with Adonai,
which literally translates into the word Lord.
That's the actual translation.
And then later on, they actually added vowel markings to those, that four letter consonants.
And those were added by scribes during the middle ages.
And that's how we got the word Jehovah.
So that's where that comes from.
But you know, one, one thing we need to understand is that this, this tetragrammatron never appears
in the New Testament.
That word that gets translated all catch Lord in the Old Testament never happens in the
New Testament because that is a Hebrew word.
And now we are dealing with Greek in the New Testament.
So the question is, you know, when Jesus and the apostles are quoting the New Testament
or the Old Testament or using the name Lord to describe God and not Jehovah, you know,
are they wrong?
You know, they're using the Greek word kyrios and no, they're not, right?
Because, because Jesus is infallible, right?
He, of course, he would, he would get the name, the name of God, right?
So if you want to go ahead and turn over, I'm having to turn two places, go to Psalm
chapter two and Acts chapter four, Psalm chapter two, I'll give you a second here, Psalm chapter
two and Acts chapter four.
This is a really good example of Jesus, Acts four, of somebody quoting the Old Testament
in the New Testament.
And they don't take the time to correct the Old Testament when they quote it, they just
read it like it says.
It says there, Psalm chapter two, it says, why do the heathen rage?
First one, why do the heathen rage and the people imagine the main thing?
The kings of the earth set themselves and the rulers take counsel together against the
Lord and against his anointed saying.
So there you have the Lord and also, you know, we also see the, the award and anointed, those
being the same thing.
You know, God goes by a lot of different names.
He goes by a lot of different titles, the Lord, anointed, Christ, Messiah, Jehovah,
King of Kings, God has multiple, multiple, multiple names to say that he's all about
this one name.
And if you only use, and the Bible does use Jehovah seven times in the Old Testament,
it's not like you may never use it.
Now, if you're looking at Acts four, they actually quote Psalm chapter two.
And so Acts chapter four, it says in verse 25, who by the mouth of thy servant David
has said, why do the heathen rage and the people imagine the main thing?
The kings of the earth stood up and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord and
against his Christ.
So here they are in the New Testament, looking back and quoting the Old Testament, we just
read and they didn't, they didn't go, Oh, wait, I was wrong.
We got to make sure we say Jehovah, no, the translators translated as they translated
it Lord again.
So this, you know, this is kind of a light, just going over this topic kind of lightly
because there's more brave and more serious things that the Jehovah witnesses believe.
I think that are far more damning, you know, the whole, the blasphemy, the Holy book is
pretty bad.
You know, that kind of shows you right there that the spring is corrupt, but you know,
on this issue of the name, I'm just going to trust the Bible.
I'm going to go inside with Jesus.
I'm going to go inside with the apostles, like Peter here, who's in the translators
of the Bible, who took the time, all that effort and work and knowledge and ability
that went into it and working of God that gave us this, this translation right here,
that they got it right to use the word Lord.
So I'll go inside with them.
Now, if you would, turn over Philippians chapter two, because here's the thing about that name
Jehovah.
They, and they, and we're going to get into the next topic about the Jehovah witnesses.
It's kind of a safe way into it.
They translate that word Lord.
Now, when you read this, a lot of times, most times, in fact, there's a few instances when
they don't translate Jehovah into Jehovah, the new Testament, they'll use Jehovah, the
new Testament in the new world translation.
There's a few times where they actually will use the word Lord.
And it's interesting to see when those times are, what passages they prefer to use the
word Lord instead of Jehovah, which is, you know, that that's their big thing.
You got to use the word Jehovah.
That's the name of God.
So it's interesting to see where they don't use it.
If you look at Philippians chapter two, look at verse six, who being in the form of God
thought it not robbery to be equal with God.
This is of course, speaking about the Lord Jesus Christ, but made himself with no reputation
and took upon in the form of a certain servant, it was made in the likeness of men and being
found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even the death
of the cross, which is another thing they don't believe in.
They believe he was crucified on a stake.
I don't have time to go into that because that's here that he was the death of a cross
where for God also had to highly exalt him and given him a name, which is above every
name.
So what's the name that's above every name, the name, Jesus Christ, that at the name of
Jesus, every knee should bow and things in heaven and things in earth and things under
the earth that every tongue should confess that Jesus is Lord to the glory of God, the
father.
Now there, they don't say Jesus is Jehovah.
They don't say that.
They go and let Lord remain Lord in that passage, because if they were to say that Jesus is
Jehovah, they have to admit that Jesus is God, which is another thing that the Jehovah
witnesses do not believe.
They do not believe that Jesus Christ is God.
They might say that he's Lord, they'll say, Oh, he's the son of God, but they do not believe
that he is God.
Like you and I, when we say Jesus is God, we believe he's every bit as God has got the
father.
We believe he is God every bit as God, the Holy spirit.
They do not believe that.
Another place that they left that out is Romans 10, nine.
I thought this was interesting.
It says that thou shall confess with thy mouth, the Lord Jesus, and believe in thine heart
that God has raised it to that thou shalt be saved.
So you see these, there's few verses where they were referring, where, you know, it kind
of looked like, well, this might, if we say Jehovah here, we're going to call him Jesus
God.
And Philippians two is, you know, that's a real, that's a real tough one for them to
get around.
And if they're even bothered to try and get around, they might, I mean, it really, when
it comes down to it, they really don't mind admitting the fact that Jesus isn't God.
In fact, I have an article on that as well about who Jesus is.
I'm going to get that out right now.
And again, as you can see, this is right off our website.
I'm not making this stuff up.
So you see the JWs, they leave Lord in these texts that would otherwise call Jesus God
or Jehovah.
And they call Jesus Lord, but they do not call him God.
And they plainly state that Jesus is a creative being.
They do not believe that Jesus was from everlasting.
They believe that he is a created being.
That's what it says right here in this article from JW.org.
It says, who is Jesus Christ?
Unlike any other human, Jesus lived in heaven as a spirit person before he was born on
earth. He was God's first creation.
So right there, they're admitting right here, plain as day, that Jesus Christ is a
created being, that God created Jesus Christ.
He is the only one created directly by Jehovah.
So at least they'll give him some reverence or honor there.
Well, he's the only one that Jehovah.
But the point is that he made them, you know, and God is not made.
God is from everlasting.
God is not a creative being.
So if you're going to say Jesus was a creative being, you're essentially saying he was not
God. And, you know, I'm not going to spend a whole lot out of that article, but they call
him a created being.
This article goes on and there's others here that we're going to look at.
And they say, well, you know, Proverbs 8.22 is what they'll quote here.
They'll go to Proverbs 8.22 if you want to turn over there.
This is the proof text to prove to you that Jesus Christ is a created being.
And what's crazy is a lot of times when their core doctrines, they go to just these
passages in the Bible from a lot of times the books that are considered books of wisdom,
books of poetry, like books of Ecclesiastes, like we're going to look at here in a minute
and Proverbs, they're never turning to like, you know, the epistles and, you know, very
often and just finding a clear verse that just plainly states what they believe.
There's just a lot of, well, the Bible, you know, says this here and therefore it's a lot
of conjecture is what they have.
And if you look at Proverbs chapter eight in verse 22, I'm going to read to you from
this. You can follow along in verse 22.
Jehovah, this is from the New World Translation, produced me at the beginning of his way,
the earliest of his achievements of long ago.
So he says there that because here it's talking about wisdom, right?
It's wisdom that's personified here.
And of course, that's a picture of Jesus Christ that he was from the beginning.
What does it say there in Proverbs chapter eight?
It says the Lord possessed me in the beginning of his ways.
Now, is being possessed the same as being produced?
No, it's not. Not at all.
Just because I possess something doesn't mean I produce something.
Just means I have authority over it, which is another great picture of the fact that
there is a trinity in the Bible, that there is a authority structure within the Trinity
that that they all have the same, same mind and same will.
But there is an authority within that structure that the son has to be obedient to
the father. It says there the Lord possessed me in the beginning of his way before his
work of his old. I was set up from everlasting from the beginning wherever the earth was.
So that's just talking about how we can say that, well, this is referring to the fact
that Jesus Christ is from everlasting, that he was there with the father from the
beginning. And but that's not what they believe.
They believe that Jehovah created him.
They say he was produced.
They say he was an achievement, you know, like a trophy buck or something like that,
some game animal that he went and packed or something.
And it's it's ridiculous.
It makes no sense when you compare it with other scriptures.
Go and turn over to Colossians chapter one, Colossians chapter one.
When we start to compare it with other scriptures, this doesn't make any sense at all to say
that he was a creative being because Jesus Christ is the one who created all things, all
things, everything, not just everything except himself.
It says all things were created by him.
Ephesians chapter three says, And to make all men see what is the fellowship of the
mystery from the which from the beginning of the world hath been hidden God who created
all things by Jesus Christ.
Yes, it was God.
Jesus Christ is God.
And it was by Jesus Christ that all things were created.
Colossians chapter one, look at verse 16 for by him were all things created that are in
heaven. That would include Jesus, wouldn't it?
That are in earth, visible and invisible, whether it be thrones or dominions or principalities
or powers or all things were created by him and for him.
So if Jesus Christ created all things, he certainly did create himself.
So it just doesn't make any sense to say Jesus Christ is a creative being when he's the
one that created all things.
Now, what's also interesting is that the New World translation translates Lord as
Jehovah. You know, I'm not I'm not even going to get into that.
It might be able to confuse me.
You know, Jesus Christ, another point that we could point out, you know, just to prove
the deity of Christ is that Jesus Christ isn't God.
And why did he not why did he not refuse worship as God?
Right. And we see that several times in scripture.
I mean, there's multiple, multiple passages just in the book of Matthew alone.
I'll read to you from Matthew 4 10.
Then Jesus say it.
Then say it, Jesus unto him, give thee his sake, for it is written, Thou shalt worship
the Lord thy God, him only shalt thou serve.
So Jesus knew the commandment.
They should have no other gods before the Lord that there was he's the only one you're
supposed to worship. And we see other instances where men bow down to
like the Apostle Peter, for instance, for instance.
And he says, stand up, for I am a man as thou art.
He refuses to worship because he understands or Paul and Barnabas, you know, they bring
the ox and the garland and they're going to do sacrifice to him in the city.
They they had to stop him, you know, in the book of Acts and say, don't worship us.
We are just men. You know, they called one Jupiter and the other Mars.
And they thought they were gods because of the things they were able to do.
And they had to stop them from sacrificing.
So they understood anyone who should not have any other gods before you would refuse
worship. They would say, don't do that.
And Jesus here is refusing to worship the devil because he understands he's to worship
God only. And of course, it says in Matthew twenty eight, verse nine.
And as they went to tell his disciples, behold, Jesus met them saying, all hail.
And they came and held them by the feet and worshiped him.
That's some serious worship.
And they're getting down on their hands and knees.
They're grabbing him by the feet.
You know, if you're going to grab somebody, you're not just going to bend over to it.
You're going to you're going to get down there in that level.
And they worshiped him.
Then said Jesus unto them, be not afraid.
He doesn't say get up. What are you doing?
He accepts that worship because he is God.
He is able to take that. And you can see more of that if you want to read the book of
Matthew, Matthew chapter two, Matthew chapter eight, Matthew chapter nine, Matthew chapter
fourteen, Matthew chapter fifteen, Matthew chapter eighteen, where Jesus time and time
and time again receives worship as God because he is God.
When I say, well, if he's not, if he's a creative being, who do they see he is?
And I've heard Jehovah's Witnesses deny this next one.
And it's right here from their webpage.
They say that Jehovah, that Jehovah, that that Jesus Christ is the archangel Michael.
That's what they say. This again, right off of their website.
I'm not making this stuff up.
You know, JW's, they want to deny this stuff.
I don't know why, you know, but it's right there on their website.
You know, if you're going to be a proud Jehovah's Witness, you got to embrace this.
You know, you can't run from it.
This is this is who you are as Jehovah's Witness.
Do you believe that Jesus is a archangel?
This gets, you know, when I started looking at this one, it was just like so mind numbing.
I debated whether I could do it, but it's just, I seriously got a headache trying to
write this sermon because it's just, you know, why people would want to do that.
God believe any of this.
You know, so really, this one is just too stupid to spend much time on.
But it's, again, just based solely on conjecture.
They never cite, you know, Joshua 5, 13, which is interesting.
Let me just read from the article.
If you want to go and turn to Joshua 5, we'll kind of blow through this one.
I know we're kind of coming up on time here.
This says here, Who is the archangel Michael?
The Bible's answer.
Michael, referred to as by some religions as Saint Michael, is evidently a name given to
Jesus before and after his life on earth.
Evidently, I don't know what evidence they really have.
They go on to say, well, Michael disputed with Satan after the death of Moses and helped
an angel deliver God's message to the prophet Daniel.
Michael lives up to the name of his name, who was like God, by defending God's rulership
and fighting for God's enemies.
So apparently, if you stand up for God and you help a man of God or if you stand against
the wiles of the devil, all of a sudden you become an archangel.
So I wonder which one I am, because I, you know, I've disputed, you know, against the
I withstood the devil's attacks, you know, and I had the shield of faith, you know, I
put on the armor of God, you know, I felt, you know, deliver God's message as a prophet,
you know, like he did for Daniel.
So I guess maybe I'm an archangel.
I don't know which one I am.
You can call me archangel Corbin, I guess.
Doesn't really roll off the tongue, though.
I'll just stick with brother Corbin.
But then again, they just say, well, Michael is the archangel.
Title archangel means chief of the angels and say, well, who's chief of the angels?
Well, Jesus, right?
Well, if you look at Joshua, they never source this.
This isn't quoted there.
They conveniently left this out in Joshua chapter five, verse 13.
This is, of course, when Joshua's going into the promised land, he's about to take on Jericho
and he goes out early morning, he's walking along the banks of the river and this man
appears on whom the sword is handled.
Look it up here in verse 13.
And it came to pass when Joshua was by Jericho that he left up his eyes and looked and behold,
there was a man over against him with the sword drawn in his hand.
And Joshua went on to him and said to him out there for us or for our verses.
He said, nay, I love that answer.
You know, you know, a lot of a lot of the patriotism today would kind of would do well
to take you to that table.
Everyone that's just so I know I love this country, but everyone that's just so gone
home like America can do no wrong.
That God's always on our side no matter what.
Well, when Joshua here asked him, he said, are you for us or against us?
He just said, nay, like neither.
Like he's trying to, Joshua was doing like the JW is just that false dichotomy with us
or against us, right?
And he's just like, actually, there's a third option, neither.
He said, nay, but as the captain of the host of the Lord, am I now come?
So he's not, he's, you know, there, yes, there is an archangels, but there's also a
captain of the host.
I believe that host would include not only the angels, but also would include say believers
because we're going to come with him as the Lord's host on white horses and we will
reign with him.
So, you know, it's just, it's just a chain of command Bible.
You have the captain Lord's host, you have angels, you have archangels, you know, it's
not, you can't just say, well, he's the archangel.
That must mean he's Jesus.
That's literally the leap that they make to believe something as ridiculous as that.
Um, and they probably don't want to cite Joshua chapter five, verse 13 here, because
it goes on and says, and Joshua fell on a space to the earth and did worship him and
said unto him, what saith my Lord unto a servant?
And the captain of the Lord's host said unto Joshua, lose thy shoe from off thy foot for
the place where on thou standest is Holy.
And Joshua did.
So now I recall another place where that, where someone was told to lose a shoe off
their foot is the place they said was Holy.
And that's when God showed up in a burning bush with Moses.
So here you have Jesus showing up to Joshua and the same thing happens.
Just another proof that, uh, that Jesus Christ is God.
Cause you have a man bowing down and worshiping him and Jesus, the captain of the Lord's
host, even so embracing that worship that he goes so far as to not only should you bow
down and worship me, but why don't you take your shoes off?
Because the place you stand on is Holy.
So, you know, that's probably why they conveniently left Joshua chapter five out of their article
concerning who Jesus is, you know, referring him as the archangel Michael.
But one of the last things, and I'll try to kind of get through this quickly.
I got more notes, but, uh, Jehovah's Witnesses, I preached on this before.
Jehovah's Witnesses do not believe in a literal eternal hell as taught in scriptures.
They do not believe in a literal eternal hell.
And they quote some, some kind of crazy things about that.
And they have a whole, this is one of their longer articles, the last one.
What is the, what is hell really?
What is hell really?
And it's crazy what they started to say.
Then this is their, this is their logic.
They say, well, you know, uh, the wages of sin is dead.
So when a person dies, their physical death, that pay, that wage is paid for it.
So there's no need for them to go to hell and they liken that to hell.
And just to this like holding ground where good people and bad people go, it's just like
this waiting, it's just like a waiting room, you know, basically it's just like, you know,
it's not as unpleasant, it's probably about as unpleasant as like a doctor's office,
you know, the lobby where you got to go read those stupid old magazines and stuff.
That's what they're kind of lightening hell onto.
It's not paradise, but it's not that bad.
You know, it'll get better, you know, once you see the doctor.
But that's kind of, that's what they say.
And the reason that we say that is because, well, once you die, you know, death is the
penalty for sin.
So therefore, once you die, you pay the penalty for death.
We have to remember the second death, that there is a spiritual aspect to that death,
like when God told Adam in the Garden of Eden, the day thou eatest the tree of good
and evil, you know, the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die.
And they did eat, didn't they?
Did they die that day?
Not physically, they died spiritually.
That's a spiritual death that takes place.
So we know, of course, you know, Revelation chapter 20 and 21, when Bible starts to talk
about the second death, when death and hell are cast in the lake of fire, this is the
second death.
So there is a spiritual aspect to the wages of sin.
It's called the second death, which is what we commonly refer to as going to hell.
And, you know, it's a doctrine that could probably be explained a little bit further,
exactly what we mean by that, because it says death and hell are cast in the lake of fire.
You're kind of getting into end times prophecy and stuff like that.
But essentially, you know, they're going to come a time when they're cast into a literal
lake of fire.
You know, it's not just this waiting room that they want to make it into.
And they go into Psalm chapter 146, Psalm 146.
They go on and talk about, you know, how God breathed into Adam, the breath of life, through
breathing, sustained life, the breath of life in his nostrils, and much, much more than
just simply blowing air into his lungs.
And that God put into Adam's lifeless body, the spark of the force of life.
There it is again, right?
There's that Hariuken, you know, that he's sending out, which is actively in all earth's
creatures.
This Bible refers to this animating force as spirit.
It has no personality or no thinking ability.
Now, I would disagree with that whole thing.
I believe that the spiritual man, the inward man, has, you know, personality.
I mean, it's part of who you are.
It has thinking ability.
It's the part of you that desires God.
I mean, why do you see lost people just going and joining?
Why are there seven, you know, you know, what is it, a trillion Catholics in the world and
however many millions of maybe even billions of Muslims in the world?
Because there's a part of man, the spiritual side of him, the spirit part, it's dead.
That doesn't mean it's not doing anything.
Yeah, it just means that it's not born again in Christ.
It's not a new creature.
It's the dead man.
It's a dead man walking essentially.
So to say it has no personality, no thinking, you know, I disagree with that.
But there go Psalm 146.
Let me get over there in their book here and we'll kind of compare what they say with what
the King James says because it says here in Psalm 146 verse 4,
his spirit goes out and returns to the ground on that day his thoughts perish.
So it says his spirit goes out, but he goes back to the ground and that day his thoughts do perish.
So he says when a person dies, his impersonal spirit does not go on to exist in another
realm as a spirit creature.
It returns to the true God who gave it.
And then they go to Ecclesiastes chapter 12 verse 7 and they try to prove from that that,
you know, that that he it just goes on in this.
We'll turn there in a minute, but going back to Psalm 146,
it says there, you know, it says that his spirit goes out.
Now, is that what it says in the King James?
It says his breath goes out.
Now, is that not a fact that his breath goes out?
Let me get over there to Psalm 146.
It says his breath goeth forth.
He returneth to his earth and that very day his thoughts perish.
Yeah, I mean, his body's dead.
That's what it's saying.
Like that's he died.
He was breathing.
That's what happens when a person dies.
They quit breathing.
Eventually they decompose and their brain go under functions.
His thoughts perish.
It's not saying that his spirit goes out.
This impersonal and unthinking, you know, active force of God moves from his body.
It says his breath.
That's what the King James.
So we started to see why, how important it is to have the right version of God's word
and to trust it.
And of course, you know, they go into Ecclesiastes chapter 12, which is a lot of just,
first of all, you got Solomon, who was getting into a lot of sin in that book.
He does a lot of things.
I mean, the Bible often states what a person does, but doesn't always say that was the
right thing to do.
It just tells you what they did, you know, and you see Solomon, he's kind of going through,
you know, his, I don't know, it was like a midlife crisis or what, where he's trying,
you know, foolishness and drunkenness and gluttony and multiple, he just goes into all
these different things.
And so that's where they turn to.
They're turning to these books that, you know, they don't, they don't, you know, are
necessarily the best place for, to find a clear scripture that's going to help support
your doctrine.
They go to Ecclesiastes, that's for example, go to Ecclesiastes chapter 12.
We'll look at a few more things here.
And they're just trying to make the case that, you know, oh, when you die, that your
spirit leaves your body and goes back to God and it's impersonal and that, you know,
you just kind of wait out, you just hang out in hell.
You tell God, you know, it resurrects you.
It says in Ecclesiastes chapter 12, let's look at verse 7.
They say here, the dust returneth to the earth, just as it was, and the spirit returns to
the true God who gave it.
So that's what they say.
Well, you know, your body goes to the earth because you're created of dust and that your
spirit goes to God.
And it does say that in Ecclesiastes 12, it says this, then shall the dust return the
earth as it was, and the spirit shall return the God who gave it.
But when you read that in context, I mean, that's a very poetic passage.
That's a very, Solomon is saying a lot of things throughout the Ecclesiastes.
That's not, that's not a clear scripture of someone saying, you know, that, you know,
that your spirit's an impersonal force, that there is no hell.
I mean, somehow you go from that to saying there is no hell.
They'll say things like, since the dead have no conscience, that's really what they're
driving at.
This is where they're, you know, Ecclesiastes and Psalms, they're laying that foundation
saying, and since the dead have no conscience, existence, right, because your spirit goes
to God and the dust goes to the earth, you have no conscious existence after death.
Hell cannot be a fiery place of torment because in order to experience torment, you have to
be conscious of the fact, right?
And then you go on and say, so Jesus was in hell.
They say, well, Jesus, the Bible teaches that.
It says that Jesus, you know, his soul was not left in hell and that he suffered so he
wanted to see corruption.
He said, well, his soul was in hell, you know, so my question would be, will the Jesus stop
existing?
Is that what they're saying here?
You know, if going to hell is you not existing, not having a conscience, did his spirit return
to God?
So they use a lot of symbolism.
They're using a lot of passages where they're just trying to lay this foundation and saying,
well, that, you know, there can't be a hell because people aren't conscious of anything
after they die.
But the Bible is very clear that people are conscious after they die.
And they go to, let me read this to you.
It says, could it be that the fire of hell is symbolic of all-consuming or thorough destruction?
Separating fire from Hades or hell as the scripture says, death and Hades were cast
in the lake of fire.
The lake mentioned here is symbolic.
So now being symbolic is incorrect.
Before when we were in Psalms and Ecclesiastes, it's okay to use symbolic passages.
It's always okay to use poetic passages.
It's okay to use these, you know, these books of wisdom and Psalms and Psalms and poetry.
But now that we're in like the New Testament where it says death and hell were cast into
a literal lake of fire.
Oh, symbolic.
That's convenient.
Since death and hell, and hell and Hades that are thrown into it cannot literally be burned.
They're going to find out contrary people that believe this.
They don't believe that Jesus is God.
This is where it gets scary because now they're willing to damn people to hell.
Let's go and turn over to Mark chapter 9.
You know, this is a passage I read the other night, and this is a very powerful reminder
about the reality of hell that Jesus preached.
He said in Mark chapter 9, Mark chapter 9 and verse 43.
He said, if thy right hand, and if thy hand offend thee, cut it off, for it is better
day for any life made than having two hands to go into hell, into the fire that shall
never be quenched.
Oh, that's figurative apparently.
Where the worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.
I mean, what is the figurative there?
What could that possibly mean other than what it says?
And if thy foot offend thee, cut it off, for it is better day to enter in a life halt,
than having two feet to cast the hellfire into the fire that shall never be quenched.
I mean, why should, he's saying, oh yeah, so they believe that Jesus is saying you should
maim yourself because, you know, when you die, you don't have a consciousness.
It would be better for you to maim yourself than to go into, you know, to die and not
have any consciousness.
Does that make any sense?
He's saying you should cut, you should be willing to do this.
You know, he's not saying do this, but he's saying, you know, hell is this bad.
That it would be better for you to pull out your eyes, to cut off your hands, to cut off
your feet, than to go into fire that shall never be quenched.
And where the worm dieth not.
And he goes on and on there, and he says it over and over again.
Verse 48, where the worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.
It's a literal place.
And they're trying to say, well, it's all figurative, that it's not a real place.
And then they go on and they say this crazy stuff.
They say, on the other hand, those in God's memory who are in hell, the common grave of
mankind, have a marvelous future.
So when you go to hell, you have a marvelous future.
That's what the article said.
I'm not going to make it crazy.
In the new world of God's making, resurrected humans who comply with his righteous laws
will never need to die again.
Jehovah will wipe away out every tear from their eyes, and death will be no more.
Neither will mourning or outcry nor pain be any more.
In fact, the former things will be passed away.
What a blessing is in store for those in hell.
That's what they say in the article, that hell is actually a blessing.
Did you know that?
If you want a cold hell, where it's not so bad, you just go to the ecumenical church.
But if you want a blessing hell, where hell is a great place to go, why don't you go to
the kingdom hall?
But if you want the hell to be preached for what it is, what the Bible says it is, a place
of fire and torment, a place that people should avoid at all costs, a place that we
should go out and try to rescue others from, then you're in the right church.
Because here we believe that hell is a literal place that people go to.
Now you say, how does anyone ever get, you know, and I know that last part was kind of
a little choppy there, but let's just talk very briefly about the Jehovah's Witnesses
history a little bit.
It says, you know, what they are is basically their cult, you know, going back to history.
Jehovah's Witnesses originated as a branch of the Bible student movement, which developed
the United States in the 1870s among followers of Christian restorationist minister Charles
Taze Russell.
And it goes on and says here that they had several splits.
Their group goes on and says Bible student missionaries were sent to England in 1881.
So this is a recent cult.
This isn't something that goes way back.
I mean, it's 1800s.
That's not that far back in recent history.
And the first overseas branch was opened in London in 1900.
The group took on the name International Bible Students Association.
And by 1914, it was also active in Canada, Germany, Australia, and other countries.
Countries that they got ran out of and were banned from during World War II because they
believe in nonviolence.
They don't believe in participating in any of that, enlisting in the army.
The movement split into several Bible organizations after Russell's death in 1960, with one led
by Russell's successor, Joseph Judge Rutherford, retaining control of both his magazine, The
Watchtower, and his legal publishing corporation.
So not only that, but they are founded upon the false teachings of a proven false prophet.
And it goes on and talks about the false predictions that were made in 1874 about
Christ's return and that it never happened.
False predictions even took place as recently as the 70s.
I mean, we heard about the great disappointment, is what they called it, that Jesus didn't
come.
And then they say, well, he did come, but nobody saw him.
It was the secret coming, which the Bible says, if they say he's in the secret chambers,
believe it or not, right?
That's what Christ said.
Well, did anyone know about they had false predictions even as recently as the 70s?
I'll read this real quick.
It says, from 1966, witness publications heightened anticipation of Christ's 1,000-year
millennial reign beginning in late 1975.
Repeating the 1925 cycle of excitement, anticipation, and then disappointment, witness publications
and convention talks intensified focus on 1975 as the appropriate time for God to act,
with statements that the immediate future is certain to be filled with climatic events.
Within a few years, at most, the final parts of the Bible prophecy relative to these last
days will undergo fulfillment.
The September 15, 1971 issue of the Watchtower warned that all worldly careers are soon to
come to an end, an advised use that they should not get interested in higher education for
a future that will never eventuate.
So they're dissuading young people from going to getting an education.
Don't worry about your career.
This is how serious they were back in the 70s.
A chart in 1971 awake indicated the thrilling hope of a grand Sabbath of rest and relief
in the mid-1970s at the close of the 6,000-year of human history.
Some witnesses sold businesses and homes, gave up jobs, deferred medical procedures,
and set aside plans to start a family.
These are major life events that they are so dedicated, they're just putting on hold
because of what the Jehovah Witnesses are teaching them.
And they did all that in anticipation of Armageddon's arrival.
The May 1974 issue of the Watchtower Society's newsletter, Our Kingdom Ministry, commended
witnesses who had commended them for doing this, who sold homes and property to devote
themselves to preaching in the short time remaining.
Watchtower literature did not state dogmatically that 1975 would definitely mark the end, and
the build-up was tempered with caution that there was no certainty that Armageddon would
arrive in 1975.
So that's not certain, but go ahead, you know, good job selling and quitting your careers
and not having a family.
It's not certain, but we commend you for doing that.
But magazines warn that time is running out rapidly and that only a few years at most
remain before Armageddon.
Circuit assemblies in 1970 held a public talk entitled, Who Will Conquer the World in 1970s?
And it goes on, just talks about how their numbers went up and people were getting baptized.
And of course, 1975, 1976, the Watchtower advised those who had been disappointed by
the failure of the predictions for 1975.
So 1975 comes and goes, and the world just keeps on turning.
And they say, and so in 1976, they adjust their viewpoint because their understanding
had been based on wrong premises, they say.
Isn't that convenient?
Sorry about you not pursuing a career for those two years, putting on your family, or
that medical procedure that you did.
No, sorry you've been suffering with that ailment for all those years.
But four years later, after several proposals by governing body members to apologize to
witnesses were voted down, they weren't even willing to apologize.
The Watchtower Society admitted its responsibility in building up a hope regarding 1975.
So at least the publication was like, yeah, we at least accept the blame, but we're not
sorry about it.
Now Jesus, he specifically warned about these types of people.
He made false predictions.
He said, if any man shall say unto you, lo, here is Christ, or there, believe it not.
For there shall arise false Christs and false prophets, and shall show signs and wonders,
insomuch that it were possible they should deceive the very elect.
Behold, I have told you before, wherefore if they shall say unto you, behold, these
in the desert go not forth.
Behold, these in the secret chambers, believe it not.
For as lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even in the west, so also shall the
coming of the Son of Man be.
And make no mistake about it, these guys are false prophets, and they are preaching a false
Christ.
A Christ who is not God, a Christ who did not die on a cross, but died on a stake, a
Christ who is actually the archangel, Michael.
These guys, they do not believe in the Christ of the Bible, of the King James Bible.
They don't believe in it.
It's a different Jesus.
And you know, they're making false predictions.
That's what they do.
Always coming.
And it's affecting people's lives.
You know, it's easy to get every kind of mock, these stupid articles, and pick them
apart a little bit, and they're poor reasoning, but they're affecting real people.
Those people back in the 70s were affected, you know.
And this is kind of another thing that puts people off to Christianity, these nuts, and
these crazies that come under the umbrella of so-called Christianity, and then they do
crazy things like this, and people want nothing to do with religion as a result.
And that's why God puts such a strong punishment on false prophets.
I mean, it's serious.
I'll read to you in Deuteronomy chapter 18.
But the prophet, which shall presume to speak a word in my name, which I have not commanded
him to speak, or that shall speak in the name of other gods, even that prophet shall die.
Jehovah Witnesses, guilty on both counts.
They have presumed to speak a word in his name, which he has not commanded him to speak.
They're saying, well, they're speaking lies about him, and they're speaking in the name
of another god, a god who is an active force.
When a prophet speaketh in the name of the Lord, did that thing follow not, nor come
to pass?
You know, the great disappointment and disappointment.
What's 1975 didn't come to pass?
That is the thing which the Lord hath not spoken.
That prophet hath spoken it presumptuously.
Thou shalt not be afraid of him.
So, you know, I'm kind of a longer servant this morning.
I do want to touch on a few important things about Jehovah Witnesses, and hopefully we
got enough out of there to at least make the conclusion that the Jehovah Witnesses are
a false cult, that they teach another Jesus, and that we should love the people that are
involved in it, that are caught up in it, and try to win them back, and help them to
see that the errors, and maybe, you know, something that was taught this morning will
be something that you could put in your arsenal, you know, in your Bible, in your notes, whatever,
that if you ever run across these people, you can, you know, talk to them.
You know, sometimes they're so hardened and they're so involved, they're so entrenched,
that it's very difficult to pull them back out, unfortunately.
But, you know, maybe one day it'll be a blessing to somebody that we might be able to rescue
out of that cult.
So let's go ahead and break.