Polemics, Jehovah Witnesses

in the Roman Catholics. And then you have in here the break off by Luther. And then shortly after that, the break off from the Calvinists. And then after that, less than a century after Luther's declaration, you got the Baptists. In the 1800s then, you got the Adventists in the middle of that. And then a couple decades or a few decades after the Adventists break off from the Baptists, then you got the Jehovah's Witnesses breaking off from them.

So the whole thing is just really broken up. Is that clear? Okay. The interesting thing is, once you get this declaration to break off from Rome, there's this cry, sola scriptura, but not really. Because what happens is people will claim scripture as authority, but there's always, as we mentioned, something else.

There's a, we are the special group, we have the only way of interpreting the Bible, we have the authority to tell you what the Bible means, or we've got some supplement to the Bible. Always something, isn't there? And by each one of these progressive introductions of, you know, we've got our special group, we've got our special person, we've got this special set of books that adds to the Bible. We've got this special way of interpreting the Bible that only we know and you have to come to us or else you're lost. That same pattern just gets carried over.

And so the Seventh-day Adventists broke off in 1844 and you end up having several different groups break off from them. You've got the Seventh-day Adventists, one group, 11 million plus as I understand is the latest number. You also have the Seventh-day Baptists. You ever hear of them? Seventh-day Baptists. They also, you know, somewhat similar, similar time of break-off, but the idea, they're a so-called Baptist group, but you got to do the Sabbath. Okay?

Very legalistic. They will put a great deal of their effort into differentiating themselves from the Seventh-day Adventists, but the reality is it's just another one of the same break-off groups. The Jehovah's Witnesses is another break-off group, and the Branch Davidians, you know, the ones that were down in Waco, that had big conflagration there some years back during the Clinton administration, that was another Seventh-day Adventist break-off group. So this is an offshoot of an offshoot of an offshoot of an offshoot of an offshoot, etc. In prior handouts, we've got, that's a full page printout, I think, in one of your prior handouts. Now, so here's the Jehovah's Witnesses.

It's funny, I put down the figure here, 6.6 million members. I've seen other figures. I think it's one of those things, it's kind of like if you asked, you know, how many people come to Holly Hills? Well, it depends, you know. It may be hard for them to put a number on it because I've seen some numbers a little bit higher than that, but that's at least a conservative figure.

Now, I actually put together a whole chart with all the information that's on this chart here. And then I came upon this chart and I said, that's even better. So that's what you got is one that was an improvement over the one that I'd put together manually.

Here's the thing to keep in mind about Jehovah's Witnesses. It's like the Colorado weather. If you don't like what they're teaching, just wait a little bit. Okay? And because it changes constantly. It has, in fact, caused a number of Jehovah's Witnesses at intervals. Because you notice over time, see how all the numbers and everything change, the dates? Here's the time, you know, when this is going to happen. That keeps changing.

Every time there's a huge disappointment, they've had as many as three-quarters of the Jehovah's Witnesses leave at one time. In 1925, for example, is when they lost three-quarters of their membership. Because they said, 1925, that's when the Lord's coming back and He's going to punish all these evil people that meet in Bible churches. And so that didn't happen, so three-quarters of their members left.

Well, that's happened a few different times. 1975 was the last great disappointment. And they learned a lesson from that, almost, and that is to quit setting dates. Sort of. Let's step our way... What's that? Yeah, basically they keep learning their lessons the hard way and as a consequence, they end up more and more kind of shying away from setting a date. What they will typically do is they will set a date and then when nothing happens, then they'll end up setting another date and take that initial date that was supposed to have a visible consequence and change it to an invisible consequence.

Example, 1844 is when the Seventh-day Adventists said on October 22nd, that's when the Lord's coming back. And when it didn't happen, they had the great disappointment, and a lot of people left the movement. So then what they did is they said, oh, that's not when the Lord's coming back, that's when the Lord goes into the heavenly temple to judge you. So now, instead of making it visible, now they made it invisible, but the date's still valid. And that's been the pattern of the Seventh-day Adventists, and more particularly, Jehovah's Witnesses since then. Set a date when it doesn't work out, keep the date, but make it mean something that's not verifiable. That's the pattern. Okay? You happy so far? You impressed? Yeah, oh yeah. Okay.

So, What will happen, for example, the last days began in 1799. That was carried on until the mid 1930s and they said not last days began in 1914. When did the last days begin? Pardon? Yeah, the second coming has not occurred, right? The tribulation has not started. But what did Paul write? He wrote about these last days.

So, in other words, we're already in them from a biblical standpoint, so setting a date isn't the key thing. When the second coming gets initiated, we'll actually be at the time of the tribulation and we won't be here. We're not going to care what day it is, we won't be around, right? So they're trying to set a date, it just doesn't make any biblical sense at all.

Yeah, Paul begins using this term, these last days, speaking of the time since Christ came in the first coming. Now we're into the last days, which will be finalized in the second coming. So anyway, now they have Christ's return in 1874. Well, wait a minute, it didn't happen, right? So Christ's return was, that's not visible. He returned, but it wasn't visible. And say, no, that's not right. So they changed that. Now it's 1914 because nothing happened there. And so that didn't work. No, it's 1918, 1919. We got to change that.

So what would happen is they would continue to change the dates, and change the dates, and change the dates, and the one I recall quite explicitly is that 1975 one. Nancy and I had gotten married a couple years before, and so we got married about the time they were really starting to announce this. 1975 is it. That's the time. It's really going to happen. Nothing happened. I mean, heaven's sake, Randy wasn't even born yet. So certainly nothing happened.

Let's look at the top of page two. Here's some Watchtower Magazine covers and article title pages. I apologize for the difficulty of reading that first one particularly because it's kind of cool, but it's a little fuzzy. What does it say at the bottom on the first Watchtower cover there?

Now, does that sound like a good idea to you? Does that sound like a biblical idea to you? Where do we put our faith? Yeah. By which name must you be saved? Yeah. In the name of Jesus. No other name, right? But this is an organization. Put your faith in the organization. How about that? That's good.

The next one, here's this 1914 date, and this particular printout here was speaking, and this is where they've shifted. They said 1914 initially, that's the date when the Lord's coming back. But then when it came and passed and nothing happened, and they said, ah, the generation of 1914 That generation won't pass away until the Lord comes. And then they said that that's 40 years from 1914 to 40 years after that, so that would make it 1954.

I was about two years old. That would be it. The only problem is that it didn't happen yet. And so they said, not 40 isn't the right number. It's 80. And so they went on to that. Anyway, it's all come and gone. Pardon? It's Bertha's fault. Yeah, you're hanging around too long, see? Anyway, you're making it hard on them, Bertha. Yeah, anyway.

So that's the thing. And then 1975, you know, why are you looking forward to 1975? Why? Because that's when the Lord's coming back and he's going to judge all these awful Bible churches. And so anyway, that's a kind of a sampling of kind of where they keep setting the dates and giving you different messages. Now, we have below that, what's not all that different? And this is where we kind of characterize a typical approach of a lot of these different unbiblical groups.

One, salvation is gained and sustained by keeping the laws adopted by whom? The organization. Now, so what it is, is this organization says, we've got the right laws. And the other organization says, no, we've got the right laws. And this other one says, no, we've got the right laws. So we go to the Seventh-day Adventists and they just say, keep eating your veggie burgers.

You go to the Jehovah's Witnesses. No, no, no, no, no, no. You've got to stop the blood transfusions. No more of the blood transfusion stuff. And they said, no, no, that's not right. The Christian scientists folks, my great aunt, by the way, was a Christian science practitioner who died of a goiter she didn't have.

Anyway, we'll talk about that later. So you go to each of the groups and they've each got their, oh, you've got to think this way, you've got to hold to our laws. Okay. So each group comes up with their own laws by which you're saved. Second one, loss of salvation has the eternal consequence of annihilation or diminished eternal standing. Annihilation would be typical of the Seventh-day Adventists and Jehovah's Witnesses. Okay. The diminished eternal standing would be more like in the Mormons. where they're reluctant to put their blessing on annihilation, but it won't be as good for you. So you get that. The third one, interpretation of elements of prophecy is by the allegory adopted by the organization. The organization determines what the allegory means. If you go to...

Well, let's take even, if you go to a lot of the Reformed churches, by that's the Calvinistic churches, Presbyterian churches, they will tell you that the 144,000 that is listed, they're listed by Jewish tribe, 12,000 from each of those tribes in Revelation chapter 7, that that 144,000 is representative of the Christian denominations. That's what they'll teach in the reformed churches, Calvinistic, Presbyterian.

Yes, Marilyn. Yeah. The Jewish people today, at least the ones I've known, don't know what tribe they're in. That is correct. Some of them have a clue. For example, the last name Cohen means priest or Levi or Levitt. So those are some clues. But in general, you're correct. They don't know what tribe they're in.

That's right what happened is is the genealogical records were kept in the temple and Was available in The temple for the Jews to look up their record. That's why the book of Hebrews could could say it is evident Here's Jesus descended from David and and they can make the present tense statement. It's evident You can go check it out if you don't believe it Here's the genealogical record. But it was destroyed in 70 AD, so not available. So the only one who knows for certain who is of which tribe is the Lord Himself. So this will be, I think, something interesting for them to discover.

Now, in looking at that passage, the Jehovah's Witnesses look at the first 144,000 Jehovah's Witnesses as being that group. Okay? So they'll allegorize it and say the first 144,000 Jehovah's Witnesses will be of that group. Revelation chapter 7 says that those Jehovah's Witnesses, excuse me, those whom the Jehovah's Witnesses look at being saved, the 144,000, are to remain on the earth during the tribulation period, right? And they're Jews. Then, what do the Jehovah's Witnesses say? They say that the 144,000 are the only ones that get to go to heaven.

So they pick the exact opposite. Then they say the ones who get saved after that, and if you look at the last part of Revelation chapter 7, that's the great crowd or great multitude, that group is in heaven. But the Jehovah's Witnesses say, no, that group stays on the earth and doesn't get to go to heaven, they stay on the new earth.

So it's the exact opposite of what the passage says. But they're taking an allegory so they can determine whatever they want. So very strange. That's a part of the character of allegory. You control the interpretation if you're the group in control. And the fourth one, the organization has some exclusive role in interpreting scripture, which is characteristic of the Seventh-day Adventists and particularly of the Jehovah's Witnesses, supplementing scripture and or dispensing rituals that keeps the organization in some degree of control. That's characteristic of these various groups.

So looking at the who's in control question, who's in charge? Founded by Nelson Barber, who eventually Charles Taze Russell, the co-founder, broke away from, They were both formerly of Seventh Adventists. The Jehovah's Witness organization, the Watchtower Society, has a leadership that has been passed along to five men as president so far and is now proceeding soon to the sixth. Increasingly, the governing body of the Jehovah's Witnesses, that's a sort of a board, has the major control over what the magazines say.

Randy got some fresh samples for us. Feel free to come take a look. You see him holding this up. I remember when I was in Carson City, they'd stand in front of the casinos with this stuff. I don't know what's special about that, but that's where they would stand frequently. So the governing board determines what's in these things. These are inspired. You know you're getting the truth when it comes out of these, that's what they'd say.

Yes, question Mark? Where is their headquartered? They're headquartered in Brooklyn. And they have huge printing presses, 100,000 books a day are coming out of the printing press, plus the Awaken Watchtower magazine. OK, here's a quote out of Watchtower, 1973. Nancy and I were engaged, so this is near and dear to my heart.

Jehovah's Witness organization alone, Jehovah's organization alone, rather, in all the earth is directed by God's Holy Spirit or force, Zechariah 4.6. Only this organization functions for Jehovah's purpose and to his praise. To it alone, God's sacred word, the Bible, is not a sealed book. How about that? Only this organization understands it. You can't. And by the way, I've sat down and taken a Bible out, and I said, well, why don't you just study God's Word? Oh, you can't understand that. Yeah, Randy? Yeah, this one here? Yeah, oh yeah. Yeah, I quoted from this particular one because I had it on record. Randy's telling me that same quote in these fresh copies, so they're still standing by this.

How very much true Christians appreciate associating with the only organization on earth, how about that, that understands the deep things of God, direction by God's spirit, notice the lower case, enables Jehovah's servants to have divine light in a world of spiritual darkness. How do you like it so far? What's all the snickering? Huh? What's that? That's right, that's right.

The sole organization, and let me tell you, I've never been to Brooklyn, so I'm out of luck. Watchtower, November 15th, 1981. Come to Jehovah's organization for salvation. Wow. How about that? It's not just the truth. To get saved, you got to come to the organization. If you don't come to the organization, you are in trouble. All right. So the next thing we have titled on top of page three, just tweak it a bit.

New World Translation. You can easily pick up a copy. I got my copy at Goodwill, I think. In 1950, They first released the New Testament and then they progressively released sections of the Old Testament so that by 1961 they came up with this new version. We could spend way too much time studying all the details about this special translation that they had.

But suffice it to say, no reputable Greek scholar stands behind it. And they've made a few claims that, oh, this guy does or that guy does. And interesting, each time that they have, the person who they say, you know, stands behind it makes a public proclamation. No, I don't. So they haven't been able to get any backing for that.

Of the committee who was responsible, there were five people, responsible for bringing together this New World Translation, only one of them had any training in Greek and Hebrew. And he dropped out. during his training. That's what you get. So what they're doing is changing it based on no knowledge of Hebrew and Greek, or in the case of one person, limited knowledge because he dropped out of school. Yes, and the truth is it's just absolutely nuts. One fellow who was a world-class expert on Hebrew and Greek said, this is how not to do a translation. Randy? Yes.

What puzzles me is that while they've tried at various points to weed out things that contradict their doctrine, they haven't done a very good job. That's what puzzles me. You look at things where they should have weeded or could have weeded something out and they haven't.

It's hard to keep up with something that changes. You look at that first page and you see how things keep changing and shifting around. When you're a date setter and the date comes and goes, that's just downright disappointing. Here you put it in print. to look at that and say, wait a minute, you guys said it was 1975, nothing happened other than the usual news.

What gives? Well, except that they're inspired, see? That's the problem. It's their own printing press. And when you print out a number of predictions along that line, it becomes even more difficult. All right, so let's take a look at what are some of the things that they teach, because that's really the bottom line. If you're talking with somebody who's a Jehovah's Witness, I wouldn't recommend that you sit there and try to nitpick the New World Translation. You don't need to. Let's take a look here.

Nearly identical to the 4th century Aryan heresy, there was a fellow named Arius. The JWs teach that only God the Father is God, whose name is Jehovah. And by the way, that word Jehovah is actually a transliteration error. It was something that the Jews never called God Jehovah. Yahweh, but not Jehovah.

Okay, anyway. Jesus Christ is Jehovah's first created being. God says, I'll create Jesus first. That's the way they would say it. So, first created being. And the Holy Spirit, notice we saw the word spirit before, in lowercase, the Holy Spirit is an impersonal, invisible, active force from Jehovah. So Jehovah is God, Jesus is the first created being, Holy Spirit is an impersonal, active force. And, get this, JWs teach that before Jesus Christ came to the earth, he was Michael the Archangel. So you've got Michael the Archangel, who was the first created being changed into Jesus Christ. That's what you got. Questions?

Yes. Oh, wonderful. Okay. Yes. They were talking about this, and I told them, I said, a lot of things that your Bible doesn't have is the reference that you mentioned so far of the Holy Spirit as a person. Yes. And he's a literal part of God. Right. And well, I said, hey, this year, we're going to do this. You know, we want the world to have an apprentice. You don't know how to explain that to me. Yeah. And they got through to me, and I came back and jumped in their car and went by the house. Yeah, that's another interesting phenomenon. Usually, you brought up a good point, this apprentice idea.

Typically what they will have, not always, but typically what you'll have is a junior and a senior. And what will often happen is you'll get the junior member, the apprentice, you can tell they're puzzled. They're trying to think this one through. And then there's a lot of really fast talking that goes on on the part of the senior member. I've seen this. And they kind of do this jockeying and getting in front and talking extra fast. Anyway, we'll get into this. But good point.

The Bible teaches that God is three personal beings, one essence, okay? Another point is Jesus says in seven statements, and this actually occurs more than seven times because sometimes it's repeated, but I am the bread of life. That's egoimi in the Greek, which is the same phrase that is used, it's a unique Greek phrase, two-word phrase, used where Moses is talking to God, and Moses says, who shall I say has sent me? And God's response in the Greek Old Testament is, ego eimi, I am. That's what Jesus says here with each of these capital I, capital A, capital M statements that are in that chart on the right. Jesus says, Ego eimi, I am, which is a claim to deity, the bread of life.

I am a claim to deity, the light of the world. I am the gate, etc. Before Abraham was, Ego eimi, I am. It's a claim to deity. As a matter of fact, if you doubt that that's the way it was understood, what was the Jews response when he said, before Abraham was born, I am? You're making yourself out to be God, right? They knew exactly what he was saying.

So there's no reason to translate it otherwise or understand it differently. How about this for the Holy Spirit? Ephesians 4.30, and we could bring up others. Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God.

When's the last time you saw a force get grieved? Ever see a force get grieved? We studied forces in engineering for, I mean, all the whole engineering school. Force, force, force. Forces left and right. Never once did we talk about how any of those forces got grieved. Okay? Just didn't happen. Never did. Not even in Star Wars. Nope. Sorry.

Now the next one, we have an italics there. Salvation in the JW teaching requires being baptized as a Jehovah's Witness followed by continuing door-to-door work. That's why they show up at your door. Guess what happens if they don't do the door-to-door work? Not saved. It doesn't matter how wet you got. that you've lost it.

Salvation for the first 144,000 JWs filled the capacity of those who would actually go to heaven, these being the anointed ones. The remaining JWs to be saved beyond the 144,000 will be on the earth. Those are the other sheep, the Jonadab class or the great crowd class.

It's too late for them to be among the anointed ones in heaven. Can't happen. They're not going to heaven. The souls of those who are not among the ones saved to heaven or earth will be annihilated. They will cease to exist. JWs cannot have assurance of eternal salvation. Why can't you have assurance of eternal salvation?

Yes, right. You never know. And you might go door to door and door to door and door to door and blow it at the end. So you really can't be sure. Yes, Marilyn. Pardon? The annihilation, right. No, their concept of hell is that's just where you get terminated. So that's it.

So really interesting is you have this salvation by works and you really got to keep working and working and working, going door to door to keep your salvation current. But if you blow it, you just get annihilated just like the people that didn't. who didn't go door-to-door and didn't get baptized as Jehovah's Witnesses, it's just like you didn't do any good at all. My thought on this is, what's the big deal? If I get annihilated, why am I going to regret that?

I won't be around to suffer anything, so why even bother with this stuff? It makes no eternal real difference because I can just do whatever I do here, and if I'm happy with that, then I'm done. That's all. That's all that matters. And I don't really care. When I'm annihilated, I'm not going to be around to regret it. So it really isn't much of a threat. Let's take a look at Ephesians 2, 8 and 9.

We looked at this last week, but it's just as effective as it was then. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves. It is a gift of God, not a result of works that no one may boast. And for by grace you have been saved, and that is a perfect tense, completed past action, done deal. And that's repeating it from the earlier time in that very same chapter where it said it before. By grace you are saved.

Done deal, completed saved, with completed past action implying permanence. Not saved if you keep going door to door. Not saved if you keep going to the meetings. but just flat-out saved. Saved by what? By faith. Yeah, that's it. Nothing. And not only that, it's not of works. What's going door-to-door? Works.

I don't know why you can't see that, but anyway, it's clear as can be right there. You are saved by faith. It is not because Vern's a really good guy, or it's not because Vern's a really bad guy, but he's trying really hard to be a good guy. Saved by faith, by grace, period. And it's permanent. Irreversible. Can't lose it. Absolutely by grace. Entirely. A gift. That's really good news. And that, by the way, is what I've found to be most effective.

It doesn't matter whether they're an apprentice or they've been there a while. I found they have no answer to that. Typically they'll come to the door and I'll just stop their spiel and I'll say, wait a minute, do you know absolute certain that you're saved and going to heaven? And they've got to tell me no, because first of all, they know they're not the 144,000. So they're going to, they think they're going to spend at best eternity on earth. So I asked them, I said, do you know that you're going to go to heaven and that you're going to be saved? Absolutely. Do you know that?

And they both tell me no. And I just look at them with the saddest look I can conjure up, and I say, I'm terribly sorry. I feel awful for you. That's terribly, terribly disappointing and discouraging. I don't know how you can stand it. And you know, I've never had them respond to that. That usually just blows them away. And not even the senior person of the group has ever come up with a reaction or a response. They absolutely are blown away because they have no response to it at all.

They can't say, oh, but I'm going to be permanently saved or I'm trying really hard. No. They can't tell me that they know they're going to be saved and go to heaven. That's right. That's what they'll tell you. Well, the thing is, first of all, they're looking at the 144,000 as the only ones that go to heaven, but even the 144,000 didn't have assurance. Right? They didn't have assurance. They still had to work for it. So, for me to say, one, you've got assurance. Secondly, you go to heaven and you know it right now.

They just have no way to even begin to say anything like that. And that's why I look at them and it's just as sad a face as I can come up with and just tell them how terribly disappointed I am and how awful I feel for them. And I just all sit there and tell them for a minute, that's just terrible. I don't know how you can stand it. How horribly discouraging. You could work for decades going door to door and blow it at the last moment. Wouldn't that be awful? How terribly disappointing. Aren't you afraid? They have no certainty.

And I go to this verse we just looked at right here. And it says, how am I saved? It says nothing about door to door. By faith. It's entirely by grace, not of works. I'm saved permanently. Everything I need is right here. And not only that, I don't have to worry about, am I going to heaven? I'm already seated there. Of course, that blows their circuits right there. Yeah, I'm already seated there. It's a done deal. Man, I couldn't get any better. So what do I have to worry about? And why do you have any good news for me? You know?

Okay. Yeah. Yes, it is. Yeah, they tweak it a bit. But even with that, it's not wiped out enough to erase it. And you go there and you tell them, look, that's in the perfect tense. That means it's a completed past action, ongoing results in the future. It's permanent. That's it. I'm saved. I believe, by faith, no works. I'm done. I'm there. I'm seated in the heavenlies. And I don't even have to wait.

All right, let's take a look at the top of page four here. Yeah, initially what happened is that they said, well, this was after a few little false starts, 1914, that's the next date that they set. Then, of course, what happened is instead of Christ coming, you had World War I, right? So it ended up looking like, gee, some big conflagration is going to happen, but that wasn't the Lord's coming.

And so instead of making it a visible thing, that's when they said it's an invisible thing, and that's when the clock started ticking for this 144,000. And so it's the 144,000, because that's when they started teaching that doctrine. The 144,000 then would be the ones who would be saved initially, and the ones after that 144,000 would be the ones who would remain on earth for eternity. Basically, this 1914 generation is the cutoff. No, what they said is, they didn't teach it before, but they said the 1914 generation is, that's the ones who will, of the Jehovah's Witnesses, that will be of the 144,000.

But it's the ones after that, sorry, you're going to be on earth at best. Yeah. Yeah. Randy? Yeah, yeah, the initial early group would qualify as 144,000. Interestingly, even the higher-ups and the president of the Jehovah's Witness organization can't claim to be part of the 144,000. So they're not even of this anointed group, this 144,000 that's going to go straight to heaven.

From 1891 through 1931, the JWs included a cross and a crown in the front of their literature as standard. And there's the emblem that you have also printed out. And this is actually an early Jehovah's Witness tombstone. Notice they use the pyramid and they have the cross and the crown on it. And then their watchtower, you can barely make out on the lettering there. So this was an early Jehovah's Witness tombstone that included the cross and the crown. But since 1931, I think it was October 15th, 1931, they made the change and they dropped the cross and the crown. And then they said, oh, that's bad. First it was their emblem and now then it's bad. That's really bad. And so here's how they have it.

And what I did is I scanned in from my New World Translation, 1970 version, verse 17. here of 1 Corinthians 1. For Christ dispatched me, not to go baptizing, but to go declaring the good news, not with wisdom of speech, that the torture stake of Christ should not be made useless. And not the cross, but the torture stake. For the speech about the torture stake, not crucifixion or the cross, is foolishness to those who are perishing. Verse 22. For both the Jews ask for signs and the Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ impaled. So what they would say is Christ didn't die like this. He died like this. One nail going between both hands. That's the way they would say. Okay.

You know, they all of a sudden decided that the cross was a symbol of paganism, and they shouldn't have used it, and it's just awful. They look at it as a pagan symbol, and they all of a sudden decide to make that a dividing line between themselves and other groups. Yeah, they don't use the word cross. It's a torture stake. Every time you see cross in your Bible, you'll see torture stake in theirs, and crucified or crucifixion gets not that term but impaled. So that's the way they put it. So here's an example.

For I decided not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him impaled. Never may it, excuse me, may it occur that I should boast except in the torture stake of our Lord Jesus Christ. So this is a consistent change you'll see throughout the Jehovah's Witness translation. Now, Awake Magazine, April 8th, 1974. Gee, Nancy and I hadn't even been married for a year yet.

Christ crucified on a stake with one nail through his hands, like this. But problem is, Here's the scan of the New World Translation. Here's Thomas. Remember, Thomas says, I've got to see the, you know, nail prints. So here's right out of their own translation. Thomas, one of the twelve, was one who was called the twin, was not with them when Jesus came.

Consequently, the other disciples would say to him, We have seen the Lord, but he said to them, Unless I see in his hands the print of the nails, plural. So they didn't fix it. So their Awake magazine, which is of course inspired, says one nail, New World Translation, two. The nails and stick my finger in the print of his sides and stick my hand into his side, I will certainly not believe.

Now, in the JW's particular set of legalisms, they refuse participation in the Pledge of Allegiance or other honors of the U.S. flag, military service, voting, or observance of holidays and birthdays. They may also not receive blood transfusions, although they have come up with a list of exceptions of portions of blood that you can you know, have transfused or processed, like, you know, kidney dialysis machines, things like that. So they've come up with a list of exceptions, but it's just a basic blood transfusion you can't have. Romans 13, 7, Render to all what is due them, tax to whom taxes due, custom to whom custom, fear to whom fear, honor to whom honor. Is there a place for honoring the flag? Sure. We haven't been here.

But, of course, this would be pagan symbols and the Jehovah's Witness measure of things. How about Mark 7, 14 and the first half of 15? After He called the crowd to Him again, He began saying to them, and this is Jesus, of course, Listen to Me, all of you, and understand, there is nothing outside of the man which can defile him if it goes into him. Is a transfusion going to make you evil and ill? No. Not by spiritual means.

That's not going to be the problem. Now, you've got a supplement there that's three pages. One of the things we said earlier is if you don't like something in the Jehovah's Witness teaching, it's like the Colorado weather, just wait a little bit and it'll change. So here you have a series of quotes. 6,000 years of human history, Ended in when? 1873 is the first quote. 6,000 years of human history ended in 1972. Or 6,000 years of human history ended in 1975. Which one's right? Yeah.

So anyway, yeah, that's a rather strange one. The return of Christ, you see different dates. And basically what you see is, if you look through the record, it's changed and it's changed and it's changed and it's changed and it's changed. But here's the interesting thing.

These are in the published copies. If you go back to the bound copy, it's been fixed. Now, they'll have a published copy, but if you go back to the bound copy that they keep on, file it's been fixed. So you got to get a hold of published copy in order to be able to look at these and determine the error. What they'll do is they'll go back and change the bound copy to reflect the more recent statement. Pardon? They'll, they will, They will reprint it with the new material and change the bound copy so that the error is fixed.

But strangely enough, they haven't fixed it all in the New World Translation. Randy? This really brings to light a new serious problem with continual progressive revelation without very strict, clear boundaries for what qualifies as revelation and accuracy. Yeah, Randy's bringing up the point that continuing revelation is a problem. The idea that you've got either some supplemental revelation, or you've got some special person who knows how to interpret it, or some special group, and they have the right then to continue to change it.

This flies in the face of what Jude left the church with in his short book. I urge that you contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the faithful organization. No. It was once for all delivered to Ellen G. White. It was once for all delivered to Joseph Smith. No. It was once for all delivered to whom? The saints. Us.

We can go back to God's inspired word and count upon that and read it directly just like the Bereans did to check Paul when they said they were more noble for doing so, directly reading the scripture and saying what does God say in his word and leaving it at that.

And not having to rely upon some organization that continually does this dancing in the shadows to keep their story sort of straight. Why not rely on God and what he revealed and what's clearly laid out in scripture and stand on that. It doesn't change. It doesn't shift. and the date doesn't get moved around. How far better to rely on what God's revealed in His Word and through Jesus Christ. We can stand on that. It's obvious from this, you can't stand on this.

My grandpa was born 1890 and he remembered, when I talked to him, quite a few things when he was young. And he remembers the start of these guys and all their changing and shifting around. And he told me about 1925 when they had that date set out. He was a pastor then and he remembered these guys setting the date out. And when 1925 came and went and the Lord didn't come, they lost three quarters of their members. He remembers all that stuff and all the tap dancing that they did. And he said, you know, I just don't have any respect for them because they don't stand on God's word and they try to make God's word say what it doesn't say.

All right. Any questions? Further comments? Exasperations? Transfusions? Oh, yeah, Randy? One thing to note about the Awake magazine is it's an awful lot like a really watered down reader's digest. Ah, yes. Good point. Yeah. The Awake magazine out there talks about how to talk to your teenage daughter about menstruation, things like that that are supposed to be common interests. Move them in with the light, sugary, fake stuff, and then switch them in, then your daughter can get sucked in that way. Yeah, Randy makes a point. The Awake magazine is more of a kind of a broad spectrum, popular level, whereas the Watchtower is more doctrinal in its statements. So a distinction. They aren't identical. They have a particular direction they're headed. Yeah. Other questions? Thoughts? Yeah. Okay, yeah, that we'll get to later because initially we're looking at, in other words, our approach. If you look back at how we started, we said there's three circles.

We've got one group that includes all of Christendom, whether the gospel is false, whether it's just outright false teaching. The next circle in we defined as, okay, this is a gospel that's a saving gospel, but other error. And then we had this inner circle of, okay, it's a saving gospel and it's the truth direct from scripture.

The question that Jean asked was about preterism and groups like that, and this is a teaching that is popular among those who are typically of an amillennialist viewpoint, and we will get to that later. Preterism, just to succinctly put it, says that Jesus Christ came in judgment, so his second coming was fulfilled in 70 A.D. A full preterist would even say Christ is not coming back again. He already did in 70 A.D. in judgment against the Jews in Jerusalem in 70 A.D. That's the quick summary of the Petrus question. We'll get to that later.

Initially, we're working in this outside circle where the gospel is wrong and the message is wrong. The whole thing is false. Yeah. Yes. Yeah, I don't know that the word there is fingernails, so I think it's talking about plural nails, those iron things, you know. So, okay. Other questions? Thoughts? Okay, you can sign up for blood transfusions in the back. Let's pray.

Lord, as we look to these things, we are thankful for Your Word. As we see shifting teaching, doctrines changing, How wonderful to know that you have given truth upon which we can rely absolutely. And how tremendously wonderful to know that we are saved, done deal, by grace, through faith alone, that we are not just despairing and looking past the, oh, we're not of the 144,000 so we can't go to heaven, but instead we can claim the blessing They were already seated in the heavenlies because we put our trust in you. What a wonderful blessing that we have. All by grace, in Jesus name, Amen.